HDV @ 50Hz on PS3.

[steve]

To those of you who use a PS3 to play HDV (and AVCHD) material:

Just updated the PS3's firmware to version 2.5. Among the improvements* is a video setting allowing 50Hz material to be played at 50Hz and not resampled to 60Hz with motion judder.
The settings offered are 'Auto' and 50Hz. Although the setting is only supposed to be for video stored on the PS3 hard drive, it actually works on .m2t files put on regular data DVDs. The 'Auto' setting doesn't seem to work on DVDs though so it has to be forced by the 50Hz setting.
That was my last problem on the PS3 as a HDV media player.

Steve

* If it was already there, its the first time I've noticed it!

[Alan Roberts]

That's good news. Does that option apply to BluRay disks as well?

[steve]

Don't know as I don't have any Blu-Ray discs yet. I assume the major source of 50Hz discs would be those from TV series such as Planet Earth.

Steve

[Lusky]

That's good news. Does that option apply to BluRay disks as well?

this is the official blurb on the ps3 website, it says hard drive and storage media, so you'd assume that means Blu Ray

http://uk.playstation.com/help-support/ps3/system-software/detail/item124744/50-Hz-Video-Output/

[StevenBagley]

It also works with video files served over the network from a computer. Which means I've finally been able to get my recordings off BBC HD to playback in HD, with correct motion, at 50Hz and with AC3 sound (I've managed to have any two up till now).

In fact it is scarily easy to record and archive BBC HD (using a Firewire DVB-S2 box, Elgato's EyeTV3 software, my iMac and a $20 bit of software to serve the files to the PS3).

Steven

[Alan Roberts]

Splendid. It shows that peer pressure works.

[Lusky]

It also works with video files served over the network from a computer.

Sorry to deviate a bit here Steve (hope you don't mind). Do you ever have problems with the PS3 coming off the network citing a DNLA error?

[StevenBagley]

Sorry to deviate a bit here Steve (hope you don't mind). Do you ever have problems with the PS3 coming off the network citing a DNLA error?

Dunno, I only got it working on Saturday (never really used the PS3 before for anything but Bluray playback and the odd game).

Steven

[steve]

When on the 50Hz setting, I presume it still respects 24fps Blu-Ray material? I assume that this setting doesn't get used much inthe US, a) because they probably don't see a lot of 50Hz material, and b) because US TVs just won't display 50Hz material from an external input, even though it is part of the ATSC standard!

Steve

[Bob Aldis]

My son has just fitted a large 300+ hard drive in my grandsons PS3 and installed linux. It makes it a very desirable purchase. Now if only they would bring out a cut down model that didn't play games. ;)

[Claire]

To those of you who use a PS3 to play HDV (and AVCHD) material:

Just updated the PS3's firmware to version 2.5. Among the improvements* is a video setting allowing 50Hz material to be played at 50Hz and not resampled to 60Hz with motion judder.
The settings offered are 'Auto' and 50Hz. Although the setting is only supposed to be for video stored on the PS3 hard drive, it actually works on .m2t files put on regular data DVDs. The 'Auto' setting doesn't seem to work on DVDs though so it has to be forced by the 50Hz setting.


That was my last problem on the PS3 as a HDV media player.

Steve

* If it was already there, its the first time I've noticed it!

Thanks for this post which alerted me to the upgrade.

Last December I made an interlaced 25fps HDV animation to test for true 50z playback on my PS3, I rendered it to M2T and placed copies on the following media,

(1) USB Pen drive
(2) USB external drive (FAT32)

I also authored the animation to a Blue-ray disk.

The result, bad judder from the pen drive or USB hard drive, only the Blue-ray disk played the animation smoothly.

Today, after installing the upgrade, the same test confirms the new 50Hz playback setting works also from USB pen drive and USB external hard drive.

I am now encouraged to buy some more USB drives, or maybe install a huge internal drive.

[harlequin]

http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/-/2144/1411/-/3516598/Western-Digital-Scorpio-WD3200BEVT-320GB-2-5-Internal-SATA-Hard-Drive-Sony-Playstation-PS3-Compatible/Product.html?searchtype=genre

320Gb
£49.99

[steve]

Gary,

The WD drive that you linked is a 7200rpm model. AFAIK, there is no advantage in installing anything faster than 5400rpm, and it increases the power dissipation.

Claire,

500GB drives are just being launched on the market so the cost per GB sweet spot should be with them in a short while. Beware the Hitachi 5K500 Travelstar as it is 3mm thicker than the laptop norm of 9.5mm, and may not fit in the PS3 carrier.

Steve

[harlequin]

Gary,

The WD drive that you linked is a 7200rpm model. AFAIK, there is no advantage in installing anything faster than 5400rpm, and it increases the power dissipation.

Steve
I don't have a PS3 yet , but i don't know where you found heat disipation info for the normal drive in a ps3 or the one i linked to.

I do note that all commenting on adding to a PS3 say it was a good buy and works well.

maybe because one buyer confirmed the following : it's actually 8mb cache and 5200rpm

[steve]

Apologies Gary, I mistook it for the Scorpio Black version which is a 7200rpm drive. A colleague recently fitted a faster drive to his PS3 and saw no improvement in speed.

Interestingly, the specs for the WD Scorpio Blue and Black ranges show the same 2.5W power requirements, so either thay have done something clever with the design or they are both so close that WD decided to quote a common spec. The accoustic level for the Black (7200rpm) drive is also 1-2 dB quieter so maybe there is something going on here. Accoustic levels are important for something that may live under a TV in a lounge.

Steve

[Claire]

Gary the 320GB Western Digital Scorpio at only £50 inc postage is surely quite a bargain. thanks for the link, then again if as Steve says 500GB drives are coming shortly I might first just wait a while longer.

BTW, I discovered something else about this latest PS3 firmware upgrade, seems I am now able to see the superwhites in my video footage when playing from media other than Blue-ray. Previously this was not possible, has anyone else noticed this? I was convinced my raw camera clips looked more sparkling after the upgrade and today I proved it by playing a test card containing a patch of superwhite (RGB 255). It now shows up clearly no matter the media source.

Finally, just want to say how incredibly nice the new "Scene Search" feature is, quote: "Activating this feature while viewing a video on the PS3 will break the video up into scenes that you can quickly access by pressing the X button."

It's like a filmstrip that appears along the bottom of the screen, each scene is in motion. Scoot left or right, the film strip moves, select your scene, press go.. wonderful!

Wonder what else new I will find in this geat media player?

[Alan Roberts]

If you guys carry on talking about it like this, I might have to consider getting one :)

[ChrisG]

Things you never thought you'd hear no 25:

Alan Roberts on the PS3 If you guys carry on talking about it like this, I might have to consider getting one :) :)

[Bob Aldis]

If you guys carry on talking about it like this, I might have to consider getting one :)

Don't forget you will have to find space to store all the games ;)

[Alan Roberts]

There will be no games, I have too much to do for that :)

[Bob Aldis]

There will be no games, I have too much to do for that :)

Well thats a relief I had a vision of unanswered questions on the forum while you were shooting aliens :)

[harlequin]

There will be no games, I have too much to do for that :)


Hmmm.................
I will openly admit I intend buying one for the following reasons

1. blueray player / dvd player
2. media player
3. can be turned into a freeview pvr
4. COD4 multiplayer games

[steve]

Gary, other reasons why you might be interested:
It currently plays iplayer programmes, but only via a patch to the wii facility. The BBC has been working on a pS3 version. With the storage and upscaling capabilities of the PS3, this would be a 'real iplayer' connected to every owner's TV.
The firmware currently has an early version of Flash (ISTR its V6). If this is updated to say V9, then streaming sites like Vimeo become viable.
I would hold back a while on the Play TV box as it only does vanilla DVB, not DVB2 which is what the broadcasters will be rolling out starting next year in Manchester for HD.

Steve

[Lusky]

The firmware currently has an early version of Flash (ISTR its V6). If this is updated to say V9, then streaming sites like Vimeo become viable.


Flash 9 was included in the last up date

http://uk.playstation.com/help-support/ps3/system-software/detail/item124649/Update-features-(ver-2-50)/

I've watched you tube and vimeo through it no probs. I tried playing iplayer on the web and just zooming in, but it wouldn't play. It said that my Java script had to be on; it was so I don't know what the problem is.

[steve]

Flash 9 was included in the last up date

http://uk.playstation.com/help-support/ps3/system-software/detail/item124649/Update-features-(ver-2-50)/

I've watched you tube and vimeo through it no probs. I tried playing iplayer on the web and just zooming in, but it wouldn't play. It said that my Java script had to be on; it was so I don't know what the problem is.


OK thanks for that, I haven't tried to watch Vimeo HD since I updated to 2.50, but I know (regular) iplayer still doesn't work.

Steve

[dmt999]

Hi guys,

Has anyone else had experience of running a PS3 on and old TV?

It's a decent TV, just old - 32" Philips, twin scart. I've never been able to play BluRays on there as it doesn't support NTSC or 60Hz (not sure which stops it from working). I get a picture but it is very grainy and in black & white. It's the same issue I had when I bought my first DVD player - but the DVD player had a switch to swap it to PAL which sorted that out straight away.

I installed the 2.5 firmware this week as I hoped that the 50Hz changes in there may help as Sony seem to sneak some useful extras in sometimes that they don't put in the release details. But it didn't help, in fact it made it worse...

The problem I've got now is that not only didn't it fix the BluRay issue, but watching some AVI's & some WMV's on there now does the same thing - whereas they were perfect before. I've tried all the settings I can find on both the TV and the Video/Display settings but no joy.

From the files I've tried so far, I have two AVI's both with MPG-4 encoding - one plays fine the other doesn't. And a WMV file (VC-1) again is black & white/grainy.

DVDs & games are fine & I'm connected via Scart (no component or HDMI on my old beast)

Apart from the PS3 I have no HD sources yet - so I'm happy with my old CRT for now, although I'm finally coming around to the idea of LCDs now the quality has improved.

Any ideas?

Thanks, Derek