# PS3 as Blu-ray / Firmware 1.9



## Wayde (Jun 5, 2006)

I just wrote about this one this morning - version 1.90 upgrade for PS3

The new service revision for PS3 is out and available for download now. For PS3 as a Blu-ray player it gives you a switch to force 1080P 24Hz output through HDMI. There are some who said they thought it was already doing this and that may be, but now you have option to toggle it on. There is nothing like knowing for sure I guess.


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## bobgpsr (Apr 20, 2006)

Some AVRs were not echoing through the right EDID from the display back to the PS3 player. This "Force" option forces the PS3 to do it (1080p24) even though it (the PS3) does not see 1080p24 capability for the display (due to being hidden by the AVR).


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## Wayde (Jun 5, 2006)

Hey Bob...

If the player is not playing back 1080P 24 but it is playing back 1080P - are the cycles going up or down? ie what are these 1080P players doing if not 1080P/24? I understand most don't.

Thanks in advance for any explaination.


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## bobgpsr (Apr 20, 2006)

Likely 1080p60 with the PS3 doing the 3:2 pullup. Not preferred for film source. :no:

Edit: ^^^ should be 2:3 pull-up, aka, "inverse telecine".


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## Wayde (Jun 5, 2006)

Thanks Bob. I figure rates were 60 by default because it’s the video scan rate. I just thought it was odd. But I have more questions if you don’t mind...

From what I understand the media itself (ie. the disc or movie) has to be encoded or written to 1080P/24 to get the best results. Is this true? Are all movies mastered this way on Blu-ray and HD DVD? Does it even matter? I might be confusing unrelated issues but... if the disc is written to a 1080P/24 image and your player can display 1080P/24 is there any actual 2:3 _pulldown_ occurring in the video processing?

What kind of symptoms could a viewer expect if he had a poor 1080P/60 with 2:3 pullup conversion going on under the hood of his new Blu-ray player? As opposed to a nice clean 1080P/24?

And lastly. If your 1080P HDTV can’t match the scan rate of your (1080P) HD disc player, from what I understand video will downsample to 1080i. Is this necessarily true? And if so, why? Why wouldn’t the HDTV just pulldown/pullup to its preferred scan-rate if the incoming video wasn’t compatible?

Thanks again in advance. I’d like to sort through facts and write a quick little piece on scan rates and what they mean to the average consumer. It’s likely that many people are just buying a 1080P HDTV and a 1080P source and calling it a day.


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## MrPorterhouse (Jul 29, 2006)

Updated mine. I like the customization of the background wallpaper. Just like with a PC desktop wallpaper, you can choose any picture and use that. 

Plus, now with 1.90, I get BTB back. Yippee!


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## Rodny Alvarez (Apr 25, 2006)

MrPorterhouse said:


> Plus, now with 1.90, I get BTB back. Yippee!


What is BTB??:dontknow:


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## bobgpsr (Apr 20, 2006)

Wayde said:


> From what I understand the media itself (ie. the disc or movie) has to be encoded or written to 1080P/24 to get the best results. Is this true? Are all movies mastered this way on Blu-ray and HD DVD? Does it even matter?...


Yes, all but a very few (which are video based instead of film based) titles on both Blu-ray and HD DVD are put on the disc as 1080p/24. The exceptions are mostly just a few music concerts, etc. HD DVD just adds flags so the player can easily do a 2:3 pull-up to convert to 1080i60. With HD DVD it is easy to mix 24 fps and 30 fps material -- whereas Blu-ray seems to be pickier about insisting on all 24fps if any at all. "_Blu-ray Disc supports 24p with its native timing, while HD DVD uses 60i timing for 24p (encoded progressively, replacing missing fields with "repeat field flags"). Decoders can ignore the “flags” to output 24p._" The result is that Blu-ray (future profile 1.1) will require PiP to be all 24 fps and not video sourced 30 fps (like what HD DVD allows). The big disadvantage of a display using 2:3 pull-up to get to a 60 Hz video refresh display is added discordant judder (slightly jerky) in the resulting motion picture -- noticable on slow pans or when the film credits scroll up. A display that uses an exact multiple of 24 Hz for video refresh (vertical sync) with exact mutiple (2:2 pull-up for 48 Hz refresh, 5:5 for 120 Hz refresh, etc.) avoids this extra jerky judder.

You seem to be ahead of me in that your are correctly using the term 2:3 pull-up aka inverse telecine to describe the conversion from 24 fps to 30 fps. I was using the term pull-down incorrectly for what goes on in a display device. :duh:

The can't do 1080p you speak of is more of an HDMI negotiation using the EDID info. If the player thinks from the EDID info it is receiving that the display can't do 1080p/24 or 1080p/60 it will revert to sending out 1080i60.

Good sources of info on this are: 
http://www.animemusicvideos.org/guides/avtech/video2.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse_telecine#Reverse_telecine_.28a.k.a._IVTC.2Finverse_telecine.29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/24p


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## Wayde (Jun 5, 2006)

Thanks again Bob. 
I did lots of reading. I liked the animemusicvideos.org guide to pulldown - explains it so even I can understand. 
I am amazed at how little the industry emphasizes framrates. I think people would be surprised how few HDTVs will support 1080P/24. 
I just talked to a friend who is also a calibration specialist and HDTV dealer that says his store only actually sells about three models of HDTV that can support 1080P/24. Most displays revert incoming signals to 1080P/60. 
That sort of confuses me… did he mean 1080i/60? Are today’s HDTVs adjusting incoming 1080P video to 1080P/60. Wouldn’t they be taking 1080i/60 and deinterlacing it?
From what I understand, extra frames in a 1080P/30/60 display from a 24 fps source can give you the jitters. Actually... how would you describe the negative symptoms viewing a 24fps source as 30fps? 
So… you set your Blu-ray player to output ‘auto’ it’s capable of 1080P/24 and uses the EDID handshake to find a supported input/output video signal. If 1080P/24 isn’t supported the TV will revert to 1080P/60 ? or is it 1080i/60 deinterlaced? 
Oooh boy - I hope I’m not getting this threat hopelessly confusing. Long story short. Not many HDTVs can do 1080P/24 and fewer consumer understand the importance of every link in your video chain being able to communicate at the same framerate.
Thanks again in advance.
Wayde


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## bobgpsr (Apr 20, 2006)

When I say 1080i60 I mean it as a transport format. If the destination display is a CRT then it can use that format as is (displaying odd/even interlaced fields). If the display is plasma, DLP, or LCD then it must convert (deinterlace) the 1080i60 to progressive. 
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1080i60


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## MrPorterhouse (Jul 29, 2006)

Rodny Alvarez said:


> What is BTB??:dontknow:


BTB is Blacker than black, or the information below video black. Firmware 1.8 added the ability to display BTB, then the next firmware killed it. Now, with 1.90, its back. Shadow detail is spot on and beautiful. Color is good. Picture quality is very good overall.


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## John Simpson (May 10, 2007)

It's interesting to see how updateable the firmware is in the PS3... I was actually surprised the chip could be flashed to upscale.

And I may have mentioned this before, but the Dolby Digital sound from the PS3 (even through an optical out) seems to be markedly better than my workhorse Denon DVD-5000. Ain't technology a marvellous thing? :daydream:


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## wbassett (Feb 8, 2007)

Thought I'd pass this along too as far as the PS3 as a Bluray player. This is from a correspondence I had with Sony, so this is direct from the horse's mouth-



Sony said:


> The PLAYSTATION(R)3 computer entertainment system will support audio technology such as Dolby Digital 5.1 ch, DTS 5.1 ch, LPCM 7.1 ch, AAC, and others.<1> <2> To playback sound recorded on your DVD/software in Dolby Digital (AC-3) or DTS format to reproduce the effect of listening in a movie theater or concert hall, you must connect to audio equipment with the ability to decode DTS or Dolby Digital sound (sold separately). You must connect the component via the DIGITAL OUT (OPTICAL) connector using an optical digital cable (sold separately).
> 
> <1> A device compatible with Linear PCM 7.1 Ch. is required to output 7.1 Ch. audio, supported by Dolby TrueHD or a similar format, from the HDMI OUT connector.
> <2> This system does not support output from the DTS-HD 7.1 Ch. DTS-HD 7.1 Ch. audio is output from a 5.1 or lower channel.
> ...


All in all I am very pleased with this as an addition to my Home Theater and entertainment system. I also just got to see my first 1080p PS3 game on it. I bought it as a BD player and not a game console, but we had relatives visit for a few days and the kids were bored so I rented a game. As much as I love my HD DVD play, I must say it doesn't have this option... actually neither do the other BD players to be fair.

So far, two die hard 360 fans (my son, and and now my nephew) have said they think they like the PS3 better after seeing it in action. I have to agree that I think it is an incredible unit.


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## MrPorterhouse (Jul 29, 2006)

I gotta say, I have been nothing but impressed with my PS3. I don't have much time for gaming anymore, but when I do get some time, the PS3 has some awesome ability. HD gaming is an amzing experience. Of course, the Blu-ray feature is a given and the BD movies are awesome. I also like the music and photo features, so my PS3 has turned into an audio and video powerhouse. For $600, it is a great value for what it does.


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## wbassett (Feb 8, 2007)

MrPorterHouse did you see where I hooked up a USB drive and archived all the Bond DVDs and bonus discs (Shaken and Stirred... the freebies BB was giving out, stuff like that) and use it as a media server? I'm in the process of archiving all my movie series and TV series to hard drives now.

It upconverts the mpeg2 files to 1080p and everything looks fantastic!

I played around with the XBox 360 and although it recognized the USB drive, it wouldn't recognize or play the mpeg2 files, which is a shame because I did not have to do any conversions or major compression (some DVDs have no compression required for the PS3) just rename the VOB to mpeg2 and boom... media server! 

My wife actually likes it and that's saying a lot since she thinks all this is stupid and a TV is just a TV and a DVD player is just a player. Now that she sees we can put our entire family photo album on the internal or external drive, put CD's on it, DVDs... she thinks it's pretty cool.

I personally think it's one of the best BD players out there and several magazine even rated it on par with the Pioneer Elite BD player, which is seriously good company to be included with.

As much as I love my HD DVD player, I love the PS3 just as much and maybe a tad more seeing everything it can do. If I just had a vanilla BD player, I probably would like the HD DVD player just a little better.

Oh... did I mention how fast the PS3 is? But you already know that.


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