GKPE 6 - 3 years on

MercuryFree wrote in post #7910311
I hear that times have changed and now it is merely 'average' (as the original standalone blu-ray players weren't any good at all, but now they are).

Yes, in the last few months some new models have come out that give the ps3 more of a run for it's money if you are purely looking at it for blu-ray.
Of course you can't use them as a "media hub" or for playing games on.
The price of stand alone blu-ray players has also dropped a lot more than the ps3 since I bought mine, so I suspect that if I was doing the same exercise again now Daniel would still be playing games on a PS2 (because games aren't that important to me!) but I would miss the media features, which I do use sometimes.
I also like the fact that sony are constantly adding new features to the ps3 through firmware updates. Since I got it they have added BD live (which made it the first BD live capable player available in NZ I believe), and all the lossless sound formats (only through pcm over hdmi so still won't work with my amp) among other things. To get these features added to a standalone player you would have had to have bought a new player, and sony gave them to me for free!
So it comes down to what is important to you personally. Blu-ray was my main requirement, media hub and games secondary. And the lossless sound formats are a non issue to me because I'm happy with my current sound setup (and I don't even dare to ask the CFO to approve new amp.) And at the time there wasn't much price difference between a ps3 and blu-ray player.
I'm still hanging out for play-tv so I can turn it into a highdef harddrive recorder!!

Moppie wrote in post #7897805
Anyone else see the Cliff(e)?

https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=691874

Cool, world famous in, um, nowhere really. I do like the shot, but the other one I got Dave to send me should be awesome on the wall. If nothing else I can stare at it in the years to come and remember what it was like to race a car.....(I might be back into it in around 5 years or so I'd say, but for now, other aspects of life beckon).

Moppie, did I see you on Espalier Dr in Henderson on Monday afternoon - if not, you have a twin.

Cliff

klippe wrote in post #7910839
Moppie, did I see you on Espalier Dr in Henderson on Monday afternoon - if not, you have a twin.

Cliff

Must have been my evil twin (which is a very, VERY scary thought).
I was no where near Henderson on monday.

Sancho wrote in post #7909765
Have spoken to them it would be covered while on my property, then the customers insurance would take effect

The customers insurance will not cover a hired item. Even if it did, you would trust them to give you the money???

You would need to take out additional insurance cover and add it to the hire cost. As Tony said - a pain in the ass...

Cyborg Death Ninja wrote in post #7909486
Yeah it was a bit of tongue and cheek But seriously, they better option imo is to build your own XBMC box.

Would you get as much PC for your money? By the time you pay for a windows licence, blu-ray drive, case which looks good under your tv... doesn't leave much for the rest if you take it out of the $750 odd price of a ps3.

Sancho wrote in post #7908641
Ohhh, can it play .mkv files? Our projector has 720p res and I am sick of streaming low res divx to it. I was playing with the 360 lastnight funnily enough trying to make it stream media, got it working but it doesnt seem to like the .mkv format which most high def divx's seem to be. First time I had turned the 360 on in 15 months LOL I was quite shocked when I saw the last entry date.

Issue with mkv files is they're often over 4GB, which is over the fat32 file size limit for external drives and usb keys. This means you need to stream them (unless you can copy them over the wire to the ps3 - I haven't worked this out)- TVersity works well for streaming (probably streams to your xbox too hehe). You also need to re-mux the mkv files into a vob format (I don't understand it really, but I think remuxing basically just changes the 'container' - it doesn't re-encode so you don't lose quality). I have streamed blu-ray (remuxed mkv's) to the ps3 over ethernet no probs, brilliant picture and sound quality. Haven't chanced it over wireless yet.. heh.

momentz wrote in post #7910955
Would you get as much PC for your money? By the time you pay for a windows licence, blu-ray drive, case which looks good under your tv... doesn't leave much for the rest if you take it out of the $750 odd price of a ps3.

You can build a pretty decent HDMI media centre for running XBMC for under $750. Keep in mind that XBMC is OS independent and can run of a flash drive, so no need for HHDs or OS licencing. XBMC is also free and opensource, not to mention it's easily the most powerful media centre OS/Software. The advantages of XBMC being opensource are almost endless, it means addon scripts and applications can be developed allowing users to do a myriad of things such as running emulators, ripping (backups of your) DVDs to network drives, etc.

Even if you did pay more to build your own XBMC then I'd still say the extra pennys are worth it, and 3 years down the track it's upgradable. No you can't play PS3 games on it but that's why you buy a Wii

Oh, and a true technophile doesn't care about the case, anything that keeps it cool and quiet will suffice; If that means a cardboard box then so be it.

EDIT: I'm obviously a total fan boy for XBMC (and Wii) so it's all IMO.
To be fair after saying all that I should also the point out that it can be quite a bit of work setting everything up which some weird people like me find fun, but I can completely understand why someone would want to avoid all that.

With all this tech-speak going on, I feel the need to throw in a whole bunch of acronyms.

But I won't.

momentz wrote in post #7904755
Yussssss

http://www.engadget.co​m …tation-3-official-real-an

I actually bought the pukka PS3 remote.

scotttnz wrote in post #7910734
and sony gave them to me for free!

well free-ish.

momentz wrote in post #7910955
Issue with mkv files is they're often over 4GB, which is over the fat32 file size limit for external drives and usb keys.

Have you seen this WDTV media player? It's a cracking little piece of techie stuff. Plays HDMI and uses external HDDs.

Cyborg Death Ninja wrote in post #7911124
You can build a pretty decent HDMI media centre for running XBMC for under $750. Keep in mind that XBMC is OS independent and can run of a flash drive, so no need for HHDs or OS licencing. XBMC is also free and opensource, not to mention it's easily the most powerful media centre OS/Software. The advantages of XBMC being opensource are almost endless, it means addon scripts and applications can be developed allowing users to do a myriad of things such as running emulators, ripping (backups of your) DVDs to network drives, etc.

Even if you did pay more to build your own XBMC then I'd still say the extra pennys are worth it, and 3 years down the track it's upgradable. No you can't play PS3 games on it but that's why you buy a Wii

Oh, and a true technophile doesn't care about the case, anything that keeps it cool and quiet will suffice; If that means a cardboard box then so be it.

EDIT: I'm obviously a total fan boy for XBMC (and Wii) so it's all IMO.
To be fair after saying all that I should also the point out that it can be quite a bit of work setting everything up which some weird people like me find fun, but I can completely understand why someone would want to avoid all that.

Didn't know wii can play ps3 games?

(actually, if I was buying a console just for games, it would be a wii)

I'm suprised if the Blu-ray consortium have granted a copy protection licence key thingy to something open source? or have they given up on protecting that already?

The hard (and generally expensive) part of building a HT PC is making it quiet. Especially if you want it to have anough grunt to run High Def content well. Quietness is something the ps3 does well. Way better than an Xbox 360 in my experience. If they ever a release a Blu-ray drive for the 360, it better be way quieter than the HD-DVD drive they released. My washing machine on spin cycle is quieter than that was!

Oh......ummmm......and​......you can use the ps3 to display your photos on your tv too

Ok, there is my answer.....looking at the supported formats on the XBMC website, blu-ray is not listed. And given that I am not big on pirated content (I am getting more and more anti it!) that doesn't leave much in the way of HD content available in nz.

tag141 wrote in post #7911178
Have you seen this WDTV media player? It's a cracking little piece of techie stuff. Plays HDMI and uses external HDDs.

Hadn't actually. Is it expensive? Seeing as you're not meant to have 'copies' of hd media in NZ it's a bit cheeky lol.

*Snap Scottt

tag141 wrote in post #7911178
I actually bought the pukka PS3 remote.

I've not, because I hate having zillions of remotes! tv, dvd, ps3, reciever... argh. $99 Logitech Harmony is one of the best purchases I've ever made for the tv/home ent setup.

momentz wrote in post #7911333
$99 Logitech Harmony is one of the best purchases I've ever made for the tv/home ent setup.

I'm gonna look at getting 1 when the ps3 converter thingy is available here.

scotttnz wrote in post #7911239
Didn't know wii can play ps3 games?

(actually, if I was buying a console just for games, it would be a wii)

you probably shouldn't get me started on this. Lets just say as far as games go imo Wii>360>PS3. IMO

scotttnz wrote in post #7911239
I'm suprised if the Blu-ray consortium have granted a copy protection licence key thingy to something open source? or have they given up on protecting that already?

DRM can be bypassed, but we're now getting into a shady avenue of discussion and should probably let google do the talking from here. To be honest with you BluRay on XBMC hasn't been completely solved (yet!), but if you have the HD files they can be played fine.

scotttnz wrote in post #7911239
The hard (and generally expensive) part of building a HT PC is making it quiet. Especially if you want it to have anough grunt to run High Def content well. Quietness is something the ps3 does well. Way better than an Xbox 360 in my experience. If they ever a release a Blu-ray drive for the 360, it better be way quieter than the HD-DVD drive they released. My washing machine on spin cycle is quieter than that was!

You'd be supprised at how easy it is to make a slient machine these days what with all the new fangled passive cooling solutions. XBMC also allows you to set optimum temps and ajusts fan speeds accordingly.

scotttnz wrote in post #7911239
Oh......ummmm......and​......you can use the ps3 to display your photos on your tv too

Oh that's right I'm on the photography forums,.. Um,.. not only does XBMC display your photos it post processes them all for too.

jasestu wrote in post #7909654
Hmmm, ok, flip flopping again... From the US I can get it (Lumix DMC-ZS3 / TZ7) for around USD400 which puts it NZD100 cheaper than local. But of course that would mean warranty issues and power adaptor complications... For the sake of $100... Methinks I should suport local... Who's our favourite deal at the moment??

Dunno on deals. Harvey Noknob are about $100 more again than us here, but I've no idea what prices people are selling them at elsewhere. Stuff like that, people either buy them or they don't you know?

Panasonic = international warranty, though I've never sent a foreign Panasonic to NZ service, so how true that is I dunno. You would get one of those weird US chargers though, with no cable just a US plug built in, so you'd have to buy a US to NZ adapter and run it all the time. Panasonic chargers to buy seperately here are about $130 I think. Batteries are $120. And if you're buying a case for it, a Lowepro Ridge 30 fits it like a glove.

In other news, if you've any friends or family trying to buy Sony cameras or lenses, tell them to do it right NOW.

New stuff coming is going to be so unbelievably more expensive it's stupid. Unaware if that extends to TV's and PS3s etc.