2 posts tagged “playstation 3”
Renting and Purchasing Movies -- Sony vs. AppleTV:
Pricing for SD and HD (up to 1080p) content seems appropriate and is based upon the size and resolution of the content. One feature of note is the ability to transfer your purchases and rentals to up to 3 PSP's. Impressive! But, there's a glitch for rentals. You have up to 14 days to view your movie and 24 hours once viewing has begun before your rented content is erased from your PS3's harddrive. Compare that to AppleTV (iTunes) which gives you 30 days with the same 24 hour viewing limit. Personally, I wish they would give us 3 days; some of us have kids who need attention every 20 minutes (even when they SHOULD be asleep). However, Apple only offers rentals at up to 720p for HD, even though the AppleTV is capable of 1080p . Neither service requires a subscription, unlike Netflix. With both AppleTV and Playstation Store, you begin watching the movie withing minutes of beginning the download without waiting for for the download to complete.
Verdict?
As a PS3 owner who has enjoyed the ability to download HD movie trailers (though they need more!), I have been eagerly anticipating these new features since they were first announced. While I probably won't purchase movies this way, since I prefer to have the media, I am anxious to try this new service for rentals. When I do, I'll post the experience here to my blog. Stay tuned...
If you have been reading this blog, then you know that I purchased a Toshiba HD-DVD player as an early birthday present in November. I am still disappointed with how the format war ended but I accept the fact that I bet on the wrong horse. I knew that might happen and made my decision based on the assumption that my purchase was counting as a "vote" for the HD-DVD format. If more consumers chose Blu-ray, then so be it. Unfortunately, nothing could be farther from the truth. With HD-DVD players costing half as much as the cheapest Blu-ray player (before they all went on sale), HD-DVD players were selling quite well and all signs pointed to an HD-DVD victory. Instead, this war was settled by the greed of movie studio executives and the customer now has to pay the higher cost of the hardware in order to enjoy the SAME hi-definition experience. It's quite sad, really.
That brings us up to a few days ago, when my parents saw this story on ABC News and called me immediately. Circuit City was allowing those who purchased HD-DVD players (namely Toshiba) to receive an in-store credit or gift card for the purchase price of their unit. The news was like a choir of angels offering hope where none should have been found. Despite the fact that my player was purchased just prior to the start of the 90 window mentioned in the story, Circuit City extended the credit to me and gained a HUGE Circuit City fan in the process. All I needed was to return the player, remote, power cord and user manual. That's it! No box or UPC necessary. Thanks, Circuit City!
So, now what? After some research, I purchased a Sony Playstation 3 (refund + $200) which features the Blu-Ray player capable of playing regular DVD's and upscaling them to 1080p resolution. The purchase of a remote for the PS3 was necessary, however, since the PS3 uses Bluetooth technology and my Harmony universal remote would not work with it. At $25, it was a good investment. (Thanks for the advice, freezal.)
So far, I am very happy with the player. There were a couple of snafus with the setup, however. I had purchased the Pixar Shorts on DVD but was unable to play it until I upgraded the firmware. This is easily done over the internet (wi-fi or wired) or via a USB thumbdrive. Nice touch, Sony! Once upgraded, the PS3 performed marvelously.
The only other issue I had was in adding the PS3 to my wireless network. For some reason, when it attempted to connect to my home network, all wireless devices on that network (including our main printer) lost connection. Pretty weird! After changing the wi-fi name, channel and security settings, it all worked great!
I am not a "gamer" per se, but I can appreciate the computing power under the hood. I plan to add the Playstation 3 as a media extender so I can watch videos, listen to music/podcasts and view pictures from the comfort of my couch. Nice! Also, I am using the PS3 to help Standford find cures for diseases via the folding@home program. Oh yeah, and the Sonic game we bought has been a lot of fun for all.
