What if someone has no interest in video games?

Then just use it as a blu ray dvd player

I have bought a PS3 today. It's cool - set-up was easy - have it connected to my TV using HDMI in place of my SD DVD player. It detected all of the correct video and audio settings itself. Have tried Blu Ray and DVDs. All look fab! Way better than my expectations. Also - have connected the PS3 to my wireless router and I surfed zulm.net using my TV. Was quite interesting to see the screen shots zoomed in to the TV I would be watching the actual DVD on! I need to get a wireless keyboard for it and then I'll be good to go.

I thought that my wife would kill me when I brought it home - but she is pretty impressed so far especially as she can surf the net using the TV.

Anyway - glad I got it and would recommend it and thanks to those who recommended it to me.

I would still recommend it as the best BD/DVD player as well .. I think the others who have it agree with me here ..


Congrats on the purchase Bhai .. and welcome to the PS3 Club!

A 40GB PS3 is not really more expensive than just a BR player, then.

What is the hard drive in a PS3 for?

You can use the hard drive to store music and photos. I dodn't know about this before and I was really surprised by how much fun it was to store photos on the PS3 and use their slide show to watch them. The slide-show is really clever - I used portrait mode and we sat until the early hours of the morning watching photos that we haven't seen for a long time. This will be great the next time we have family visiting!

Also - you can store music on the PS3 and movies. It plays DIVx (I watched some DIVx stuff on it). It's a very flexible system and doesn't look bad at all in my media cabinet.

I'm probably going to fill up the 80GB drive pretty quickly with photos and music. I'll be looking in to buying a larger drive or perhaps hooking up and external drive to the system. At least I finally have a back-up for my photos and music.

But not to get too off-topic - this is the best Blu Ray player out there at the moment. The latest Panny BD30 player has numerous bugs in it - they may well be sorted out - but who knows?!

where did u get the 80gb ps3 i didn't think they were out here in the UK ???

I now live in the US.

congrats muz! 80gb wow! free game with it too!

btw did you watch divx burnt on cd or off of usb thumb drive?

I had some DIVx that I had created on DVD+r - watched it from the DVD - but also copied it on to the PS3 and watched it from the PS3 HDD. I'm really glad that I got the recommendation for this - I didn't want to buy a games console - as I don't want to spend too much time playing games but I just will limit how many games I buy! All in all the more I read about standalone players this is by far the best choice for Blu Ray playback.

I have one of the first batch BDP-30K. Probably watched around 30 blu-ray disks so far! Not a single problem.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7187179.stm

Blu-ray future limited for some

Owners of Blu-ray DVD players may find themselves frozen out of future developments in the technology because their machines are not upgradeable.

The Blu-ray camp has recently rolled out new features for players, which include picture in picture options.

But the majority of Blu-ray players sold to date do not have the necessary hardware to offer the features.

Some discs already come with a note telling users that they may need to upgrade software in their machine.

In some discs, the note reads: "To ensure the best possible viewing experience, your Blu-ray disc player may need a firmware or software update."

But these updates relate to improvements in playback and do not offer a pathway to the new features.

The issue has arisen as Blu-ray attempts to offer new features to compete with rival standard HD-DVD.

When the first Blu-ray machines were launched the hardware requirements for manufacturers did not include provision for planned developments.

Instead Blu-ray players were divided into so-called "profiles", with all machines released before November 2007 designated as profile 1.0.

Machines released onto the market since November are called profile 1.1, but none of the standalone Blu-ray players can be upgraded to accommodate this profile.

Films will still play on the machines, but access to extra features is limited.

Later this year the Blu-ray camp will offer profile 2.0, called BD Live, which will allow the players which support the feature to connect to the internet to download related content, such as ringtones, trailers and photos.

But because internet functionality is not a mandatory requirement in current players, none on the market today will be able to access the feature.

The only Blu-ray player which can upgraded to use all the features is Sony's PlayStation 3, because it comes with the right hardware built-in and online access.

Consumer confusion

Frank Simonis, of Philips and the European chairman of the Blu-ray Disc Association, said the division of Blu-ray players into potentially three camps was "not an ideal situation".

But he denied that consumers would be confused.

"Whether you have a profile 1.0, or profile 1.1 machine, the playback is not disturbed. It's the high definition playback that consumers are seeking."

Philips has just released its first player which supports profile 1.1 and Mr Simonis confirmed that older players could not be upgraded.

Mr Simonis said the reason Blu-ray backers had launched players which could not be upgraded was one of timing.

He said: "The discussions relating to features took place at a point in time when every hardware company had frozen the architecture for their first generation of players.

"We needed to create momentum and get the players on the market. If we had postponed launch to add in the hardware for the latest features, we would not be in the situation we have today."

The release of players which cannot be upgraded was unlikely to ease consumer confusion around high definition DVD players, said Alastair Upham, editor of DVD Review magazine.

"One of the big problems with the Blu-ray format when launched, and something which gave the HD-DVD camp ammunition, was that Blu-ray wasn't finished - they hadn't agreed on a standard.

"And that problem means that an early adopter of Blu-ray could have spent £1,000 on a player only to find he potentially can't play newer releases.

Blu-ray boost

"So while there are discs out there with better features, if you have an earlier player you can't take advantage of this."

The Blu-ray camp received a boost at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week when film studio Warner dropped support for HD-DVD in favour of its rival.

But Mr Upham said the format had a lot of work yet to do to reassure consumers they are safe to upgrade from DVD.

He added: "If Blu-ray wants to reach a wider audience, it needs to have more clarity."

But he said the likely victims of the Blu-ray profiles issue was almost certainly a limited audience.

"The guys that bought the first Blu-ray players are the guys who bought the first laser discs. They know the risks."

Wrong. The PS3 has it and the vast majority of players sold are PS3. PS3 owners are safe. Most people don't care about PIP anyway. They want to see the film and that's it.

Imho, PS3 is most upgradeable machine! I just saw it supports 1.1 will do 2.2 format too!
Sony is working with DTS to see DTS MASTER HD compatibility!

Divx is compatible too now!

This is fastest, sounds the best.

Also heard that PS3 (and Xbox 360) can stream any HD media using TVersity inc HD x264/H264 encodes with the .mkv Matroska container;

http://www.tversity.com/

Ali