The PS3 Review Thread

[Blu-ray San]

Congrats, I'm holding off for a 60 GB version for wireless web access !!

[dialog_gvf]

Originally Posted by Blu-ray San

Congrats, I'm holding off for a 60 GB version for wireless web access !!

I went with the 20GB because:

(1) I am updating my hard drive.
(2) I much prefer wired gigabit
(3) If I do go wireless, then ethernet wireless adapters are dirt cheap. And the radio transmitter can be placed "far" away from the video circuitry.

The memory card reader is a non-feature, since my USB dongle card readers work fine.

Gary

[MFS3Kiryu]

Hey all, first post. Picked my system up at launch and I love it to pieces. It looks really sweet with the shiny finish, but you notice dust easily and from what I've read it scratches at the touch. On the plus side it is nearly silent when on.

Sadly I'm only running at 480p, shame the thing won't upscale to 1080i. But so far Resistence looks amazing. Within a few weeks I'll have a 1080p set in the house so I'll follow up with reviews. I plan on picking up Black Hawk Down and the Kingdom of Heaven Director's Cut.

[Blackraven]

Originally Posted by MFS3Kiryu

Sadly I'm only running at 480p, shame the thing won't upscale to 1080i. But so far Resistence looks amazing. Within a few weeks I'll have a 1080p set in the house so I'll follow up with reviews. I plan on picking up Black Hawk Down and the Kingdom of Heaven Director's Cut.

So you have one of those 1080i-only sets, or does your set accept 720p?

Please enlighten me though on how the PS3 fares in forced-downres content (such as in Resistance). Is the down-res 480p tolerable for you? Or does it look real bad.

Hopeful a firmware upgrade before the year ends would be released in order to fix the 1080i issue.

[Rolo]

The new PS3 1.3 firmware fixes the 1080i issue. It is now available as an option in the display settings.

[JTK]

Originally Posted by Rolo

The new PS3 1.3 firmware fixes the 1080i issue. It is now available as an option in the display settings.

Great! One less thing for folks to nitpick and complain about!

[Blackraven]

Originally Posted by JTK

Great! One less thing for folks to nitpick and complain about!

It looks like it allows for more options.

Although it may not be a total fix, at least it offers options.

-----------------------------------------------------------

In another note, has anyone tried using Blu-ray media (PS3 games and/or movies) on an SD TV (or in other words @ 480 i/p resolution)

Anyone care to give comments and insights? Would there at least be no degradation of visual quality (compared to the same content fed on a PS2)? Would it at least be on the same level (if not better) than the PS2 in terms of SD content?

Or to simply put, can the average people expect a "least common denominator" for SD content played on a PS3 that would NOT have quality lower than (ie. equal to or better than) that of the PS2?

Hope to hear insights and opinions on this

[JTK]

Originally Posted by Blackraven

It looks like it allows for more options.

Although it may not be a total fix, at least it offers options.

-----------------------------------------------------------

In another note, has anyone tried using Blu-ray media (PS3 games and/or movies) on an SD TV (or in other words @ 480 i/p resolution)

Anyone care to give comments and insights? Would there at least be no degradation of visual quality (compared to the same content fed on a PS2)? Would it at least be on the same level (if not better) than the PS2 in terms of SD content?

Or to simply put, can the average people expect a "least common denominator" for SD content played on a PS3 that would NOT have quality lower than (ie. equal to or better than) that of the PS2?

Hope to hear insights and opinions on this

Not worth your time or the money. Save up and get an HDTV first before diving into the rest of it.

[Blu-ray San]

Originally Posted by dialog_gvf

I went with the 20GB because:

(1) I am updating my hard drive.
(2) I much prefer wired gigabit
(3) If I do go wireless, then ethernet wireless adapters are dirt cheap. And the radio transmitter can be placed "far" away from the video circuitry.

The memory card reader is a non-feature, since my USB dongle card readers work fine.

Gary

....like I said, I'm holding off for the 60 GB version to avoid all of this and the sweet chrome trim in the front of the console is a nice touch. No offense.

[Rolo]

FYI
I have a ps3 60 gig. The wireless range of the ps3 is not that great. I had to use my laptop as a hub to get hooked up to the web. My laptop is 3 rooms away from my wireless router and it reads at 85-90% signal strength. The ps3 in the same room reads 40-50% so it would drop me from my router from time to time. I don't know if a firmware would fix the problem.

Still I'm happy to have one.

[partridge]

Buy a signal booster!

[MFS3Kiryu]

Just hooked this baby up to a Sony Bravia XBR2. God, the picture looks sooooo good. Tomorrow I'm going out and buying Kingdom of Heaven in Blu-Ray, possibly Black Hawk Down.

[jason]

so yesterday I go into work and I see a 60gb ps3 sitting on the ground next to a customer and I instantly got all antsy... got screwed on the 60 so ended up getting the 20gb, extra controller and ridge racer 7.. cost me around $535 with tax not to bad I suppose. so my question is, Ive read talladega nights sucks in the pq range, and it did, so I bought tears of the sun. Now I own an hd dvd player and get nearly no noise in playback.. now tears of the sun was almost as bad to me, tons of noise even in the light scenes (curious if this is noise or grain now?) but yeah not so convinced that one is better than the other.

Is it the ps3? movies? not tv because hd dvd looks great..

I have..

20gb ps3
rca hd dvd player (both with hdmi)
mitsubishi 57" 732 model (newest model)

[GoldenRedux]

Originally Posted by MFS3Kiryu

Just hooked this baby up to a Sony Bravia XBR2. God, the picture looks sooooo good. Tomorrow I'm going out and buying Kingdom of Heaven in Blu-Ray, possibly Black Hawk Down.

Two excellent BD discs indeed. Another great title I would recommend is The Unforgiven.

[GoldenRedux]

Originally Posted by jason

so yesterday I go into work and I see a 60gb ps3 sitting on the ground next to a customer and I instantly got all antsy... got screwed on the 60 so ended up getting the 20gb, extra controller and ridge racer 7.. cost me around $535 with tax not to bad I suppose. so my question is, Ive read talladega nights sucks in the pq range, and it did, so I bought tears of the sun. Now I own an hd dvd player and get nearly no noise in playback.. now tears of the sun was almost as bad to me, tons of noise even in the light scenes (curious if this is noise or grain now?) but yeah not so convinced that one is better than the other.

Is it the ps3? movies? not tv because hd dvd looks great..

I have..

20gb ps3
rca hd dvd player (both with hdmi)
mitsubishi 57" 732 model (newest model)

Not the greatest titles in the world for PQ. Check out Kingdom of Heaven, Black Hawk Down and The Unforgiven for starters for some really great looking BD titles.

[jason]

couldnt find black hawk down, that was the one I wanted but maybe today since I have the day off, and thank you for not getting on the defensive.

[GoldenRedux]

Originally Posted by jason

couldnt find black hawk down, that was the one I wanted but maybe today since I have the day off, and thank you for not getting on the defensive.

Hey, nothing to get defensive about. There's no denying that Sony and some other studios dropped the ball on some of the BD releases, and they never should have seen the light of day. For the most part, things have been getting better, but there have been some bad releases on both sides, most recently the HD DVD/BD release of Superman Returns which is getting wildly inconsistent reviews. Some people love it, some people hate it - I happen to hate it.

Some other BD titles you may want to check out: Good Night and Good Luck, The Corpse Bride and MI:III. And happy hunting.

[Deciazulado]

Also, always check the sharpness setting on your TV and/or player. A sharpness setting for one source might not be the best for another. I've seen High Definition content so oversharpened it makes you wanna hide, and also so soft it looks like VHS. In them olden times, even some Laserdisc players had a "soft picture" button because some sets had the sharpness default very high to compensate for softer sources like TV and VHS and Laserdiscs thru it looked like steel and glass with nails. In the wrong way.

[MFS3Kiryu]

Just calibrated my set as per something I found on the AVS forums last night. I didn't see a Blu-Ray/PS3 optimized calibration for my TV(Sony Bravia XBR2 40inch).

Just have a quick question, anyone have the T2 Ultimate/Extreme edition? If you do has anyone tried to run the 1080p movie that's supposed to be a PC exclusive on the PS3? Just wondering because if it can do that then I don't need to shell out for the BD release and can just pick up the Extreme for $6.

[WriteSimply]

Originally Posted by MFS3Kiryu

Just calibrated my set as per something I found on the AVS forums last night. I didn't see a Blu-Ray/PS3 optimized calibration for my TV(Sony Bravia XBR2 40inch).

Just have a quick question, anyone have the T2 Ultimate/Extreme edition? If you do has anyone tried to run the 1080p movie that's supposed to be a PC exclusive on the PS3? Just wondering because if it can do that then I don't need to shell out for the BD release and can just pick up the Extreme for $6.

That version won't run. First, it's WMVHD (version 9). What's on the PS3 "can play" list is VC-1, an advance version of that.

Secondly, that version has a DRM which requires you to acquire a playback license from Microsoft (the licence is free). But from what I heard the server where you can acquire this license has been down for a while. So even if you want to watch it on your PC, you can't. At least, this part I'm not sure of.

Lionsgate may release this Ultimate Edition version on BD since it reportedly has a better transfer than the one currently on BD. It's cleaner with broader color range.


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