Recently, I purchased a Roku box which allows me to stream video from Netflix to my television at the back of the house, and now I hear the exciting announcement that Netflix will provision the Playstation to stream Netflix content by the end of the year.

So many choices, but the technology is converging.

I first had to pick my avatar. I was tempted to make it look dashing and cool, but my conscience got the better of me and I tried to keep it as true to life as possible.

Once in, I arrived at my private sea-side?apartment. Very relaxing overlooking the quay. I then ventured into the town, hit the stores, played pool, had a go at bowling, then looked at some of the art work.

It seemed pretty busy in the virtual world this evening and it looks to be very popular.

Here I am sat on a bench in the plaza watching the world go by… (if anyone is looking for me my handle is NMANSA)

You can find out more about Playstation Home here. Below there’s a short video clip of me in the Plaza for the first time having a boogie with some other randoms…!

Hopefully, Sony will work quickly to get these servers up and running soon, otherwise it may turn into a huge?embarrassment.

Sony has announced the PS3 now has DTS-HD Master Audio support, which is one of the highest resolution audio formats for films, with Dolby TrueHD being the only other contender (the PS3 supports this too, by the way).

Most new Blu-ray players can output DTS-HD MA, however only a small amount of AV receivers can actually decode it. The popular format gives the user a 7.1 audio channel, which is as close as you’ll get to the original studio master. The update will output all 7.1 channels via HDMI, but only to those few receivers that can actually take a 7.1 PCM stream, like the Onkyo TX-NR905.

There’s also a revamped Playstation store – not such a big deal, but it’s a deal. It now seems that the store is an application on the Playstation itself rather than it all being web-based. It’s very slick.

This is my second WRT300N, the first one went back last year as it died. Before that, I had a Linksys WRT54GS router – and swapping back to that for a few days actually gave more stability but slower connection speeds and less range (as you’d expect)

The D-Link DIR-655 router I bought today seems to be a stellar improvement on the Linksys. It has more configuration items, but the way in which it has automatic Quality of Service (QoS) seems to be a winner – especially when I’m playing online. No more disconnects or game stalling, even when Sara, my wife, is also online surfing da web. The range seems to be more wide and long too.

I also have to say, from a support perspective, D-Link have it ‘sussed’.

Easy install CD, a great online help site and a good user interface within the router menu options itself.

So far, the D-Link seems many times better than the Linksys. However, to be fair the Linksys router is nearly two years older than my current one even though they still both support draft-N.

I guess that’s the price you can pay when you’re an early adopter of technology…

Sony PSP Remote Play allows you to control your PS3 over the internet – you can even remotely switch your PS3 on and off.

Now, when I’m traveling, I’ll have direct access to my whole film library whenever I like. It’s clever stuff.

Also, I see a new firmware version (3.90) has been released today which allows PSP users to access Skype.

I am now going to encode all my DVDs into DivX and store them on my home PC’s external hard-drive. Now I have my own media center DVD library that can stream from my PC to my PS3. I’ve never used my PS3 so much since I bought it. The ability to just select any DVD or film I have from a menu and play it is superb.

Other functions the firmware update offers are voice changer and a new pattern for the visual player.

Find out more from the Sony PS3 site here

I don’t think the new PS3 firmware v1.9 is going to address any issues around media streaming and using your PS3 as a media centre, however, it does look like there’s going to be some good tweaks made. The firmware is rumoured for release tomorrow:

• Ability to rearrange games on the XMB
• “Eject Disk” added to the Options menu
• Pressing triangle in the XMB now ejects disks
• XMB backgrounds added
• Folder classification changed
• Emoticons added
• Option to change CD output to 44.1/88.2/176.4kHz added
• Forced 24Hz output for Blu-ray over HDMI added
• Option to change PS3 video settings in-game added
• “Bit Mapping” added to the “Music Setting” options
• AVCHD-type animations can now be saved from a Memory Stick
• Upscaling settings can be changed while playing PSOne and PS2 games
• Bookmarks added
• Web browser security function added to the browser’s tool section
• Avatars now move during audio visual chat

You do not need Windows Media Centre to run it, just the latest version of Windows Media Player – infact as long as you have a DLNA enabled device/PC you should be good to go. This is how I got it going:

• On my Windows XP machine, I made sure I had the latest version of Windows Media Player. You can download it here
• Library > Media Sharing – then click Share My Media
• On your PS3, ensure that you have Media Sharing enabled under your Settings
• Your should then be able to see “Search for Media Servers” on your Pictures, Video and Music options which you should click to search for your PC
• The rest should be easy and you should be able to connect to your PC and view everything in your Shared Videos and Shared Music folders

There are a few quirks right now, such as the delay in getting the video to start, some pictures do not appear, there seems to be a maximum amount of pictures that can be displayed in a folder – apart from that, it’s very useable.

I wonder if the new PS3 update 1.9 due out anytime soon will address these issues?

• upscaling DVD and game video output?
• copying saved data to a memory card
• DLNA usage (linking to media servers)
• printing images
• remote play via your PSP via the internet (outside the home)
• you can edit CD information
• super white settings are supported for video output
• Download Management has changed

I’ll see how it all pans out.

In the time I have found to play on the PS3, I’ve loved it. I have two games so far, Resistance: Fall of Man, which is awesome, and F1 Championship Edition which is so real on my high-definition TV, visitors to Chez Burden think the F1 on the telly is real. The PS3 is a great machine and I also love the online gaming functionality and the ability to play games via my PSP linked through to the PS3. Downloading HD trailers and demo games is pretty quick with the PS3 linked up to my Linksys wireless N router. Something that is changing the way we do things at home is that the PS3 is becoming a central media centre for pictures, video and browsing the web. My friend Paul who works at Microsoft has called me a traitor – I’m sorry Paul.

I am still trying to upload all my photos to my new Flickr account that I opened on April 20. Even though I have a very fast internet connection at home and most evenings I let the computer run overnight, I’m still around 2000+ photos away from completion. Flickr really needs to create a better way to upload multiple photos. I find the software uploader a little flaky and liable to break. It needs an FTP facility for sure, but reading the forums, people have been asking for this for a long time now.

As I write this, I’ve been saddened to hear that the 19th century boat, built in 1869, The Cutty Sark, has been pretty much destroyed by what looks like a suspicious fire. I have great memories of going out in Greenwich with friends with the fantastic Sark rising up from the dry dock for all to see. I hope much can be saved and renovated.

I only managed to get it out of the box last night and haven’t even really dipped into the console properly yet.

I bought one game and downloaded loads of demos to help me decide what to get next via the Playstation online shop. Watch this space.

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