Media Player v2.50 update: 360° video and photos, FLAC and upscaled music support

[Mavrick]

Hello PlayStation Nation! Every time we announce new features for PS4 here on PlayStation Blog, I love going into the comments to answer your questions and see feedback on which features people really like and which ones people still want to see. One of those questions I have been able to count on has been, “Where is our PS4 media player?”

If you were watching our E3 press conference pre-show, you probably heard the good news – Media Player for the PS4 will be available to download from PlayStation Store this evening.

A Media Player icon will appear in the PS4 content area, simply select the icon and you will be taken to the PS Store where you can begin the download.

The Media Player works with both your home server and when plugging a USB stick with media into one of the available ports on the PS4. Your home server will appear as a media option in the player automatically and finding your media is simple and quick. You may also simply enjoy music as background music on your PS4!

Of course, we know what you really want to see: look below to see supported video and audio file formats and codec details.

File formats and codecs

Video

MKV
Visual: H.264/MPEG-4 AVC High Profile Level4.2
Audio: MP3, AAC LC, AC-3 (Dolby Digital)

AVI
Visual: MPEG4 ASP, H.264/MPEG-4 AVC High Profile Level4.2
Audio: MP3, AAC LC, AC-3 (Dolby Digital)

MP4
Visual: H.264/MPEG-4 AVC High Profile Level4.2
Audio: AAC LC, AC-3 (Dolby Digital)

MPEG-2 TS
Visual: H.264/MPEG-4 AVC High Profile Level4.2, MPEG2 Visual
Audio: MP2 (MPEG2 Audio Layer 2), AAC LC, AC-3(Dolby Digital)

AVCHD: (.m2ts, .mts)

Photo
JPEG (based on DCF 2.0/Exif 2.21)
BMP
PNG
Music
MP3
AAC (M4A)

PlaystationEU on Twitter spilled the beans during the E3 press conference. A new media player with support for a ton more file types and codecs.

http://blog.eu.playstation.com/2015/...-on-ps4-today/

[SideEffect34]

Does this mean it will enable us to add custom music to games like MLB and WWE? Hoping so.

[Havok83]

Originally Posted by SideEffect34

Does this mean it will enable us to add custom music to games like MLB and WWE? Hoping so.

thats a developer decision. This media player adds video and photo support. The PS4 already supports music

[ratandjmt]

Nice. I might actually move my PS3 out of the living room now. They still need a remote though.

[Black Sabbath]

MKV?! Awesome. So the days of my PS3 Streaming may be over?

Will still likely use that for listening to music, though.

[ussrelativity]

This is awesome!

[un4gvn94538]

nermind

[Havok83]

I just tried the thing and its pretty bare bones. Hopefully they add more features to it in future updates, but I cant really complain as they finally put this out there

[PrestigeWorldwide]

It's not working for my home network. The PS4 can see my media server, but it says "There is no playable media". WTH? Haven't had this problem with any other streaming device. Looks like I'm back to using a USB drive for now. <sigh>

Edit: Never mind. I got it to work and it can even read my Itune's playlists on my iMac! Awesome! For DLNA on the Mac, I initially tried to use Rivet, but that doesn't work for some odd reason. I switched to PS3 Media Server and it works great!

Edit 2: It's playing the Itune's playlists in alphabetical order, not the actual order of the playlist. So I'm back to using the USB drive where I have to number each track to play it in the right order. I tried playing a few MKV's and none of them would play (could be an issue with the PS3 media server DLNA software and not the media player itself) MP4's played just fine. Overall, this new media player functionality is still mediocre. My xbox 360 can read my Itune's playlists and it plays the tracks in the correct order. That's really all I want or at least a playlist function within the media player itself.

[kculp]

A comment on high bit rate mp4 video would be nice. Sustained performance over 2 hour movie.

[wormraper]

are you gosh damned kidding me!!??/ they update with a media player but the damn PS4 can only read fat and fat32 file system usb drives still!!! what the hell is this worth if you're limited to 4 gig files??? what is this! the freaking 90s.. I thought this was a next gen system. the Xbone can do it, so can every one of my 3-4 year old blu-ray players do it in the other room. why the F@CK is sony so averse to actually being usable.

[Spookymulder]

^^ Funny, sad and true. All at the same time.

[Mavrick]

Originally Posted by wormraper

are you gosh damned kidding me!!??/ they update with a media player but the damn PS4 can only read fat and fat32 file system usb drives still!!! what the hell is this worth if you're limited to 4 gig files??? what is this! the freaking 90s.. I thought this was a next gen system. the Xbone can do it, so can every one of my 3-4 year old blu-ray players do it in the other room. why the F@CK is sony so averse to actually being usable.

Never forget

"First and Foremost a Video Game Console."

[wormraper]

Originally Posted by Mavrick

Never forget

"First and Foremost a Video Game Console."

I hope that was a joke, cuz Sony has consistently shown they have no competency this time around. they beat out M$ and systematically have laid on their a$$es the whole time since and just squandered every opportunity. when they do roll out updates its half assed and sloppy, like they got the stupid intern that no one likes to do all the updates, while their competition actually invests in quality updates. you do something, you do it WELL, that's a minimum... If they don't turn around in another month, I'm just returning my ps4 to costco (the joy of being a costco member) and buying an Xbone. This lazy crap that Sony is pulling this gen is VERY offsetting.

[Mavrick]

Originally Posted by wormraper

I hope that was a joke, cuz Sony has consistently shown they have no competency this time around. they beat out M$ and systematically have laid on their a$$es the whole time since and just squandered every opportunity. when they do roll out updates its half assed and sloppy, like they got the stupid intern that no one likes to do all the updates, while their competition actually invests in quality updates. you do something, you do it WELL, that's a minimum... If they don't turn around in another month, I'm just returning my ps4 to costco (the joy of being a costco member) and buying an Xbone. This lazy crap that Sony is pulling this gen is VERY offsetting.

Kaz Hirai's words not mine

[wormraper]

Originally Posted by Mavrick

Kaz Hirai's words not mine

it's no wonder that Sony has nearly driven itself into the ground the last decade... stupid decision after stupid decision. like I said, I give it a month for another update to fix stuff before I just return to costco...my buddies Xbone plays every file format perfectly and 99% of games are available on that system as well, at least all the ones I play. It's not that god damned hard to code in a file system recognition for something. I can do it on linux in my sleep, the stupid intern above could have done it in a week if he wanted to. this is just another example of Sony doing the bare minimum begrudgingly.

[Havok83]

Originally Posted by wormraper

are you gosh damned kidding me!!??/ they update with a media player but the damn PS4 can only read fat and fat32 file system usb drives still!!! what the hell is this worth if you're limited to 4 gig files??? what is this! the freaking 90s.. I thought this was a next gen system. the Xbone can do it, so can every one of my 3-4 year old blu-ray players do it in the other room. why the F@CK is sony so averse to actually being usable.

Originally Posted by wormraper

it's no wonder that Sony has nearly driven itself into the ground the last decade... stupid decision after stupid decision. like I said, I give it a month for another update to fix stuff before I just return to costco...my buddies Xbone plays every file format perfectly and 99% of games are available on that system as well, at least all the ones I play. It's not that god damned hard to code in a file system recognition for something. I can do it on linux in my sleep, the stupid intern above could have done it in a week if he wanted to. this is just another example of Sony doing the bare minimum begrudgingly.

I think you need to understand the legalities of this before calling Sony stupid and coming down on them with pitchforks. NFTS is a proprietary format owned by MS. Its why Windows is the only OS that uses it, whereas Mac OSX, Linux and the PS4 do not. The only way the PS4 would be able to use it, would be for Sony to pay MS a licensing fee and really its not worth it for them, considering it is not needed for functionality of the system

[wormraper]

Originally Posted by Havok83

NFTS is a proprietary format owned by MS. Its why Windows is the only OS that uses it, whereas Mac OSX, Linux and the PS4 do not. The only way the PS4 would be able to use it, would be for Sony to pay MS a licensing fee and really its not worth it for them, considering it is not needed for functionality of the system

it can be recognized on systems though. Linux and Mac have done it for years, and while they may not USE the NTFS system on their OS, it can tuned to recognize and play off it just fine. there's half a dozen ways to do this. hell, Linux did it over a decade ago

[Mavrick]

Originally Posted by wormraper

it's no wonder that Sony has nearly driven itself into the ground the last decade... stupid decision after stupid decision. like I said, I give it a month for another update to fix stuff before I just return to costco...my buddies Xbone plays every file format perfectly and 99% of games are available on that system as well, at least all the ones I play. It's not that god damned hard to code in a file system recognition for something. I can do it on linux in my sleep, the stupid intern above could have done it in a week if he wanted to. this is just another example of Sony doing the bare minimum begrudgingly.

Then it seems like you made the wrong choice in console. Sony never made any promises that the PS4 would be able to be a good media centre. I think that your expectations will continue to be hampered. Xbox does media well no doubt, and if you have friends that game on xbox that's probably the best one for you.

[wormraper]

Originally Posted by Mavrick

Then it seems like you made the wrong choice in console. Sony never made any promises that the PS4 would be able to be a good media centre. I think that your expectations will continue to be hampered. Xbox does media well no doubt, and if you have friends that game on xbox that's probably the best one for you.

I expected it to be bare minimum able to do everything the ps3 could do... a next gen system that can't match the capabilities of it's predecessor is an embarrassment