PS3 To Gain Support For 3-D Movies On Blu-Ray and YouTube 199
An anonymous reader writes with news that Sony is planning a firmware update for the PS3 to enable 3-D playback from Blu-ray movies and YouTube. The update is scheduled for September, and support for 3-D photos will come later. Sony's Kaz Hirai spoke recently about how the PS3 was designed with these kinds of upgrades in mind. "Given how fast technology turns over now, we knew going in that we had to pack a lot of horsepower into the PS3. Four years ago — when you look at the console's power and its retail price — a lot of people were critical with the fact that there was so much packed under the hood. Now we're especially pleased to be introducing things like Move and 3-D gaming because we're able to show tangibly why we released the PS3 with the power it has, and why it makes so much sense to future proof a console." Sony also updated its PS3 Terms of Service to warn against too much 3-D viewing.
force-retire the Father of the Playstation? (Score:3, Interesting)
>>>"Given how fast technology turns over now, we knew going in that we had to pack a lot of horsepower into the PS3."
So why did Sony force-retire the Father of the Playstation, Ken Kutaragi? It sounds like he was visionary enough to "pack a lot of horsepower" into the PS3 for future growth. But instead of rewarding him, you put him out to pasture. Seems rather cruel.
Re:ps3 (Score:2, Interesting)
This is not the usual ancient red-blue glasses, it's for 3D TV's with active shutter glasses. You cannot just feed the video stream normally.
Also, it's not just for 3D movies, it's for games too.
Re:More 3-D madness. (Score:2, Interesting)
Awesome! (Score:3, Interesting)
I shall rush out and buy a PS3 just as soon as I forgive Sony for the cd rootkit, and for removing linux option for PS3. This is assuming PS3 is still available, it may be the PS72 by then. And that is also assuming that Sony haven't pulled any more annoying stunts.
You forgot something (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Kutagari's Console Hardware Dominance (Score:3, Interesting)
>>>PS3(3rd fastest),
I don't know what alternative universe you live in, but this isn't even close to true. PS3 is the least popular of this generation's consoles (3rd place), and its number of units sold (about 30 million) is no better than what the Gamecube or Nintendo64 sold during their five year spans.
>>>Created the top selling console in history, the 145 million worldwide selling PS2
>>>Destroyed piece of crap HD-DVD format with Blu-Ray
AND he also created the top-selling PS1 (130 million). That's all true. They should have treated Ken better, rather than force him into retirement like an old unwanted dog. I hate when corporations treat human beings like "human resources".
.
>>>* Bitter Dreamcast fanboy
>>>* Bitter Xbox fanboy
>>>* Bitter HD-DVD fanboy
Fanboys are typically people too poor to own more than one console, hence they defend whichever one they've got. Since I own one of each (Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft), I am a "fanboy" of none of them. They're just pieces of plastic to me. In other words you guessed wrong.
Re:More 3-D madness. (Score:3, Interesting)
*shakes his cane*
sonny, my computer only has two speakers attached to it - I don't know why you youngsters insisted on this, this.. surrounding sound.. it was a stupid novelty when I was a kid, and it's no less stupid now! Now get offa my lawn!
Except... I can still watch the movie with either its included stereo track or the mix produced from the surround tracks. Why would I complain at all?
So it is with (stereoscopic) 3D as well - don't like it? Don't watch it - there's certainly zero -technical- reason you can't watch just the left view, just the right view, or a per-scene decision (not specced, afaik) of which view to take. And you can do this on that 20" CRT you picked up in 1992 that only takes composite input, rather than having to endure HD video and suffering the consequences.
In other words.. what is your complaint about, exactly? How is this push for 3D affecting you?
Part money (see other replies), part because they can, part because they should - this goes mostly for movies.. it's much easier to start with a 3D pipeline than trying to make a 2D movie 3D - and part because consumers want it; when people themselves are getting 3D TVs / displays, it follows naturally that they might want to take 3D pictures - thus SONY's new batch of P&S cameras doing the stereo thing as part of its panorama sweep mode and other manufacturers coming out with cameras with 2 lenses, for example. It may be one of those things where a product is made that people didn't even know they wanted, but such it is.
I disagree.. not with the stupid novelty part so much - that's a subjective thing; I've always rather enjoyed stereoscopic content and am a stereoscopic photography amateur myself (2 separate, synced, cameras for greater depth perception control) - but with the idea that it's no less stupid.
It was a lot more stupid in the 80's as there was no reasonable viewing medium outside of the theater - and very often that was a special theater as well. The only way to view at home was with red/green, red/blue, orange/cyan, etc. filter glasses. That was a heck of a lot more stupid than the full color experience you can have in the home now with shutter / polarized glasses or even lenticular / parallax barrier displays. The only thing that came close were the ViewMaster reels - and those were still images with relatively poor resolution, rather than animated content - let alone interactive content.
3D isn't a short-lived fad - it may be a niche feature (just like surround sound), and you may not be a part of the group who enjoys that particular niche feature, but to say it's no less stupid now than it was years ago would be ignoring the vast technical improvements and consumer-level availability that exists during this current push which were all but non-existent during any previous pushes. ;)
Whether it will be a longer-term fad if it turns out consumer uptake does end up on the low side - most likely due to the "I don't want to wear 'funny' glasses" effect - is another matter. Part of me hopes it will be - perhaps they'll re-focus their efforts on True HDR displays instead
Re:Another worthless firmware... (Score:3, Interesting)
Some of us never let them take OtherOS away. My unit still has the capability (but as yet unused).
Of course, that didn't stop Sony from making accepting updates mandatory. But as long as I leave it disconnected from the network (and don't load any disks that contain auto-apply updates), my unit's resale value is preserved. I only ever bought two games for it anyway and my display isn't 3D-capable.
I'm still looking to the hacking community to reverse-engineer these updates to enable their new features while keeping OtherOS intact.