PS3 Is Awesome

Over the holidays I took the plunge and finally went HD-new TV, sound system, the whole nine. The most useful piece of the whole setup, short of the TV that is, has proven to be the PlayStation 3. Here's why.

Blu-ray
Until recently the PS3 was just about the best Blu-ray player there was, and even now it's still a top contender. The fact that its firmware can be updated means that as the BD standard evolves the PS3 can keep up. Some of the earliest Blu-ray adopters can't get the BD-Live content for example on their older players. The PS3 also ranks pretty high when it comes to startup time-some cheaper BD players can take nearly a minute to get you to the root menu on a disc.

Media Center
This goes for the Xbox360 as well-both consoles are great for media centers. You can either download the music, photos, or videos straight to their hard drives, plug in an external storage device like a thumb drive or USB hard drive, or stream it across your network. I'll give the leg up to the 360 for now with the Netflix support (but read on for the PS3 alternative), but if you're thinking of Blu-ray I think you have to give the advantage to the PS3.

So far the PS3 browser's support of Hulu is touch and go. I can usually get it to play the "HD" (480p) episodes of Dilbert in full screen for example, but only after a few minutes of crashes. Hopefully this will get better soon. Youtube is flawless, even more so since they launched their TV beta for easier browsing from the couch.

For better Hulu and to add Netflix streaming, I recommend dropping the $40 for PlayOn instead. I got in on the beta, and after a day or two of using it was convinced to pick it up. Playback is flawless, even though I'm streaming over WiFi. I find the fast-forward / reverse controls aren't exactly stellar, but that's a standard gripe for both Hulu and Netflix and doesn't have much to do with PlayOn itself. Other than that it works perfectly...quality is identical to watching in a standard browser window. Which means you are not going to be blown away by the video quality. :)

Rentals
New to the PlayStation Store is the ability to rent (and occasionally buy) SD and HD movies and TV shows. Prices aren't too bad (or maybe it's better to say about the same as any other online rental service) and the selection is decent for a brand new service, but for what it costs to rent 1 HD movie you can have Blu-ray movies added to your existing Netflix account for half a year. I do like the option though because PSN movies hit the store before they're generally available from Netflix, and you can't beat the "instant" access rather than waiting for the mail. I have my PS3 connected to my home network over WiFi, so "instant" for me is more like "download it tonight, watch it tomorrow." And I'm not a fan of the expiration-expires in 2 weeks, or in 24 hours the second you press Play. Unfortunately that's not all that different than other download services though. I blame Hollywood.

Games!
Turns out this thing plays games too. I'm not a huge gamer, but I did pick it up again a while back. I blame my brother for that-had too much fun playing a FPS last time I made it back to the old country. Right now there aren't as many games for the PS3 as the 360, but things are improving.

Speaking of the Old Country, just about 99% of what I've described here for my setup flat-out won't work in Canada. Last I heard Hulu, Netflix streaming, and PSN are all U.S.-only. Sorry relatives. You can definitely blame Hollywood for that.