Sony is not gonna restrict PS3 (ASP/AVC) Playback ???

[CruNcher]

Ok this sounds to good to be true somehow :D (major industry is learning ??)

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/745/745265p1.html

http://manuals.playstation.net/document/en/ps3/current/video/index.html

http://playstation.com/ps3-openplatform/

http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/products/ydl/ <-- with it (linux) and the power of the cell architecture the possibilities seem endless

http://www.powerdeveloper.org/playstation.php <-- kernel patches and instructions how to run linux on the ps3 :)

http://www.bsc.es/projects/deepcomputing/linuxoncell/ <-- Barcelona Supercomputing Center Cell Broadband Engine Kernel Binaries and Sources

this would also mean that it would be easy for the consumers (us) to make WMV (non-drm) playable and sooner or later alot more formats that we can yet dream off (Matroska being one of them) :) (on a single CE Living Room device with alot of Power for the next years to come)

I still can't belive that Sony is opening itself so deep, they must have seen how the PSP Scene is emerging and that the user doesn't like to be restricted so they try to come close with us now, for sure it's also because they need Cell widely accepted and for that they need ofcourse a new generation of Programmers for it, but anyway im willing to pay that price :P

(If the Devil makes you an offer that you get everything you wan't if you support him to gain controll what would you do ?)

Do you think it's better to let Sony take the Media Control in our Homes or Microsoft ? (and please try to answer without locational dependencies US/ASIA) and how do you think this is gonna impact on the ASIAN Standalone Market, DivX Inc and XviD Solutions.

It is a fact that because of the Internet we are much better connected (consumers) with each other and it's Hard for companies to keep any restrictions alive without getting questioned for it (purpose) and sooner or later they have to adapt to our demands.
Microsoft never really did anything (Xbox) in this case and seems also not in the future wanting us to improve it (they want to be alone and with their paying 3rd parties) also Sony was restrictive in the beginning but now with it's Cell Architecture in their mind they seem to forget about it and let us take place in their product development, sure it's truely not an unselfish offer but it is an offer with alot potential behind it.

PS: Btw is someone from Sony Member of doom9 ?

[Awatef]

That sounds real great. I really was expecting the PS3 to be a universal player. I thought, if they made DivX work on the PS2, the video support on the PS3 would be just amazing. Very promising!!

[SeeMoreDigital]

Interesting...

Lets hope somebody can verify it's flexibility soon ;)

[thorz]

If this comes to be true the PS3 will have a place in my living room, doesn't matter the high price tag.
Thanks for the info.

[awx]

I really like the PS3 and am expecting big things from it (media and games). But I think if the PS3 lives up to expectations in the media playback area, the the Asian Standalone Market are finally going to have to improve their firmware. They won't be able to sell stuff that barely works and with junky UIs anymore.

The Rhapsody N35 was my last hope for a standalone player but people say the firmware contains lots of bugs and fixes are very slow to come. It has a $300 price tag (plus the hard disk price) and it doesn't play DVDs nor blu-ray discs). So personally I don't think a PS3 running Linux for $500-600 is all that expensive.

[ilovejedd]

Imagine that. Sony's finally learning something. If this is true, then my vote's on Sony. I've never really been a big fan of WMV. I would have bought a PS3 either way, but if it's as flexible as they say, then I'd probably get a couple more. It's cheaper than a Media Center PC and looks much nicer (unless I spend maybe $300 for a pretty case, I guess).

[easy2Bcheesy]

A complete re-edit of my earlier post...

I have 720p/60 AVC content running just fine on PS3. Looks like it finally did live up to the hype... :)

[CruNcher]

nice easy2Bcheesy :)
what for encoding settings and wich AVC tools did you used, could you please test how much Watt it consumes when playbacking that (without sound if possible) ?

[Pookie]

Aha! - Hence the 200 campers set up outside of the local Best Buy in my neighborhood

Look at the fun going on from the release in Japan. http://www.veoh.com/multiplayer.swf?type=v&permalinkId=e154645Ey7ZTg32&id=146498

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/746/746181p1.html

[Soulhunter]

Sounds great, I think Ill get one next year to replace my HTPC... ^^

Btw, couldnt it be abused as cheap but very fast encoding box as well?


Bye

[ilovejedd]

Probably, when Linux distros for the PS3 come out. But most likely, we'll need programmers to create PS3 versions of encoders to really take advantage of its cell processor. I wanna buy now, but I don't have $3,000...

[Soulhunter]

But most likely, we'll need programmers to create PS3 versions of encoders to really take advantage of its cell processor...

Hmm, yeah... >.>

Encoders and AVS3 plus filters!


Bye

[CruNcher]

First users installed successfully Fedora Core 5 :)

http://www.ps3forums.com/showpost.php?p=801436&postcount=192

[Sharktooth]

Yep, YDL is on the way too...
Sony is doing everything to re-gain popularity. Let's hope they've learned the lesson...

[CruNcher]

Sharktooth the Video power is yet uknown but it's definately only Cell and Framebuffer no RSX support seems they turned of alot via the Hypervisor and stuff like AIGLX and Video/Graphics Hardware accelleration is for a long time for sure a no go unless Sony/Nvidia decide otherwise :(

[easy2Bcheesy]

Well I was told that 720p/60 played back fine - but now I have a report of the same file being extremely jerky. Won't know for sure until I have a retail unit myself, I guess. My own PS3 is a debug unit which plays preproduction games from BD-RE but has all the multimedia functions disabled :(

[Nogs]

On IGN etc they talk about playing HD movie files, AVC format etc in the Game OS. Even if hardware support for the RSX chip isn't available via the linux route it could still be a pretty good media player. perhaps.

[CruNcher]

Nogs sure but it's restricted to .mp4 and Main Profile AVC nonthless, choice what to use would be ideal for example in 5.1 their is no 5.1 AAC Decoder out their yet so AC3 would be better but .mp4 has no AC3 support you see ;)

PS: I added a link to the Kernel Binaries and Sources from the BSC that are also gonna be used in the YDL Kernel

[masken]

It's still Sony. There's gotta be a catch.

[giandrea]

I've seen screenshots of a PS3 running Fedora Core. The Cell processor is recognized as a dual core PowerPC processor supporting Altivec. (It should really be a three core processor, that's strange) I haven't seen the recognized clock speed of the Cell in the screenshots.

Anyway, judging by this, with no further optimization, it should already be a nice platform for encoding with x264.
x264 has got Altivec optimizations (some have just been checked in on the SVN) and it supports multithreading. So it should be already nicely optimized. Well, if we could further optimize for the Cell SPUs we would get a much higher speed, but that's difficoult.

I would really like to put my hands on a PS3, but unfortunately in Europe we will be getting it next year... -_-

[kurt]

hm, I don't think most people here want to encode with PS3. They rather want to use this little machine as a HTPC to decode their h264 encodes. But this could be difficult without x-card acceleration. Or am I wrong?

Anyway - I'm very curious to see some decoding perfomance tests :)

[CruNcher]

BTW the encoding power is also not bad first glimpse of that are allready visible from remoteplay it does realtime transcoding of 1080p->320x240p to the PSP not bad not bad :)

and here are some pics from Sonys new Casino Royale Trailer that has been released on the HD site it's Main Profile Level 4.0 the same as the Apple ones (it seems the Encoding process is the same only a different container) :)

http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/5954/snapshot20060823051002gt0.th.png (http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/5954/snapshot20060823051002gt0.png) http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/2092/snapshot20060823051434dv7.th.png (http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/2092/snapshot20060823051434dv7.png) http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/9823/snapshot20060823051456qx6.th.png (http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/9823/snapshot20060823051456qx6.png) http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/7065/snapshot20060823051631bi1.th.png (http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/7065/snapshot20060823051631bi1.png)

http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/6297/snapshot20060823051736xv7.th.png (http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/6297/snapshot20060823051736xv7.png) http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/7595/snapshot20060823051825qn6.th.png (http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/7595/snapshot20060823051825qn6.png) http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/5527/snapshot20060823051943mm7.th.png (http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/5527/snapshot20060823051943mm7.png) http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/4066/snapshot20060823052219ho8.th.png (http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/4066/snapshot20060823052219ho8.png)

http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/3161/snapshot20060823052251ml9.th.png (http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/3161/snapshot20060823052251ml9.png) http://img297.imageshack.us/img297/1029/snapshot20060823052423up7.th.png (http://img297.imageshack.us/img297/1029/snapshot20060823052423up7.png) http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/5497/snapshot20060823051413in5.th.png (http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/5497/snapshot20060823051413in5.png)