Does anybody on here use a PS3 as a media centre? I quite like the idea of all my music in one place and just being able to flick through a nice user interface and get at all my music. I don't really want a dedicated PC media centre, and thought a PS3 might do the trick.

What I really want to know is…

1. What is the quality of the sound output like comparable to my 5yr old £100ish Toshiba DVD player? I currently use a basic sony amplifier, but I am tempted to move to a better AV amplifier in the future (max £300)
2. What other media features will the PS3 give me? Can I use it as a wireless storage device? Does it work with iplayer?
3. Is it possible to change the HD to ones with bigger capacity?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
🙂

The PS3 is very good as a media centre. You can swap out the hard drive for a bigger one no problems, instructions on how to do this come with the machine. If I was, for instance, to download all five series of The Wire onto my computer I can either stream them from the computer to the PS3 (wireless or cabled) or copy them onto the PS3 hard drive so I can watch it without the computer having to be on. Same goes for photos and music. Get the bluetooth remote control for ease of navigation and save having to use the control pad.

Sound output will be as good as your amp/speakers as it now supports lossless audio output when watching a blu-ray movie. Also the latest firmware made the iPlayer a central component and the quality is pretty good as long as your connection is fast enough.

Plus…..it has some awesome games as well.

It does sound pretty good for the job, I've got an Xbox 360, but to be honest the user interface seems a bit mickey mouse to me.

How about the fan speed, is it very loud when reading off the HDD only?

No it's pretty much silent. I've certainly never noticed the fans when watching a film or playing a game.

Loads more info here but I'd say go for it. This looks like a good deal.

I use my PS3 for TV (+recording), iplayer, pictures, music, video, DVD, blueray (and occasionally games!).

It's great in my opinion. Sound and image quality is pretty good, and it's incredibly versatile.

I did have problems with streaming media from my PC to it over my wireless network (too slow for some reason, but this could just be due to my router), so I just copied everything across to the internal hard drive and no more problems.

I just ripped a cd to my Xbox 360 and played it back from the HDD… the sound quality compared to my DVD player was terrible…. the volume was much lower, the sound was very flat too.

Has anybody got experience of PS3 sound vs Xbox 360 sound?

Cheers for the comments so far 🙂

glenh – with your music on the HDD, can you get the album artwork for each of your albums?

As far as Im aware its also the cheapest blu ray player on the market. With the regular firmware updates it wont go obsolete in about 5mins either.

its got the bbc iplayer on now with the new firmware update.

It still doesn't play BBC iPlayer very well even with the 3.0 firmware; it doesn't play any of the other TV channel websites (4oD etc), and nothing from Windows media centre seems to play if you try and stream it. A Windows media centre PC is a much better bet, but not if you don't have £500 and already have a PS3 🙂

Btw sound quality is good even on my nice system. Play TV (for terrestrial TV recording) is only ok – not as convenient as Sky+ for example. But simpler than the Windows effort I feel.

PS3 is good few, dont know why your having problems with Iplayer, ive been watching loads and its been fine??

only thing it needs now is a proper web browser! (there isnt one is there??)

As far as Im aware its also the cheapest blu ray player on the market.

Not the cheapest, but certainly very low.

I can't bear it for watching films though – the fan is way too loud. (Can't turn the volume up too high as we have sleeping babies upstairs).

The built in web browser is okay, nowhere near Firefox, ie or Opera but good enough for browsing most sites. The link to iPlayer actually just fires up the browser and takes you to the PS3 specific site.

I can't bear it for watching films though – the fan is way too loud

do you have it stuck in a typical TV cabinet affair- ontop of sky box etc (boxed in)?

ours was loud but now i have it upright next to the TV and you can hardly hear it.

I've been using it as a media centre for a year or so and I'm really pleased with it – I replaced the original (launch model) HDD with a 320Gb one- but I use that for all the mandatory game installs and PSN downloads, etc. My Audio, Video and Photo stuff live on a 2Tb Buffalo NAS drive and stream to the PS3 using the DNLA feature – works flawlessly, although my house had CAT5 cabling installed when it was built – so I don't know what it would be like over wireless.

Edited to add: The PS3 is quite picky about video format and won't play certain codecs – it's one area I'd like to see improved.

dont know why your having problems with Iplayer, ive been watching loads and its been fine

Not really problems, just that the quality doesn't seem very good. Looks blurry (even on the supposed high quality) on the detail – not a lot but enough to make you think there's something wrong with your eyes. It's like wearing glasses that are not quite right.

Comments about the other iPlayer-alikes still an issue tho.

do you have it stuck in a typical TV cabinet affair- ontop of sky box etc (boxed in)?

It is sat on its own shelf with lots of space all around, although it is a cabinet (but without a glass front etc). But I did think it might be a venting problem. I might just look into an external fan at some point as I have nowhere else to place it.

I stream video content wirelessly to the PS3 using PS3 Media Server on my PC and it's flawless.
Just make sure you set PS3 Media Server up correctly.

dont know why your having problems with Iplayer, ive been watching loads and its been fine

Not really problems, just that the quality doesn't seem very good. Looks blurry (even on the supposed high quality) on the detail – not a lot but enough to make you think there's something wrong with your eyes. It's like wearing glasses that are not quite right.

That's just a bandwidth issue though. The Beeb probably doesn't have enough money to stream to you in HD, even if you local connection could handle it.
I'm sure it will improve with time as bandwidth + servers continue to get cheaper.

ours was great, just make sure any porn on your PC is hidden………

Sound/video quality was excelent, but ours was outputing to an AV reviever so couldnt tell you what the onboard sound is like.

Noise, its pretty much silent, anyone got the new slim? How does it compare?

You don't need to change the disk in the PS3 if you have PC or Mac in your house. You need a uPnP media server on the computer and you can then share media with the PS3 and you can plug as many disks in the computer as you like to store your media on.

I use NullRiver MediaLink on my mac which works fantastically with my PS3. I use it for movies, music and for photos from Aperture. It's great. Link here if you have a Mac http://www.nullriver.com, but any uPnP server software will do it. Just set it up on your computer and get the PS3 on the same wireless network and tell it search for media servers.

That's it!

TVersity – excellent for PC to PS3.

The new light version uses about a third less power and runs a lot cooler, which means it needs the fan even less then the fat one, which if it had backwards compatibility would make it tempting to replace my 60/320gb version… which runs hotter due to the overspeed HDD.

mastiles_fanylion – intrigued about the external fan option.

No need to pay for any media server SW this is great and free – PS3 Media Server (open Source)

It will play more file types than most.

PS3 is top notch solution for the price IMHO for all of the above really
I've got a Buffalo Terabyte NAS to storge everything and stream music movies photos etc iPlayers fine for me to btw
all connected up to a Onkyo AV receiver and a KEF 5.1 set and it does everything I need really well. I'm no audiophile but it sound good to me

I've never hear the fan while watching a movie personnaly either

Thanks for all the responses guys, it certainly looks like a viable option. I may try and borrow one off a mate overnight to do a back to back with my cd player for sound quality

Next thing I'll need is a nice AV amp….