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Playstation 3 Web Browser / Television Show Quality

post #1 of 10
3/13/09 at 8:41am
Thread Starter 
I'm considering getting a PS3 in order to watch TV shows through its web browser. I don't have cable, Tivo, or any type of DVR, and I want to be able to watch shows that I missed when originally broadcast. So I'm looking for an idea of the audio / video quality when watching a show through PS3's web browser on a site like Hulu or Sci Fi Rewind. Is the PS3 a viable option for that, or would I be better off buying a DVD recorder?
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post #2 of 10
3/13/09 at 8:46am

Re: Playstation 3 Web Browser / Television Show Quality

Should be OK. Its good for webbrowsing and some over the net watching of TV shows. But picture quality is always a subjective thing. A good PQ for me maybe unacceptable for u so... My advice is to try and see one and judge for urself.
BTW, Netflix won't run on it. The 360 has that and PS3's browser isn't supported by Netflix.
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post #3 of 10
3/13/09 at 8:54am
Thread Starter 

Re: Playstation 3 Web Browser / Television Show Quality

Thanks. Would you say that the PS3 is a good standalone DVD player overall? From my limited research, it sounds like universal remotes won't work with it. Has that ever been resolved?

Yeah, I knew about the Netflix thing. I don't want to pay a monthly Netflix fee plus a monthly XBox live fee, which is why I'm leaning to the PS3 over the 360.
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post #4 of 10
3/13/09 at 9:57am

Re: Playstation 3 Web Browser / Television Show Quality

i use ps3 for my main player and am happy with it.

I never thought about the universal remote issue, but it makes sense because it transmits by bluetooth.
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post #5 of 10
3/13/09 at 2:33pm
Thread Starter 

Re: Playstation 3 Web Browser / Television Show Quality

I did a little more research, and it looks like an IR dongle can be purchased for $10-$15 that'll make it compatible with a universal remote. That's good.

I'm leaning towards buying one. Thanks for your feedback.
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post #6 of 10
3/13/09 at 5:47pm

Re: Playstation 3 Web Browser / Television Show Quality

For IR remote capability, you can try the relatively inexpensive Nyko Blu-Wave solution. However, it won't support power on -- and you'll also need to navigate menus for various other items like audio track switching, power off, etc. since the Nyko remote doesn't have those commands directly on the remote (for your universal to learn). If you want a more complete solution (and you have a Harmony remote), you'll have to spend more and try to get something like the hard-to-find, but popular, custom-made IR2BT module.

RE: video playback via the web browser, I haven't tried it too much, but NBC's online TV show video streaming doesn't seem to work w/ the PS3's browser. I suspect the problem stems from the way they use Flash scripts to insert commercials and force you to watch them. When I try it, my browser just gets stuck right at the very beginning. I also get what seems to be the same problem from videos on CNN's site. YouTube seems to work fine, but they don't generally force any commercials or whatever other funky stuff that could cause problems.

Basically, the PS3's web browser support for Flash is (still) pretty new and basic, so don't expect it to work well in many cases (at least for now). But that could possibly change in the not-too-distant future as Sony continues to work on (fairly frequent) software updates.

_Man_
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post #7 of 10
3/13/09 at 6:10pm
Thread Starter 

Re: Playstation 3 Web Browser / Television Show Quality

Thanks for the info. That definitely gives me reservations. The PS3 would not be the out of the box solution I was hoping for.
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post #8 of 10
3/23/09 at 2:27pm

Re: Playstation 3 Web Browser / Television Show Quality

The PS3's web browser is confined to using the RAM only with no virtual memory used on the hard drive. In pages with use of Flash you can sometimes get an out of memory error. I get this often when testing my bandwidth on speedtest.net.
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post #9 of 10
3/24/09 at 12:59pm

Re: Playstation 3 Web Browser / Television Show Quality

You can just use the PS3 controller to navigate DVDs and BluRay discs. It's not as convenient as a universal remote but it's pretty simple to use once you've done it like once or twice.

In terms of streaming from Hulu, you can definitely do that. Sony updated the browser late last year to add support for this. The only issue is that the image (quality and framerate) isn't quite great, but it gets the job done. You can also watch video on your PS3 via a few different options: 1 - download a video through the browser, 2 - put a video on a CD/DVD/memory card (if you get the PS3 that still has the memory card slots), 3 - stream it from your computer using software like TVersity (I use this and it works very well).

EDIT: Also, in regards to streaming Netflix. Microsoft has a deal with them that could potentially be extended to the PS3 (and even the Wii) by the end of the year. You can't stream videos right now, however. That said, the 360 does not have a web browser at all so you can't use websites like YouTube or Hulu on it.
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post #10 of 10
3/24/09 at 1:12pm
Thread Starter 

Re: Playstation 3 Web Browser / Television Show Quality

Thanks for the info. I've shelved the idea of getting a PS3. I think a Home Theater PC will be a better solution for me. That will cost more than a PS3 (probably around $500-$600 for everything), but I think that it offers significant advantages as a media center (not for gaming obviously, but that's not my primary interest). For now I'll just be using a Toshiba DVR for recording shows, and working towards building a HTPC as I can find good deals on the components.
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