Xbox Elite + Tivo S3

[A-1]

Best of both worlds.

For Downloads of HD movies The Xbox 360 elite is hands down the best.

The xbox works great with my PC and my Mac (using this app. http://www.nullriver.com/index/products/connect360)

I can connect my cell phone, my ipod, and my camera directly to the xbox and view on my flatscreen.

Hope fully the movie selections for download will improve for the Tivo and Amazon and at least offer HD downloads.

So if you are looking for something to round out or even complete your HD viewing think about the Xbox 360 elite. The HD movies look awesome, and the games are fun too.

[jraneses]

Best of both worlds.

For Downloads of HD movies The Xbox 360 elite is hands down the best.

The xbox works great with my PC and my Mac (using this app.

I can connect my cell phone, my ipod, and my camera directly to the xbox and view on my flatscreen.

Hope fully the movie selections for download will improve for the Tivo and Amazon and at least offer HD downloads.

So if you are looking for something to round out or even complete your HD viewing think about the Xbox 360 elite. The HD movies look awesome, and the games are fun too.

I concur about the quality of HD video on the XBox 360 elite, but the console is so noisy I ended up returning it. Despite that, now I'm really missing it. I've started looking at a PS3 as a possible replacement...the new firmware out has has opened up a lot of options for home media sharing as well. Sure the PS3 has a higher price point and is somewhat less flexible with supported media formats, but it does run quieter. :)

[AbMagFab]

Does the PS3 now stream from a PC, or do you need to still copy it to the PS3 or use a thumb drive?

[nhaigh]

Does the PS3 now stream from a PC, or do you need to still copy it to the PS3 or use a thumb drive?


Yes - the PS3 does stream from a PC. I share photo's, music and video by sharing in WMP 11 to the PS3.

They say the Sony Store will carry HD movies as well at some point.

I wonder why the S3 can't do this for a MRV solution rather than copysing files and getting into trouble with cablelabs?

[A-1]

There are way more games on the Xbox. But you get a blue ray player with the ps3 and with the movies and tv that sony owns you know they will soon be on there for download. For me i look at the big picture. The xbox 360 has better games more selection and a great content. The HD wAR is still being fought so who's to say if the blue ray will be the next beta or VHS.

The noise of the xbox is a little loud and it does get hot but i can only hear it when i don't have the sound on.

My fav feature is the music player with the visualizations on full screen. man that looks kick ass on my bravia.

[AbMagFab]

So the PS3 streams? Wow, that's what I've been waiting for.

Does it stream AVCHD files?

Is there any documentation or screen shots on-line?

[jraneses]

So the PS3 streams? Wow, that's what I've been waiting for.

Does it stream AVCHD files?

Is there any documentation or screen shots on-line?

What it will actually stream is pretty limited...you'll need to do transcoding for most popular formats.

[rodalpho]

Yep, unfortunately nobody will pony up and deliver what the market wants by natively supporting xvid in an AVI container. The transcoding apps are pretty dang mature these days though.

Personally, I just use a xbox1 with xbox media center.

[Surrealone]

I GOT BAD NEWS FOR YOU :confused: :confused:
MICROSOFT HAS FOOLED YOU LIKE ALL THE OTHERS. XBOX IS NOT HD UNLESS YOU ADD THE HD DRIVE. IT COMES WITH A DVD DRIVE AND THAT IS IT.... YES IT UPSCALES BUT TRUE HD IS BUILT IN TO THE PS3 :) :)

[greg_burns]

I GOT BAD NEWS FOR YOU :confused: :confused:
MICROSOFT HAS FOOLED YOU LIKE ALL THE OTHERS. XBOX IS NOT HD UNLESS YOU ADD THE HD DRIVE. IT COMES WITH A DVD DRIVE AND THAT IS IT.... YES IT UPSCALES BUT TRUE HD IS BUILT IN TO THE PS3 :) :)

Yes, but you can DOWNLOAD true HD movies.

As far as the noise level goes, I've noticed the 360 quiets itself down considerably when playing back just a DVD. It has been awhile since I've downloaded a movie using it. Does it also quiet itself down when playing back downloaded content?

[Surrealone]

Ok you got me there but my games are BLU-RAY HD and my movies HD. BLU-RAY holds more content and better picture all the way around. Enjoy your over priced DVD player and I will enjoy my under priced BLU-RAY player with true 1080p HD.

[ReidWings]

Ok you got me there but my games are BLU-RAY HD and my movies HD. BLU-RAY holds more content and better picture all the way around. Enjoy your over priced DVD player and I will enjoy my under priced BLU-RAY player with true 1080p HD.

Keep arguing guys, I'll have both for free in a few weeks. :)

[greg_burns]

Enjoy your over priced DVD player and I will enjoy my under priced BLU-RAY player with true 1080p HD.

I didn't buy a 360 to watch DVDs (nor HD-DVDs, nor downloaded movies). :rolleyes: :)

[nhaigh]

I didn't buy a 360 to watch DVDs (nor HD-DVDs, nor downloaded movies). :rolleyes: :)


Yes, but I did buy my PS3 to watch Blu Ray.

[JTYoung1]

Ok you got me there but my games are BLU-RAY HD and my movies HD. BLU-RAY holds more content and better picture all the way around. Enjoy your over priced DVD player and I will enjoy my under priced BLU-RAY player with true 1080p HD.


Enjoy using the controller as a remote to watch those Blu-Ray movies instead of being able to use a universal remote like the Harmony 880. Like everyone else I did not buy the Xbox 360 to watch DVDs I have a separate player to watch movies on.
Sure the PS3 is a great Blu-Ray player, but honestly the facts that I cannot use my Harmony 880 to control it and I cannot stack it in my cabinet are factors that will keep me from ever purchasing one to use as a Blu-Ray player. I have no use for it as a game console, the 360 will have all the games I enjoy playing.

[mikeyts]

So the PS3 streams? Wow, that's what I've been waiting for.

Does it stream AVCHD files?

Is there any documentation or screen shots on-line?You can find the release notes for the upgrade here (http://www.us.playstation.com/ps3/network/updates/PS3_180_update.html). I was personally underwhelmed by both its stream capabilities and upconversion. Of the three upconverting DVD players that I own (Onkyo, OPPO, PS3) it's hands down the worst, while having the power to the best. It's upscaling of streamed MPEG video is just terrible--the 360 is all heads above it in that department. Unfortunately I can't try it streaming 1080p H.264 video (mostly downloaded from apple.com), since the only software I have on windows that will talk to it is WMP 11, which won't stream that. I have the Zune Player, which will stream unprotected AVC (they run fine on my 360), but it won't talk DLNA to anything other than 360s. Pity that Sony doesn't provide a Windows DLNA server of their own and I have to use WMP 11 or dig up something else somewhere :rolleyes: .

The PS3 is a cracker-jack Blu-ray player--superior in capability to the Xbox 360's HD DVD player; for me, it's worth it just for that. But since they have zero games that I can't play just as well on the 360 (and all thing being equal, I can't imagine myself wanting to use it to play a cross-platform game that I could play on the 360), it's pretty much a bust for any other use right now. I expect the game situation to change come the fall. Until then, it is, again, a very good Blu-ray player.

The Cross-Media Bar is one of the worst conceived pieces of consumer electronic UI that I've encountered in recent years. If they replaced it, I might have more inclination to try to use it for something else. The Playstation Store is also wretched.

[AbMagFab]

Okay, that's neat.

I have a Sony HD camera that records in AVCHD, which apparently is the BluRay format (if I put it on a DVD or thumb drive, I supposedly could play it natively on the PS3). I know I can create a DVD that plays on a regular BR player.

Do you know if I can stream AVCHD to the PS3 from my PC? This alone would make it worth it for me to buy one. Is there any place to see what formats it supports natively?

[mikeyts]

I don't have software which can stream AVC to the PS3, but I assume that it's possible. It just needs access to a DLNA server running on a PC or MAC on your LAN. There's some freeware called tversity (see this (http://tversity.com/home/)) that seems to be popular--I'm going to try it soon.

[mikeyts]

Well, I just tried TVersity and, with the new patch applied, it will stream stuff to the PS3. The only videos that I seem to be able to play using it is AVC in MP4 containers--it will not stream AVC or other levels of MPEG4 in .MOV containers. It's easy enough to render stuff into the form that it wants. I watched several movie 1080p movie trailers, like the 2 for Fantastic Four: ROTSS and they looked great, as they also do from the Xbox 360 (I've played them both simultaneously, trying to switch back and forth, which my system requires a few seconds to do).

Some of them had 5.1 soundtracks which the Xbox 360 cannot play--I'll have to re-download them and see if the PS3 will (I used Quicktime Pro's "export" feature to make copies with stereo soundtracks while passing through the AVC video untouched).

[Carlos_E]

Enjoy using the controller as a remote to watch those Blu-Ray movies instead of being able to use a universal remote like the Harmony 880. Like everyone else I did not buy the Xbox 360 to watch DVDs I have a separate player to watch movies on.
Sure the PS3 is a great Blu-Ray player, but honestly the facts that I cannot use my Harmony 880 to control it and I cannot stack it in my cabinet are factors that will keep me from ever purchasing one to use as a Blu-Ray player. I have no use for it as a game console, the 360 will have all the games I enjoy playing.
Sony sells a blu-ray remote control to use with the PS3. I have it. You didn't know?

[Carlos_E]

You can find the release notes for the upgrade here (http://www.us.playstation.com/ps3/network/updates/PS3_180_update.html). I was personally underwhelmed by both its stream capabilities and upconversion. Of the three upconverting DVD players that I own (Onkyo, OPPO, PS3) it's hands down the worst, while having the power to the best. It's upscaling of streamed MPEG video is just terrible--the 360 is all heads above it in that department. Unfortunately I can't try it streaming 1080p H.264 video (mostly downloaded from apple.com), since the only software I have on windows that will talk to it is WMP 11, which won't stream that. I have the Zune Player, which will stream unprotected AVC (they run fine on my 360), but it won't talk DLNA to anything other than 360s. Pity that Sony doesn't provide a Windows DLNA server of their own and I have to use WMP 11 or dig up something else somewhere :rolleyes: .

It's interesting you say this. There are members of the AVS forum with the same upscaling DVD players that you have and they're raving about the PS3 upscaling ability.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=650544&page=161&pp=30

[mikeyts]

It's interesting you say this. There are members of the AVS forum with the same upscaling DVD players that you have and they're raving about the PS3 upscaling ability.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=650544&page=161&pp=30That is interesting--I suggest that they may be blind :). I see tons of artifacting in the upscaled standard DVD output of the PS3 and it doesn't even seem to be trying to improve the results of upscaled video files--it could be upscaling by straight pixel replication insofar as I can when playing back MPEG-2 files. Except for its excellent Blu-ray playback (and Blu-ray player GUI), I'm not even slightly impressed with its capabilities as a multimedia player. It does HD AVC file playback quite well, though.

And then there's my ever increasing hatred of the Cross Media Bar--the more I use it the less I like it :D. The 360 UI isn't absolutely perfect (if you select a served video file for playback it brings up a useless screen with a single option "Play" (or "Resume" and "Play" if you've recently partly played it, so I guess it's not always useless). It (the 360) could also use an option to show detailed information about the file, which the PS3 does have.

[nhaigh]

That is interesting--I suggest that they may be blind :). I see tons of artifacting in the upscaled standard DVD output of the PS3 and it doesn't even seem to be trying to improve the results of upscaled video files--it could be upscaling by straight pixel replication insofar as I can when playing back MPEG-2 files. Except for its excellent Blu-ray playback (and Blu-ray player GUI), I'm not even slightly impressed with its capabilities as a multimedia player. It does HD AVC file playback quite well, though.

And then there's my ever increasing hatred of the Cross Media Bar--the more I use it the less I like it :D. The 360 UI isn't absolutely perfect (if you select a served video file for playback it brings up a useless screen with a single option "Play" (or "Resume" and "Play" if you've recently partly played it, so I guess it's not always useless). It (the 360) could also use an option to show detailed information about the file, which the PS3 does have.


I must be blind too. I can't comment on your setup and issues but I have to say I'm nothing but impressed with the PS3. The upscaling on the DVD seems excellent to me. I can't say I have seen any pixelation or other fault with the picture.

I have no issue with the menu system employed by the PS3, it seems pretty straightforward to me.

As for the streaming stuff to the PS3. I haven't tried much but all my home movies stream perfectly and all I did was turn on sharing in WMP 11. I do understand however that if the PS3 can't play the format then it won't work without transcoding but isn't that typical of all these solutions?

I've even bought a couple of games for it as well and they're quite fun.

One thing I think we do agree on though - Blu Ray blows HD-DVD away.

[Carlos_E]

That is interesting--I suggest that they may be blind :). I see tons of artifacting in the upscaled standard DVD output of the PS3 and it doesn't even seem to be trying to improve the results of upscaled video files--it could be upscaling by straight pixel replication insofar as I can when playing back MPEG-2 files. Except for its excellent Blu-ray playback (and Blu-ray player GUI), I'm not even slightly impressed with its capabilities as a multimedia player. It does HD AVC file playback quite well, though.

And then there's my ever increasing hatred of the Cross Media Bar--the more I use it the less I like it :D. The 360 UI isn't absolutely perfect (if you select a served video file for playback it brings up a useless screen with a single option "Play" (or "Resume" and "Play" if you've recently partly played it, so I guess it's not always useless). It (the 360) could also use an option to show detailed information about the file, which the PS3 does have.
Your opinion vs. a number of AVS board members... No offense I put more weight in their opinion.

[mikeyts]

Your opinion vs. a number of AVS board members... No offense I put more weight in their opinion.I take no offense, though I've been a member of AVS Forums since 8/01 (as michaeltscott), with some thousands of posts in. There's nothing magical about being an AVS board member--there are no qualifications and it costs nothing to join :D.

And please don't thinki that I'm saying that I think that the PS3 is a bad upconverting DVD player--not the counting the Xbox (because I don't use mine with an interface that it can upconvert over) I've owned about 5--a Zenith, an RCA, a Samsung, the OPPO DV-981HD and the PS3. Of these, I'd rank the PS3 3rd or 4th. Among them, only the PS3 and OPPO can upconvert to 1080p, so my television (a 46" 1080p Mitsubishi Diamond LCD panel) is at least deinterlacing the output of the other 3.

Again, the PS3 is an excellent Blu-ray player and doesn't really do anything badly (except its awkward and unattractive UI :), and even it isn't difficult to use). I'm anticipating the release of a number of exclusives by fall, including Ninja Gaiden Sigma (which I didn't play on the Xbox but whose PS3 demo I enjoyed thoroughly), Lair and Heavenly Sword. Home is a bold experiement in online gaming community design. I don't expect it to be particularly useful, but it should be very interesting to toy with and I actually might prefer browsing downloadables with it than through the Playstation Store.

So, I'm already enjoying the PS3 and expect to get more out of it in the future. I'm even hopeful that it's upconversion could even get better, but I don't need it for that.

[mikeyts]

I checked--I can't get the 5.1 soundtrack AVC files from Apple's QuickTime pages to stream to the PS3 either.

[A-1]

http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/24/sony-playstation-v1-8-hands-on/

hrmmm

[AbMagFab]

Well, I just tried TVersity and, with the new patch applied, it will stream stuff to the PS3. The only videos that I seem to be able to play using it is AVC in MP4 containers--it will not stream AVC or other levels of MPEG4 in .MOV containers. It's easy enough to render stuff into the form that it wants. I watched several movie 1080p movie trailers, like the 2 for Fantastic Four: ROTSS and they looked great, as they also do from the Xbox 360 (I've played them both simultaneously, trying to switch back and forth, which my system requires a few seconds to do).

Some of them had 5.1 soundtracks which the Xbox 360 cannot play--I'll have to re-download them and see if the PS3 will (I used Quicktime Pro's "export" feature to make copies with stereo soundtracks while passing through the AVC video untouched).

How about AVCHD? LIke from the new Sony HD cameras (I have one)?

[mikeyts]

http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/24/sony-playstation-v1-8-hands-on/

hrmmmI am able to get it to play AVC files with stereo soundtracks which I originally downloaded in .MOV containers and exported using QuickTime pro to .MP4 files with stereo AAC soundtracks. I streamed these using the TVersity DLNA server. It will not stream AVC out of .MOV containers, period, with either stereo or 5.1 sound. (The Zune player is a DLNA server that will only talk to Xbox 360s but which will stream .MOV as well as .MP4--the Xbox can only play stereo AAC soundtracks. Windows Media 11 has a DLNA server which will stream to any client, but it can't stream any MPEG4 profile).

[mikeyts]

How about AVCHD? LIke from the new Sony HD cameras (I have one)?I poked around the net looking for a sample .m2ts file (the PS3 User's Guide says--here (http://manuals.playstation.net/document/en/ps3/current/video/filetypes.html)--that that's the extension for an AVCHD file) and I found a pointer to such a file here (http://lists.mplayerhq.hu/pipermail/ffmpeg-user/2006-October/004870.html[/url). It's only 3 seconds long--I managed to get it to play through TVersity by renaming it ".ts". If you have some sample from your HDCAM that you can get to me, I'd be happy to try to get the PS3 to play it.

The "information" display for the file on the PS3 says that it's 1440x1080 MPEG2.

[AbMagFab]

I poked around the net looking for a sample .m2ts file (the PS3 User's Guide says--here (http://manuals.playstation.net/document/en/ps3/current/video/filetypes.html)--that that's the extension for an AVCHD file) and I found a pointer to such a file here (http://lists.mplayerhq.hu/pipermail/ffmpeg-user/2006-October/004870.html[/url). It's only 3 seconds long--I managed to get it to play through TVersity by renaming it ".ts". If you have some sample from your HDCAM that you can get to me, I'd be happy to try to get the PS3 to play it.

The "information" display for the file on the PS3 says that it's 1440x1080 MPEG2.

That's the right format for the file. Do you have an ftp site or anything I can dump a sample to?

And why does this require "tvsersity"? Why isn't it just reading from a drive mount from Vista/XP?

[rodalpho]

Why? Because both MS and sony are pushing their proprietary garbage constraints instead of what people really want; xbox1 media center that can handle HD. It's pretty dang infuriating, actually.

[nhaigh]

http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/24/sony-playstation-v1-8-hands-on/

hrmmm


Interesting they can only get MPEG-1 to work. I'm pretty low tech but without any effort other than turning on sharing all my MPEG-2 recorded home movies streamed to my PS3 and I couldn't tell the difference quality wise with the same files originally copied directly to the PS3.

The toughest bit so far was I tried playing some .wma files and the PS3 told me I had to turn on wma support. Once I found the setting those worked too.

Can't get .avi files from the internet to play though.

[AbMagFab]

Why? Because both MS and sony are pushing their proprietary garbage constraints instead of what people really want; xbox1 media center that can handle HD. It's pretty dang infuriating, actually.

Yes. I would pay real money for XBMC on the 360. I wish the developers would just buy the SDK and sell it as a "game", so we could buy it without having to hack the 360.

[AbMagFab]

So what DNLA server are people generally using for the PS3? The tversity one mentioned earlier, or something else?

[nhaigh]

So what DNLA server are people generally using for the PS3? The tversity one mentioned earlier, or something else?


I'm using WMP 11 as I had it on my PC already and its free.

[NOD]

I'm not sure what this thread is doing in the series 3 forum, but nevertheless...

I have been using twonkyvision w/ my macs for my ps3's. No problems at all w/ streaming music (actually browsing through my 150GB of music is a little faster than it was when I had an external HDD directly attached) or picture display. Video-wise -- I've been able to stream hi-def clips fine over LAN. Obviously, the list of supported codecs isn't long, but neither is the 360's. Hell, even my OTA HD recordings from my eyeTV streamed fine video-wise, but there was no audio streamed.

For a single update this comprehensive, I'd say it's a very big step.

[mikeyts]

That's the right format for the file. Do you have an ftp site or anything I can dump a sample to?Sorry--I don't. If you can generate a short sample that's 5 MB or smaller when zipped, you can attach the .zip file to a post here. Just see the "manage attachments" button in the additional options window just under the message composition window.
And why does this require "tvsersity"? Why isn't it just reading from a drive mount from Vista/XP?Because they didn't add an ability to mount shared Windows directories; they added an ability to display and play files streamed by DLNA servers (look it up in Wikipedia). Though a pain in the ass, it's ultimately a bit more flexible, since those DLNA media servers needn't be mounted on Windows. TVersity is a freeware DLNA server which runs on Windows; Windows Media Player 11 is also a DLNA server, but it will only serve a limited set of file types. Microsoft's Zune Player is also a free Windows DLNA server which will serve a wider range of media types, but it will only play server to Xbox 360s. There are probably other Windows DLNA servers out there--no doubt some network attached storage servers have DLNA servers built-in.

And yeah--the whole thread is pretty off-forum-topic.

[nhaigh]

Because they didn't add an ability to mount shared Windows directories; they added an ability to display and play files streamed by DLNA servers (look it up in Wikipedia)..

And if you look at how many DVR's (http://product.dlna.org/eng/browse_cat.aspx?cat=4) there are (non-usa) that use DLNA to send HD content to remote devices it seems to be the right way to go.

This is why I asked (in this thread) don't TiVo go this route? Isn't this how the X-Box also recieves its HD content from HTPC's with cablecards?

After all this does appear to becoming some kind of standard.

[ashu]

Hah - an XBox thread turned into a one-man PS3 bash :)

mikeyts - I'll have to call BS on your "PS3 is a bad DVD upscaler" statement. It's about as good as my PC running ffdshow at barebones default settings, 1080P, and VASTLY better than either of my Toshiba HDMI upconverting DVD players. Which I have in the past tested against an Oppo, and they fell short of the Oppo by a little bit.

[mikeyts]

I did post that I didn't think that it was a bad upscaler--it's just not great. Of the 5 upscaling DVD players that I own, it's about 3rd best (2nd best if we're only counting 1080p-capable ones; my television is a good deinterlacer and it's possible that it's making the others look better--it won't modify a 1080p signal). In any case I don't think that it's nearly as good as the OPPO DV-981HD (mine is running their latest and greatest firmware release).

In the end, we both just have our own subjective opinions based on personal experience with the PS3 connected to different pieces of equipment as compared to other different DVD players we've each viewed on our respective monitors. (In my case, it's connected to a 46" 1080p LCD panel (Mitsubishi LT-46231). For a non-subjective opinion, we'll have to wait until The Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity (http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/main.html) guys re-run their objective test suite on it. Inability to upscale not-widthstanding, their pre-update opinion of it as a standard DVD player (http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/cgi-bin/shootout.cgi?function=search&articles=all&type=DVD+Player&manufacturer=5&maxprice=0&deInt=0&mpeg=0#SonyPlayStation%203%20(HDMI)) was that it was no more than average, failing an important de-interlacing test. (They applaud it as a Blu-ray player but recommend that people who buy it hang onto their good standard DVD players). Hopefully, they fixed more of its shortcomings than just the addition of upscaling.

I'm definitely not bashing the PS3--it's a great Blu-ray player and worth the price for that alone (if you're interested in Blu-ray) and it has great potential as a game console. The nice thing about the PS3 is, however good or not it is at playing and upscaling standard definition DVDs, it has tremendous signal processing power and the potential to get better in future firmware releases.