When things just work
I love it when things just work.
My son got a Playstation 3 for Christmas. This is cool for a number of reasons, some of which may surprise you. Firstly, you can play games on it. (Yes, really!). But games have changed with the advent of the latest generation of graphics processors. Playing a game like Assassin’s Creed is more like watching (and taking part in) a movie – the graphics are just so good.
It’s also a Blu-Ray Disc player. When you first watch a Blu-Ray disc on a high definition (I mean a real Hi-Def – 1080p) screen, you should prepare to be impressed. I wasn’t prepared and it caught me off guard. I didn’t realise how low the graphics level was on standard DVDs until I saw a Blu-Ray.
It also plays standard DVDs, burnt DVDs (of your own video, of course), CDs and almost any shiny round plastic thing you may have lying around.
But none of that is surprising. What surprised me was how easy it connected to my home network and just started doing everything. It plays my music, shows my photos and all the video I have on my main media server (well, not everything .... but almost). The latest firmware includes DivX decoding, so most things play straight off. For those that don’t, the free media server software I use (TVersity) transcodes on the server and streams to the PS3. That is what I found surprising.
However, my kids didn’t. They didn’t know explicitly that the PS3 could do all of those things, but they weren’t surprised to learn that it did. There was an expectation that it would do everything. When I pointed out that there wasn’t a TV tuner, I was told that this year there would be. When that happens, I’ll probably retire the Home Theatre PC that took me months to build and configure – I simply won’t need it. My wife will stand there shaking her head (again) as another project that took so much of my time and effort is superseded by mainstream technology.
Good job I can use it for the Airbus cockpit Joe and I are building :o)
DrJim
Image citations
PS3 : http://www.flickr.com/photos/trojandan/14870383/
TVersity Logo : www.tversity.com
My son got a Playstation 3 for Christmas. This is cool for a number of reasons, some of which may surprise you. Firstly, you can play games on it. (Yes, really!). But games have changed with the advent of the latest generation of graphics processors. Playing a game like Assassin’s Creed is more like watching (and taking part in) a movie – the graphics are just so good.
It’s also a Blu-Ray Disc player. When you first watch a Blu-Ray disc on a high definition (I mean a real Hi-Def – 1080p) screen, you should prepare to be impressed. I wasn’t prepared and it caught me off guard. I didn’t realise how low the graphics level was on standard DVDs until I saw a Blu-Ray.
It also plays standard DVDs, burnt DVDs (of your own video, of course), CDs and almost any shiny round plastic thing you may have lying around.
But none of that is surprising. What surprised me was how easy it connected to my home network and just started doing everything. It plays my music, shows my photos and all the video I have on my main media server (well, not everything .... but almost). The latest firmware includes DivX decoding, so most things play straight off. For those that don’t, the free media server software I use (TVersity) transcodes on the server and streams to the PS3. That is what I found surprising.
However, my kids didn’t. They didn’t know explicitly that the PS3 could do all of those things, but they weren’t surprised to learn that it did. There was an expectation that it would do everything. When I pointed out that there wasn’t a TV tuner, I was told that this year there would be. When that happens, I’ll probably retire the Home Theatre PC that took me months to build and configure – I simply won’t need it. My wife will stand there shaking her head (again) as another project that took so much of my time and effort is superseded by mainstream technology.
Good job I can use it for the Airbus cockpit Joe and I are building :o)
DrJim
Image citations
PS3 : http://www.flickr.com/photos/trojandan/14870383/
TVersity Logo : www.tversity.com
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