THE PS3 NATION

Competition is good! Just last week I was admiring how awesome the addition of Divx playback to the Xbox 360 was. It allowed me to view downloaded content easily on a large screen, instead of my PC monitor. As a result of all the positive feedback, it seems that Sony has decided to follow suit with their console as well.

The new firmware revision 2.10 for the Playstation 3 will feature, among other things, full Divx playback functionality. This is a great step in the right direction and gives costumers even more reason to own the PS3.

Firmware 2.10 will also include some other interesting features. Among them, is Blu-ray 1.1 functionality, a voice-changer for video and audio chat, and BD Data support. I’ve copy and pasted the relevent info from the official site below.

The PLAYSTATION 3 system software version 2.10 update includes the following:

Voice Changer
The Voice Changer feature has been added to voice / video chat. Visit the Voice Changer guide in Help & Support under PS3 at eu.playstation.com for more details.

Using this feature, you can change the tone of a voice that is input from an audio device such as a microphone. High and low-pitched tones can each be adjusted to five preset levels. You can vary the tone when using voice / video chat under Friends.

Music
You can now select [Type 3] as an option under Settings > [Music Settings] > [Bitmapping]. This bitmapping process was developed specifically for the PS3TM system to enhance audio playback.

Video
DivX and VC-1 (WMV) have been added to the types of files that can be played. *
Blu-ray Disc Profile 1.1 is now supported. **
[BD Data Utility] has been added. ***

*- To play VC-1 (WMV) format files, you must go to Settings > [System Settings] and set [Enable WMA Playback].
- Copyright-protected files or files that were encoded by using DivX 3.11 cannot be played. - Files that are 2GB or more cannot be played.
** You may now be able to use several additional features such as playback of two videos at the same time with Profile 1.1-compatible Blu-ray Discs. The available features vary depending on the disc.
*** The management data that is used by the Blu-ray Disc is saved.

Come and discuss these update on our forums and let us know what you think of the Playstation 3.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 17th, 2007 at 12:28 pm and is filed under Hardware, Software. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.