I fully intend to disable the internet connection the next time I watch a BR movie (Casino Royale is next up in the queue.) This will let me know if this workaround is effective (and I'm guessing that it probably will be since others here have reported success). Besides, it only involves a bit of menu surfing to turn the Internet connection on or off.
But, as you probably have realized from my previous posts, I consider this a temporary solution and not something that we should accept as a final one. If this drags on for some time then I will probably leave the wireless in the "on" position most of the time because the freezing is a minor annoyance and I do use some of the online features on a daily basis (I'm a Sudoku addict). However, rest assured that I would always turn the wireless off if guests were present because it really would be an obvious flaw in the PS3's ability as an HD disc player.
Yes, it does seem that every HD player out there has its quirks. I currently have three players - my BR PS3, my original Toshiba XA-1 HD-DVD, and my XBox360 HD-DVD add-on. The XBox360 lacks HDMI (so no HD Audio codecs), the XA-1 is agonizingly slow to load/change/react and the PS3, up until this first glitch, has been the best of the lot in terms of operational performance. Since it was a firmware update that caused this problem as far as I can tell then it will probably be an additional firmware update that will cure it - at least I hope so. That's the nature of FW upgrades - they fix something only to affect something else. Because of the quick turnaround time between FW updates the early adopters become the beta testers.
Don't you all love the bleeding edge?
then putting in the newest firmware ( 1.6 ) and watching Kingdom of Heaven for 1/2 hour and having no problems. This was at 3AM this morning, so tonight I'll give it go and play through a couple of movies.
