Yeah I am actually. I've spent a shitload of time fucking around with both consoles and I own them both and I really don't see this huge difference.

I usually use my PS3 over my 360 as a media center simply because my PS3 is quieter and well, MKV2VOB/AVCHD. So while the PS3 isn't a substantially better media center per se, the ability to play BD and AVCHD definitely gives it an advantage (and with Tversity, they play back the exact same formats, but HD streaming over a G network is hit/miss). But that's about it, I actually have both my PS3 and 360 wired into my wireless router (Occasionally turn it into a wireless bridge via software when necessary, I heart you $20 Linksys). Of course, if you feel like sinking an extra hundred bucks or so (getting a large capacity 2.5" drive), you can turn your PS3 into a standalone networked media tank, albeit one with a 4gb file size limit (unless you do it via YDL which sort of kills the appeal since it can't handle HD) and occasionally touchy codec support.

And with that... The 360 still gets pretty much all of my gaming money. Nothing against the PS3, but I still dislike the PS3 pad for FPS/TPS games, and that genre seems to be defining this generation of games (alongside music rhythm games).

I use my 360 to play DVDs. The PS3 doesn't remember where you were in the movie if you turn the console off and/or take the disc out (something many $25 players offer!)

It doesn't do this for BluRay either, unless the BluRay itself has bookmarking coded in (and not all do). Drives me nuts.

I don't believe you, but I'll take you at your word.

I don't know how you could conclude that based on what I said.

The PS3 supports user-replaceable harddrives. The 360 does not. It supports placing video, photos (including new photo gallery feature), and music on the internal drive. The 360 only allows you to rip audio CDs to its internal drive. The PS3 supports raw .vob files. The 360 does not. The PS3 directly supports online video on hulu, youtube, etc. The 360 does not. The PS3 classic 80GB has integrated card readers. The 360 does not. The PS3 can act as a standalone multimedia console. The 360 cannot. (in addition to Blu-ray playback)

Then there are tangential issues such as BT multimedia remote control, consistent XMB support for media on internal drive, media on external drive, and media on server. A properly vented PS3 is whisper quiet in comparison to the jet engine noise of the 360.

The 360 is a great gaming system (and there are quite a few games that I miss when I exchanged my 360 for a PS3), but the 360's multimedia capabilities and suitabilities are pretty limited in comparison.

Mine does for DVDs pretty often. It did the other night when I booted the PS3 on, and forgot I had a DVD in it

This is incorrect. A firmware update added this feature. It will remember your place for DVDs and some BDs-- the primitive ones without advanced java.

It actually does. The trick is to exit back to the PS3 Main Menu before ejecting the DVD or turning off the PS3. It remembers multiple DVDs and BDs (that are profile 1.0 and don't have their own bookmarking) at one time. I have several TV shows going and it remembers spot on the last disc I played on all of them.

I use my PS3 over my 360 for this reason and the better upscaler.

Ewww... for reals? Maybe I'm just spoiled by HD, but my daughters and I watched The Phantom Menace the other night and I thought it looked like shit (movie reviews not needed, I know it's a shitty movie already - save your time).

I seem to recall the DVD having stellar video quality reviews when it came out (granted, forever ago) so I was thinking it was the PS3 and was going to try the 360 on the next movie.

The one thing the 360 is missing that drives me crazy is no support for streaming MP4 and most importantly the MP4 HD iTunes podcasters use from my PC. I have to find some other program to transcode the mp4 HD and it causes artifacts I don't get when streaming the HD podcasts on my PS3.

I realize the PS3 doesn't support WMV HD, but I have yet to need this format. I want to easily stream all my video podcasts from iTunes. The PS3 can do it no problem and the 360 needs software help. Big reason I have gone back to uses my PS3 as my media hub. Well the fact I can pop a Flash, SD or Memory stick in my PS3 helps as well. I can bypass the PC altogether and that is not as easy of an option with the 360.

Compared to real HD all upscaling looks shitty to me.

If you think the PS3 upscaling is ugly don't bother with the 360. I see more jaggies and noise in the 360 compared to the PS3. My LG BH200 is better than both the PS3 and 360, but it doesn't output 4X3 content correctly so I end up going back to the PS3. The upscaling for the PS3 can also be tweeked with different levels of filtering. Not an option on the 360.

Hopefully it's just me, but this seems like it has some hostility, and is starting to lean the way of console bashing/fanboyism. Make it stop.

Also - the jet engine you talk about isn't true. My 360 is just as quiet as my ps3 - when i install the games.

You were talking about media, not extraneous features in your post.

I'll give you Hulu & Youtube but to balance out the argument the 360 has Netflix. So they are on equal footing. I'm not sure what replaceable drives & memory card readers have to do with the discussion. If you bring that in then you could also say that Jasper 360's are whisper quiet and recent PS3s don't have memory card readers. Also I have hundreds upon hundreds of GBs on my PC why do I want to buy another hard drive and store everything locally on my console when I can just stream it?

As kakihara pointed out this is simply not true.

However, I can say that without a doubt, both systems suck in regards to Mac compatibility. Having to buy third party software for each system sucks donkey nuts.

Any perceived hostility is rooted in frustration at someone constructing an entire contrary argument on a single simple statement. Rather than respond to what I actually wrote, he made up in his mind what my argument was and then proceeded to claim why I was wrong.


It IS true. The context of this latest discussion is "game console as multimedia player". In the context of playing DVDs, the 360 is most definitely a jet engine.

Netflix is not part of the out-of-the-box experience. It is an additional service. But fair enough.

They all go to the flexibility of the PS3 as a multimedia player. The ability to take memory cards from cell phone, PSP, digital camera, digital video camera and insert them into the PS3 and display the contents directly is a multimedia playback capability. The ability to replace the internal harddrive goes to the ability to increase the capacity for multimedia playback. When you have the ability to place any media files that are supported on the the internal drive, being able to replace a drive with a larger one is important.


That requires that you keep your PC turned on 24/7, and requires that you have network connectivity. The PS3 also does that but it can do those other things that the 360 can't.

Just because you don't use a feature doesn't mean that the feature is worthless. I'm not interested in convincing ANYONE that the PS3 is a better multimedia solution than the 360. That is my belief. I supported that belief with reasons why. If people want to dismiss those reason, that's fine.

And hulu and youtube work out-of-the-box without network connectivity?

Yes, they work out-of-the-box. Network connectivity is with regard to streaming video from a PC rather than local internal harddrive. I'm pointing out the flexibility of the PS3 for a variety of configurations.... I'm not implying that they are all one single implementation.

Thanks, I'll have to try this.

Hulu and YouTube work through the PS3 browser, and as far as I can tell there's no way to get them to go full screen, since the browser is (inexplicably) boxed to 4:3.

Maybe I'm missing something -- but this was based on just a few minutes of experimentation.

You don't believe what? That I own them both? There are plenty of people on these very boards who can tell you that I do own both. That's actually a completely ridiculous thing to say.

While almost purely anectodal with the exception of .VOB support I'll go ahead and concede that the PS3 is the holy grail of media devices when compared to the lowly Xbox 360 . Now let's compare it to a Popcorn Hour.

The web browser on the PS3 is decent. Hulu isn't as good as streaming through the PC with Play On, but it works. The new Youtube channel for Wii and PS3 actually works very well though on those browsers.

Both consoles have their pros and cons as multimedia players.
So let's compare pictures, audio and videos.
I've tried everything in both, streaming, external hard drives, 320 GB hard drive for the PS3, 120 GB HD for the 360, etc.
In a perfect world everything should be streamed, so you just have a central place where you store pics, audio and video and you can access it from everywhere. But the truth is that streaming is not perfect in either. So let's see how I see them in each category:
Pictures:
I like the PS3 software better, has more features that I use, like more. Streaming, even for pictures can be slow, maybe it's because I'm using wireless, but then I can download an 800 MB demo in less than 10 minutes. Streaming in the Xbox, wireless, works really good, the interface is simpler, like Windows Explorer. If I'm reading from the local hard drive I use the PS3. But If I just uploaded the picture to my PC and I want to see it in the big screen, Xbox 360 is faster.
Audio:
I haven't tried this a lot. I copied a lot of mp3s, 20+ GB, to my PS3 and I really like all the sorting options it has. I haven't tried the 360 player in a long time, but again, it was better at streaming. But it didn't have a lot of options for sorting.
Video:
There are two options. Download movies from their stores. Upload/Stream movies from the PC. From their stores, Xbox wins hands down. I've actually downloaded more than a couple movies, I like the interface and they download really fast. I know that the PS3 store had issues at the beginning, but I guess they should be fixed by now.
The other part is playing movies that you ripped/downloaded/etc. I usually rip for the PS3, since I think that interface is easy for my kids. I've ripped a lot of cartoons and copied them to the PS3 hard drive. The work really well. Then again, one of the first rips I did stopped worked after a firmware update...
So, yeah, I kinda see the PS3 a little bit better in multimedia capabilities than the Xbox 360, but not a lot better, since there are times when I'm going to prefer the 360.

Well, with hulu, you can zoom in by pressing in the right analog stick and then using the L2/R2 triggers to toggle the zoom a bit.

There is now YouTube integration with the PS3-- in full screen. On the PS3 browser, you type in www.youtube.com/tv -- I think! I haven't used it since the day it was available. Let me check and I'll edit the post after.

EDIT: It is www.youtube.com/tv

In his defense: if it ain't in your sig, it ain't on your equipment rack!

UPDATED!!

The recent PS3 update added regular full screen support. You just click the full screen button on the Hulu sidebar and it will pop to full screen. However, I haven't tried it with widescreen shows so it may not be 16X9. Hulu is still a bit too jumpy on the PS3 browser for my liking. I prefer using PlayOn which works great on both the PS3 and 360 and supports full screen playback and smooth video.

I had some tool pull that shit on CAG in a discussion, calling me a troll and whatnot. Good times. I mean if I don't play any MP games on the system why do I need my PS tag in my profile?