PS3 and 360 for Media Purposes

martinturner

martinturner

martinturner

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A mate of mine likes both the PS3 and 360 ... both have great titles are indeed really great machines. He is about to buy a media streamer made by Linksys and then plans to getting a console at a later date. I suggested its worth investigating what the consoles can do first before committing £200 on a media streamer. May be the streamer is a waste of cash?

What we would like to know is whether both consoles can play xvid/divx and h264 files? I know the 360 has just had a dashboard update which I believe plays these formats. The other big thread, shows some who can and some who cannot. Its also really confusing as to why? I also dont know what the PS3 can play, if anything video?

Can someone give me a simple breakdown of what formats each one can and cannot play. Can you plug in a big USB hard disc into each one and play the files contained within?

Thanks, if I have not been clear on anything please shout. :)
 
The PS3 is due to have DiVX and XViD support soon and will play files from a portable hard drive. Not sure if either PS3 or 360 have h264 support though!
 
ps3 update will add divx support too, and it can already play h264 files.

They both only read FAT32 so you cannot play big HD files straight from it, you would need to have these split into parts.
 
martinturner said:
A mate of mine likes both the PS3 and 360 ... both have great titles are indeed really great machines. He is about to buy a media streamer made by Linksys and then plans to getting a console at a later date. I suggested its worth investigating what the consoles can do first before committing £200 on a media streamer. May be the streamer is a waste of cash?

What we would like to know is whether both consoles can play xvid/divx and h264 files? I know the 360 has just had a dashboard update which I believe plays these formats. The other big thread, shows some who can and some who cannot. Its also really confusing as to why? I also dont know what the PS3 can play, if anything video?

Can someone give me a simple breakdown of what formats each one can and cannot play. Can you plug in a big USB hard disc into each one and play the files contained within?

Thanks, if I have not been clear on anything please shout. :)
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The streamer may well be a waste of money, (if you can advise the model number I can provide more detailed reasons why).

martinturner said:
Does the new 360 update not play h264 files. Are they .mkv?

Cheers
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.mkv is a file container format. The 360 and ps3 do not support this natively, however they do support the video and/or audio stream within the file. So a relatively quick conversion can make your mkv file playable on either machine. (It would not be a full re-encode, which may well take ages, depending on your PC spec)


rp2000
 
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Linksys KiSS 1600 - HD Media Player is the media steamer he was looking at. It does look like a nice piece of kit, but I am adamant about it major purpose being something that can already be done on a console, as I have a feeling he may well buy one as well.
 
martinturner said:
Linksys KiSS 1600 - HD Media Player is the media steamer he was looking at. It does look like a nice piece of kit, but I am adamant about it major purpose being something that can already be done on a console, as I have a feeling he may well buy one as well.
Click to expand...

I have read about this particular model before (not recently though). Whilst it has much better format support than a 360 or ps3 (although after the 360 update it may be closer), and is liable to be updated much more (linksys do not have a revenue stream to potect like 360/PS3). Streaming genuine HD over wifi is always going to be iffy for a multitude of reasons (signal strength/lack of consistent signal/other household devices and so many more). This would be an issue for the consoles as well.

Its a good piece of kit and there are some advantages over the 360/ps3 as it supports UPnP so can be used with other consumer electronics devices (360 supports propriety Media Extenders and PS3 supports DNLA which are both less common). I know this for a fact a s I have a NAS unit that supports UPnP but that wont work with either console (I own both) Also the Linksys uses standard connectors so you can use your own component/scart/ etc cables. I think the Linksys certainly has more flexibility long term, but both MS and Sony have done some amazing things with their software updates.

Beyond that it really is a case of whether he will use wired/wireless and whether he wants to pay that much for a device that may only do a few more things than a 360 or ps3. and what sort of TV he has etc.

Not the answers you may have sought, but when you compare a good product with a good product it is hard!!

One final thing to bear in mind is the Linksys is over 1 year old and I would not be surprised if a wireless N version came out soon. Also I am not certain if it plays .mkv natively either (I am not even sure any external streamers support that full stop).


rp2000
 
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H.264 files can be contained in either the WMV/ASF container (which only the 360 can play), an MP4 container (which both consoles can play) or an MPG Program Stream or M2TS (MPEG-2 Transport Stream) which only the PS3 can play.
 
martinturner said:
Linksys KiSS 1600 - HD Media Player is the media steamer he was looking at. It does look like a nice piece of kit, but I am adamant about it major purpose being something that can already be done on a console, as I have a feeling he may well buy one as well.
Click to expand...

I hope it's a big improvement on the DP600. I own one of those and although the Linksys firmware is a leap forward over the KISS junk it still doesn;t support all the features it claims to on the box (lack of 5.1 speaker support being my biggest gripe).
Does have a pretty animation of a dolphin on the LED though:rolleyes:
 
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