Which PS3 is the best these days?

concealer404

I know awhile ago, the 60gig was the one to get.

My main requirement is analog audio outs, and i'd like backwards compatible, but it's not a deal breaker.

Is there a certain one that sounds better? Has more expandability? Better chipsets?

leroyjr1

none of them has analog outs.

rtart

All can be had with analog outs..in stereo. BW compatibility (defined as ability to play PS2 games) came with 4 USB ports and SACD playback capability. They were the first series and had some reliability and fan noise issues. None of the 'fat' modesl will pass the hirex audio codecs as bitstream, but will do it as PCM. Sound is the same, but the light on your AVR will not show DTS-MA, etc. The 'slim' will do it.

I'd go with a new, slim model with the smallest HD available. If you need to up-size the HDD later, it is a standard notebook PC model that can be bought cheap. Easy to do it...takes about 15 minutes.

concealer404

Cool, that's what i was looking for. So basically, the new ones are fine to get. I'm not going to be playing movies on it, and i don't have an AVR, will be using the 2-channel setup for sound.

Thanks!

mole'

rtart wrote: »

All can be had with analog outs..in stereo. BW compatibility (defined as ability to play PS2 games) came with 4 USB ports and SACD playback capability. They were the first series and had some reliability and fan noise issues. None of the 'fat' modesl will pass the hirex audio codecs as bitstream, but will do it as PCM. Sound is the same, but the light on your AVR will not show DTS-MA, etc. The 'slim' will do it.

I'd go with a new, slim model with the smallest HD available. If you need to up-size the HDD later, it is a standard notebook PC model that can be bought cheap. Easy to do it...takes about 15 minutes.

i have been wanting to beef the HDD up in my 60gig for some time now. so its that easy to do?

polkfarmboy

I want a new ps3 and totally hate my old one because of the fan noise

mole'

polkfarmboy wrote: »

I want a new ps3 and totally hate my old one because of the fan noise

i dont have any fan noise from my 2 60gig ones. what noise does yours make?

j allen

They take a laptop HDD, not a standard size one. Normal SATA is all you need, though.

leroyjr1

polkfarmboy wrote: »

I want a new ps3 and totally hate my old one because of the fan noise

Both are about the same. I use a enclosed cabinet so it's not a big deal for me.

grimmace19

My 60 is getting pretty loud... I guess it's expected after surpassing the 4 year mark with it!

newrival

mole' wrote: »

i have been wanting to beef the HDD up in my 60gig for some time now. so its that easy to do?

It's super easy mole'

check out this quick, but super thorough video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EPDnIf5nZQ

ryanjoachim

grimmace19 wrote: »

My 60 is getting pretty loud... I guess it's expected after surpassing the 4 year mark with it!

Open it up and blow out the fan(s).

cheddar

concealer404 wrote: »

Cool, that's what i was looking for. So basically, the new ones are fine to get. I'm not going to be playing movies on it, and i don't have an AVR, will be using the 2-channel setup for sound.

Thanks!

IIRC, the ps3 uses the same A/V plug that the ps2 had. So for all the analog dongles (sound and video), the same old school dongles work for both. It's the hdmi that was new and all ps3s could use hdmi from the start. The only thing they really added to the slims was the ability to bitstream TrueHD and DTS-HD MA over hdmi. And they took out the SACD capability and ps2 backwards compatibility even before the slims. But if none of those things are important to you, the slims have pretty much the same functionality as the fat ones.

cheddar

Oh, and the slims are supposed to run quieter and cooler. HDD size is also irrelevant, IMO. Since for the difference in price, you can get a much larger generic SATA laptop drive as a drop in replacement. Takes like 5min to change out if you can work a screwdriver (pop the HDD door off, unscrew a screw and slide the cage out, unscrew the cage screws, swap drives, and reverse). And a little longer for the ps3 to format the drive on the first boot-up. It's transferring all the data on the old drive that's more complicated. So if you're going to swap out the drive, do it when it's new.

cheddar

Also, anyone seen any good deals on a new basic slim? I'd like to pick one up this holiday season, but the only deals seem to be extra pack-ins which I really don't need. It'd be better if they had a straight discount or game credit so I could get what I wanted instead.

newrival

hey cheddar i saw someone in the forum selling $400 worth of sony giftcards for $360.Thats 10% off right there

here it is:
http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?t=109825&highlight=sony+gift

cheddar

Thanks,

But I think sony still charges tax. I was looking for a discount for Amazon prices. I may have to just buy it off Amazon, no tax and free shipping is usually hard to beat if $299 seems to be the discount floor.

grif32

cheddar also check newegg.com. Stores can not legally sell the PS3 below $299. So they usually throw in some free crap.

SniperREX

polkfarmboy wrote: »

I want a new ps3 and totally hate my old one because of the fan noise

Ditto, but I still don't wanna "upgrade" mine, because I'd lose the back-compatibility and SACD. In case I decide to sell the Oppo BDP-83

grif32

My 60g is not loud at all but it sure does kick some heat out. Wow it will heat my room up quickly.

concealer404

I got the $299 160gig last night, so i doubt i'll ever need to upgrade the HD since i'm only using it to play games.

Took me a little bit to make it do what i wanted in terms of video/audio, though.

Running HDMI to TV, and using the AV dongle thingy to run l/r to the 2channel setup. Sounds OK, but strangely not as good as the PS2 did using the same audio setup. Doesn't bother me a whole lot, though.

Got Infamous, Soul Calibur IV, and Borderlands, so i'm sure my life is over for awhile.

cheddar

No need to upgrade the HDD, that is, unless more games come out like GT5 that require a 10GB install .

I ended up getting a 160GB bundle off of amazon. The rest of the family has slowly taken over the ps3 since I started bringing home the move games. So I needed another to keep everyone happy. Ended up with the Ratchet and Clank/Singstar since I already had elements of the other bundles. Maybe the rest of the family will like those pack-ins. It came with a $25 game credit too.

I already know from experience that it doesn't take much multimedia stuff to start filling up a HDD. So I also got a 500GB drive for another 50 bucks to upgrade the new slim.

cheddar

You also might want to go into the menus and see what options are available to you to improve the audio. I don't know much about the ps3's stereo analog outs, but it does have a lot of different tweak settings on the digital side. I think you can even get 2-channel uncompressed PCM out of toslink. So it may be worth the effort to make sure you're optimized for 2-channel analog in the settings.

concealer404

cheddar wrote: »

You also might want to go into the menus and see what options are available to you to improve the audio. I don't know much about the ps3's stereo analog outs, but it does have a lot of different tweak settings on the digital side. I think you can even get 2-channel uncompressed PCM out of toslink. So it may be worth the effort to make sure you're optimized for 2-channel analog in the settings.

I don't have a DAC or any digital inputs on my pre, though. :frown:

I may be able to tweak using (GASP!) tone controls on my preamp.

I just did a quick setup yesterday, i'll go farther into it today and see what i can figure out. It doesn't sound BAD, just lacking some impact.

silvertuner

ben, i got rid of my ps3 for that reason. didnt think the audio was amazing, especially on bluray, and the hdcp thru hdmi pisses me off so i ran component cables. it didnt sound BAD, but no more gaming than i do, i will just buy a ps2 for the kids, use my denon for music, and wait til they get older and maybe get the ps4 if they decide to release it within the next 10 years lol.

concealer404

Alright, next n00b question.

I have a hard drive lying around with literally days of music on it.

How do i get those files onto the PS3 so i can make a quick and dirty media player out of it? Am i going to be boned with the fact that most are MP3s and the PS3 only uses proprietary Sony BS?

kawizx9r

Plug said-drive into the PS3's USB port!

If it's an internal drive, there are hundreds of external enclosures out there that'll support both IED and Sata drives on the cheap. Do you plan on saving the music to the PS3 or just using it to control the hard drive?

Edit: You could also just save the music on your computer (not sure if it's all on there or not) and stream music from your PC to the PS3. When I had my PS3, I had everything hooked up together wirelessly (laptops+PC+psp+ps3+phone).

concealer404

kawizx9r wrote: »

Plug said-drive into the PS3's USB port!

If it's an internal drive, there are hundreds of external enclosures out there that'll support both IED and Sata drives on the cheap. Do you plan on saving the music to the PS3 or just using it to control the hard drive?

Edit: You could also just save the music on your computer (not sure if it's all on there or not) and stream music from your PC to the PS3. When I had my PS3, I had everything hooked up together wirelessly (laptops+PC+psp+ps3+phone).

It's an internal drive and i'm pretty sure that if i saved it all on the laptop i'd use the rest of the hard drive in there.

I think the external enclosure would be the way to go. I'd like to save the music to the PS3, but it doesn't really matter i guess.

If i saved it to the PS3, how would i do that? Just plug it in, and menus on the PS3 will say "hey moron, do you want to transfer this stuff to me?"

The world is moving along way too fast for me. It took me like 2 hours to set the damn thing up when i got it last week. It's all so complicated.

cheddar

A little more complicated than all that I'm afraid...

For all it's strengths as a media player, it expects all its drives to be FAT32 formatted. And Windows has a limitation of 32gigs when formatting a drive in FAT32. So you need a third party app like swissknife to format larger drives and use all the space. (The ps3 can format its own drive if you replace it. You just need to format drives you want to use as external drives on the ps3.)

Once you have a drive in FAT32, you just create folders on the root level, MUSIC, PICTURE, VIDEO. And whatever you drop into each of these folders will show up on the xmedia bar under the appropriate heading.

cheddar

You sure you don't want to replace the ps3's drive before you start dropping all your media on it? Like I said before, it fills up fast. You could get a larger drive for the ps3, use the old drive in an external case. Format it FAT32. Then copy all your music to this drive and on to the ps3.

Unless your current music drive is FAT32, you'll run into a problem because you can't format it without wiping out your data. Upgrading the ps3's drive will give you more space and an extra drive you can use for the transfer.

audiobliss

Even if you're connecting an external HD to a PS3 it has to be formatted as FAT32?