Playstation 3 System Update Thread

That is surprising, especially now when it appears Sony has added a lot more servers just before this last weekly content update, as normally there is a lot of congestion on Thursdays with everyone downloading content, but this time I was maxing out my ISP transfer speed at over 6000 kb/s (45+ MB/m), so downloading the 3 GB of content yesterday was as fast if not slightly faster than downloading content during previous low traffic days. 👍
Well, I am sure it is a combination of the slowest speed available by my cable company combined with local traffic peaking out. Even my PC's Internet goes slow from about 6pm-midnight during the week. My best times are after about 2:30am during the week or 6am-noon on weekends.

To give you an idea of how slow thinsg were going: the update took me about 20-30 minutes, and teh wallpapers were each taking about a minute.

Although, I am pretty sure things move faster when they are not being background downloaded, at least when I am in the store. When I exit the store they begin to speed back up.
 
G.T
Really? Anything interesting in that store that isn't in the other stores?

I was actually surprised it was on , as just 2 days ago I checked and it said "Sorry PS Store not available for your region/country" , Middle east officially gets the European version , whats interesting is that they games are priced in $ :) since all the main Gulf countries are linked with $ which keeps prices contestant, but other than that I don't see anything different maybe later I will check my Euro account to see if the 2 stores matches. Sorry to not answer the question directly but thought I would just give my observation and I'm so excited :D as I can actually buy games if I want now
 
G.T
Really? Anything interesting in that store that isn't in the other stores?
As far as I can tell, and what Sony has listed, there are only five truly unique PS Stores as far as content covering the following regions:
  • Japan
  • Korea
  • Hong Kong, Taiwan, Southeast Asia
  • Europe, India, Middle East, Australia, South Pacific
  • North America
I have a United Arab Emirates account, and the store for that region has aways had the exact same content and layout as the ones from my German, Danish, Spanish, British, and Australian PSN accounts. (except each of these use the popular currency of the country the account holder is registered in)

Perhaps the Saudi Arabia store is unique, but that would surprise me.
 
I downloaded and installed Firmware Update 2.0 as soon as it was available. Late last night, I started downloading the 'Uncharted' Demo in the background, and turned off the TV. When I woke up before 6 AM this morning, I installed Uncharted, played it for a few minutes, and exited out to the XMB. It was then that I noticed that the RSS Feed wasn't updating.

I checked the Network Settings and I realized that I was 'not connected' to my wireless network. Obviously I could not even open the web browser, so I went through the setup process several times and found out that although the PS3 recognized the connection, the test failed because it was unable to obtain the IP address or exchange key information.

I turned off the power to my Netgear router for a few minutes, turned it back on, and then had no problem setting up the wireless connection to my PS3. I really don't know what caused the problem in the first place, but it is working just fine now.

I looked around a bit and I found out that I am not the only one that had some sort of network problem after installing Firmware Update 2.0:
http://boardsus.playstation.com/playstation/board?board.id=psnetwork

Did anyone here on GTPlanet experience a similar problem?
 
As far as I can tell, and what Sony has listed, there are only five truly unique PS Stores as far as content covering the following regions:
  • Japan
  • Korea
  • Hong Kong, Taiwan, Southeast Asia
  • Europe, India, Middle East, Australia, South Pacific
  • North America
I have a United Arab Emirates account, and the store for that region has aways had the exact same content and layout as the ones from my German, Danish, Spanish, British, and Australian PSN accounts. (except each of these use the popular currency of the country the account holder is registered in)

Perhaps the Saudi Arabia store is unique, but that would surprise me.


actually of you noticed I said that officially it from Europe , but Saudi Arabia didn't have a store ,when I contacted Sony about this a while back they said get a UAE account so I'm assuming that now its the same one. But all the pricing is in $ I don't know what they UAE has but I would think that its $ . But if you say Sony has setup some servers I'm sure it would be reasonable to assume they have setup some here in the Mid East to cover this region and then enabled the stores for Saudi because Saudi is much bigger in population the UAE also maybe in the process they opened it up for other countries like Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait and Qatar :)
 
I used to get that problem all of the time, for about the first 3 or 4 months that I had my PS3, although it would never connect to the network. But that problem hasnt happened in a long time, and everything has been working fine since the update.
 
I downloaded and installed Firmware Update 2.0 as soon as it was available. Late last night, I started downloading the 'Uncharted' Demo in the background, and turned off the TV. When I woke up before 6 AM this morning, I installed Uncharted, played it for a few minutes, and exited out to the XMB. It was then that I noticed that the RSS Feed wasn't updating.

I checked the Network Settings and I realized that I was 'not connected' to my wireless network. Obviously I could not even open the web browser, so I went through the setup process several times and found out that although the PS3 recognized the connection, the test failed because it was unable to obtain the IP address or exchange key information.

I turned off the power to my Netgear router for a few minutes, turned it back on, and then had no problem setting up the wireless connection to my PS3. I really don't know what caused the problem in the first place, but it is working just fine now.

I looked around a bit and I found out that I am not the only one that had some sort of network problem after installing Firmware Update 2.0:
http://boardsus.playstation.com/playstation/board?board.id=psnetwork

Did anyone here on GTPlanet experience a similar problem?
I had to sign back in and then it gave me a network error when I was in the PS Store, but I just rebooted my PS3 and all was fine.

Now that I think about it: after each firmware update installs it is supposed to reboot your PS3, but mine didn't do it automatically like it has before. That may have been part of it.
 
Browser does seem faster for me also. I also watch a lot of videos on YouTube and download movies on Google and it seems to be downloading much faster than before.

Does anyone else have problems with "memory" when they have more than 3 browsers open? I always have to close down windows everytime I get up to 4, sometimes 5 because there's not enough memory and it'll make me close all of them and leave the last window blank.

Would there be a way to solve this problem with a firmware update or is this due to limited hardware memory? It's kind of disappointing when they said we could have up to 8 windows open but there's not even enough memory to handle 3-4 opened windows.
 
Does anyone else have problems with "memory" when they have more than 3 browsers open? I always have to close down windows everytime I get up to 4, sometimes 5 because there's not enough memory and it'll make me close all of them and leave the last window blank.

Would there be a way to solve this problem with a firmware update or is this due to limited hardware memory? It's kind of disappointing when they said we could have up to 8 windows open but there's not even enough memory to handle 3-4 opened windows.
It depends on the Website. I can have multiple Yahoo! emails open in several windows, but if I am trying to open You Tube or similar high bandwidth stuff on multiple windows I get memory errors.
 
This update is way better than people probably think. You can stream downloadable videos. That feature was not mentioned, also there are some new tips that show up. wonder what else is hiding in there.
Apparently you can now playback SACDs using the digital optical cable! (SOURCE) 👍

Also, here is what the Wikipedia listing currently says came with the 2.0 Update:
  • You can now customise the PLAYSTATION®3 Home Menu icons or background design.
  • You will also be able to create your own 'custom themes' using a theme compiler (to be available shortly)
  • You can now create playlists to organise content under [Music] and [Photo].
  • [Information Board] has been added as a feature under [Network]. PlayStation® related news can be displayed on the PLAYSTATION®3 Home Menu.
  • [PLAYSTATION®Network] has been added as a category in the PLAYSTATION®3 Home Menu.
  • [Remote Start] has been added as an option under [Remote Play Settings]
  • New grouping options for the [Group Content] feature have been added to the options menu.
  • [Colour], [Background] and [Font] have been added as options under [Theme Settings].
  • You can now select [Brightness] as an option under [Theme Settings] > [Background].
  • The process for setting [Internet Connection Settings] under [Network Settings] has been changed.
  • You can now select Canon printers with the [Printer Selection] option under [Printer Settings].
  • [Vibration Function] has been added as an option under [Controller Settings] in the menu that appears when you press the PS button on the wireless controller (a DUALSHOCK®3 Wireless Controller is required).
  • You can now view video content (as a progressive download) as it is being downloaded from PLAYSTATION®Store.
  • [Trend Micro Web Security for PS3™] has been added as a security option under the Internet browser.
  • The voice/video chat menu has been changed.
  • You can now use the PLAYSTATION®Eye camera for voice / video chat.
  • You can now play SACD via digital optical audio output. The DSD stream is converted to multichannel DTS or stereo PCM, depending on settings.
 
Out of curiosity, did anyone else find the Group Content option to not really do anything oustanding? It seems like all my options are either one folder or no folder, unless I want them sorted by date, which does very little for me as all my pictures on my PC are already sorted into folders by event and I have no clue when I downloaded videos and music.
 
Out of curiosity, did anyone else find the Group Content option to not really do anything oustanding? It seems like all my options are either one folder or no folder, unless I want them sorted by date, which does very little for me as all my pictures on my PC are already sorted into folders by event and I have no clue when I downloaded videos and music.
I keep all my content, except the games of course, on an external HD, so I wouldn't know personally, but if so, this is one of the advantages to keeping all your content on external HD, as you can create custom folders and your own hierarchical system.

That said, I like that Sony keeps adding additional sorting options to the XMB. If that trend continues I might reconsider keeping some content on the PS3's HDD. 👍


Now that I not only had a back-up, but I had copies of all my content on the USB drive, I discovered there are some big advantages to keeping your content (pics, music, and videos) on an external HD rather than on the HDD:

ADVANTAGES
  • I have a lot more space!

  • I can create custom multiple folders and hierarchic folders making it very easy to organize and find similar and specific files. This means instead of all the pics being lumped together or in dated folders, I can have custom folders for each "album". This means I can also create custom folders and organize my songs exactly how I like. This also means instead of having all the video files lumped together, I can have multiple folders for things like game videos, system videos, movie trailers for upcoming films, movie trailers for films currently released, youtube videos, home movies, full feature films, etc. 👍👍

  • By selecting Information, you can now find out exactly how many files and memory used on the USB as well as each individual folder you create... something the XMB has yet allowed users to do.

  • I can easily unplug the drive and connect it with other PS3s and PCs to share and view the same content. 👍

  • When connected to a PC, not only can you easily organize your files, sort them by more than just name and install date, and easily search for specific titles, but you can also change the file names much quicker than you can with the PS3. 👍
Unfortunately, as with most things, along with the advantages there are also some noteworthy disadvantages:

DISADVANTAGES
  • If you have more than one level of folders (in other words, if you create a folder, and then create more folders inside that folder), then it will not generate thumbnail folder & file picture icons and must always select "display all" each time you select the USB drive in order to see all the folders... which some might consider an undesirable inconvenience.

  • Also, unlike when a video file is on the HDD, you cannot create a 15-sec preview video loop icon for a file. I never found those to be terribly useful so it isn't a big deal to me, but it might be for others.

    BTW: I found that if you copy a video file from the USB drive to the HDD, it automatically creates the 15-sec preview video loop icon. So for those that do like to have that preview icon, but don't want to go through the multiple step process for every file, a quick way of doing that is to copy your video files to a USB drive. Erase those files on the PS3, then copy them right back to the PS3. Voila, they will now all have 15-sec loop icons.

  • Because there are no sort options for files off an external drive, all folders and files will be sorted alphabetically. With files on the HDD, although they are all lumped together, at least the video files are, you can sort them by installed date, which can come in handy if you are trying to remember which file you last downloaded.

    Granted, you can do this with the USB drive as well, but only by connecting it to your PC. :indiff:

  • Along with the missing "Sort By" option, here are the other missing features when using a USB driver to store your content:
    • Delete Multiple (odd, because the "Copy Multiple" is available)
    • Group Content (although I found this fairly useless, as it was just by date)

  • No background downloading off the PS Store to a USB drive. (this is also not a big deal, as it is very fast to just copy files from the HDD to the USB drive. So what I would do is continue to use background downloading and save them onto the HDD, but when all the downloading is complete, simply select the "Copy Multiple" option and copy the new files to the USB, then delete them from the HDD.

    It only adds one rather quick step to the process. Certainly a far better option than downloading each file from the PS Store directly to the USB drive.

So there you have it. Those are the advantages and disadvantages that I have found when using a USB drive for your PS3 content.

Personally, now that I have seen how it works first hand, I am totally sold on the idea of having all my content on an external USB drive!

For some, it may also allow you to keep your current HDD in the PS3 as you would now only need it to store your games, game demos, and game saves.

Although, if you plan on keeping all the game demos on your HDD, and or plan on buying lots of PSN games, you'll find that you'll need a bigger drive than 60GB. Currently, without downloading any of the PSN games, you'll need about 25GB of space for all the demos, and at the current pace, you'll need over 50 GB sometime next year. Once you start adding all the disc space you might need for any and all PSN titles you buy and download, then all of a sudden that 60GB HDD may not be looking so big after all.

On the other hand, it is also true you can delete and re-download games, so even those that want every single game demo and PSN game, you can still manage it on a 60GB HDD, it's all a question of convenience.
 
I find it very handy, You can rename any video to fall in to an alphabetized folder. It so much better than going through a list of videos. Same with Music being able to group content is a step up from long lists. It makes viewing pictures and video much better.

I'm not sure how you get one folder. I only get one with the game option since all my games are ps3 they all end up in one folder, then in that folder you can chose how they are in order.

One of the best features of the update IMO since i have a lot of videos i got off google.
 
I find it very handy, You can rename any video to fall in to an alphabetized folder. It so much better than going through a list of videos. Same with Music being able to group content is a step up from long lists. It makes viewing pictures and video much better.

I'm not sure how you get one folder. I only get one with the game option since all my games are ps3 they all end up in one folder, then in that folder you can chose how they are in order.

One of the best features of the update IMO since i have a lot of videos i got off google.
Well pre grouping I assigned a number to each video to keep them sorted the way I like (stolen idea from DN), but when I tried grouping all I got was one folder.

Maybe I need to play with it some more. I didn't get a lot of time since we had friends from out of town visiting.
 
OK, I take back everything I said about the group content options.

I played with my video titles and whatnot and found some stuff out.

ALL - This is the traditional way of showing all the videos.

Group By Name - This puts each video in folders by their first letters, so you have folders named A, B, C, so on. As I was using a number at the beginning to sort my huge list of videos it just stuck them all in an folder named Other. So, any video that starts with a number in the title will be shuffled into the Other folder.

This was not my option of choice as GT5 Prologue Trailer 1 was not grouped with TGS GT5 Prologue Trailer. I could rename, but I found something I liked better.


Group By Date - This works just like the pictures in that it puts them in folders sorted by months. This is fine except my GT5 videos did not come out at the same time and my Heavenly Sword Anime videos overlapped a month. So, unless you know when you put what videos on the hard drive I find it the least useful.

Group By Album - Album? What albums? That was what I asked, as everything just got put into an "Unknown" folder. So I checked the information on my videos and found that they have a spot for Album, but it is blank. It is also editable. So I went through and all my GT5 Prologue videos were listed as being in the GT5 Prologue album, my Heavenly Sword animes in their own album, my Le Mans videos in their own, my RollerCoaster Tycoon videos in their own, my movie trailers in their own, and my game trailers in their own.

I found this to be best as it is the only way that I can decide where each file individually goes and title it in a way that works best for me. Also, thanks to the predictive text I only had to type out each album's name once. It saved me from grabbing my keyboard and hooking it up.



Now that I have figured this out and have my videos organized in a much neater format I will need to go through and do this with all my pictures and games. The only MP3 on my PS3 hard drive is the Lair song that was offered for free from the PSN.

And yes, you can sort out your games by album. I plan on sorting out PSN Games by type, demos, and PS1 games.

Now that I have properly learned to use the grouping feature I find it is precisely what I wanted as I can now assign my media to folders with names I choose. Now, if only I could have multiple levels of folders....




In other news: my 256mb USB flash drive died last week (it was a few years old) and I consider it a blessing as my wife didn't argue with my replacing it with a 2gb for cheaper than I got the original those many years ago. I believe I will use this for creating a smooth running music playlists and whatnot so I don't have to sort through all my MP3s on my PCs external hard drive, especially considering many have bad or incorrect ID tags.
 
I am thinking about getting the PS3 Wireless ThumbPad from Mad Catz:

14514202764.jpg

Ha! Perfect for the Blackberry addict. I have to get one.
 
It may only be a coinsidence, but the online User's Guide for the PS3 has been down all today. I wonder if there is a system update being worked on and that they are updating the manual. Although it could also be that they found there were necessary additions and modifications that need to be done, that were overlooked the first time they released the Guide for 2.00 – or just a coincidence, and it’s just an error.
 
Is it me or has the web browser sped up since the 2.00 update, Im sure everything is going faster, maybe they tweaked the code but they still have a long way to go before firefox speeds.

I still don't get why the net would be any slower on a machine which is probably double if not triple the power of my desktop with the same net connection?? It should run at the same speed but downloads (in terms of MB take longer) and pages load slower, same as most people.

Robin
 
Is it me or has the web browser sped up since the 2.00 update, Im sure everything is going faster, maybe they tweaked the code but they still have a long way to go before firefox speeds.

I still don't get why the net would be any slower on a machine which is probably double if not triple the power of my desktop with the same net connection?? It should run at the same speed but downloads (in terms of MB take longer) and pages load slower, same as most people.

I suspect it's part of the added virus and spyware protection, and the lack of vulnerable extensions that otherwise might speed up the time a web page loads.
 
OK, I take back everything I said about the group content options.

I played with my video titles and whatnot and found some stuff out.

ALL - This is the traditional way of showing all the videos.

Group By Name - This puts each video in folders by their first letters, so you have folders named A, B, C, so on. As I was using a number at the beginning to sort my huge list of videos it just stuck them all in an folder named Other. So, any video that starts with a number in the title will be shuffled into the Other folder.

This was not my option of choice as GT5 Prologue Trailer 1 was not grouped with TGS GT5 Prologue Trailer. I could rename, but I found something I liked better.


Group By Date - This works just like the pictures in that it puts them in folders sorted by months. This is fine except my GT5 videos did not come out at the same time and my Heavenly Sword Anime videos overlapped a month. So, unless you know when you put what videos on the hard drive I find it the least useful.

Group By Album - Album? What albums? That was what I asked, as everything just got put into an "Unknown" folder. So I checked the information on my videos and found that they have a spot for Album, but it is blank. It is also editable. So I went through and all my GT5 Prologue videos were listed as being in the GT5 Prologue album, my Heavenly Sword animes in their own album, my Le Mans videos in their own, my RollerCoaster Tycoon videos in their own, my movie trailers in their own, and my game trailers in their own.

I found this to be best as it is the only way that I can decide where each file individually goes and title it in a way that works best for me. Also, thanks to the predictive text I only had to type out each album's name once. It saved me from grabbing my keyboard and hooking it up.



Now that I have figured this out and have my videos organized in a much neater format I will need to go through and do this with all my pictures and games. The only MP3 on my PS3 hard drive is the Lair song that was offered for free from the PSN.

And yes, you can sort out your games by album. I plan on sorting out PSN Games by type, demos, and PS1 games.

Now that I have properly learned to use the grouping feature I find it is precisely what I wanted as I can now assign my media to folders with names I choose.
+++REP Really Helpful Info!

I'm not sure how I missed this, or the way to create new custom named folders for everything including games! Wow! :eek:

This is what I've been wanting, and what drove me to remove all my content except games of course, to an external HD. There are still additional advantages to storing content on external HDs, but for this new update certainly has drastically improved file management on the PS3's HDD! 👍

And even though I am still going to keep my non game content on external drives, this new ability to make custom albums is great for my games. Now I have folders for PSN games and Demos, and broken down by game genres.

Now instead of a huge list of 70 games, I have them very nicely organized ib 15 folders. 👍👍


BTW: While testing out these new features, I found that if you copy a file from the HDD to a drive, and you had assigned that file to an album. Unfortunately that info is not copied over, such that when you copy the exact same file back to the HDD, you must put in the name of the album all over again.... although with the predictive text, this is not a huge deal.

It does though automatically assign an album based on the copy date, any content that you copy from an external drive to the HDD. This is a nice feature as well, as it makes it very easy to find all the recently transferred content. 👍

BTW: As mentioned in another thread, one of the advantages (assuming you like the video preview icons) of copying content from an external drive to the HDD, is that not only does it now automatically assign it an album, but it also automatically creates the 15-sec video preview loop icon.




Now, if only I could have multiple levels of folders....
Yes, this is still one of the advantages of keeping data on an external drive. Unfortunately though, even then it's not terribly convenient, as the PS3's OS wont automatically recognize multiple levels of folders. In order to see those extra folders and content you have to select the "Display All" option from the pop-up menu when you press the triangle button while highlighting the external drive icon.

Also, one of the disadvantages of having your content on an external drive is that currently the PS3's OS does not allow any sorting options of the content or folders. Not a huge deal seeing as you can find things easily enough, and of course when connected to your PC, you have lots of sorting and search options.


Bottom line though: This was a great System Update, worthy of the 2.00 nomenclature, and the added custom album feature is yet another sign that the developers of the PS3 OS are clearly working hard to make the PS3's OS one of the best for consoles. 👍
 
Now instead of a huge list of 70 games, I have them very nicely organized ib 15 folders. 👍👍
Yeah I have mine sorted out by things like Dual Analog Stick games (Super Stardust, Cahs! Guns! Chaos!) and Sixaxis Motion games (flOw, Go! Sports Ski) and the like. Plus, no blaring loud music when you scroll over onto Cash! Guns! Chaos! without expecting it.
 
If you mean with DLNA Media Sharing, yes.

I really have not used it much though since I started using the exterenal HD.

Why do you ask? Got more hot tips for me! 👍

Just wondering since for me having that ability completely negates the need for an external HDD since I too don't keep anything other than games on the PS3

it's also nice to access my home computer music files from my psp over a wireless connection and I'm surprised Sony isn't telling anyone who will listen about this feature
 
Just wondering since for me having that ability completely negates the need for an external HDD since I too don't keep anything other than games on the PS3
Gotcha.

I had two main reasons not to put the content on any of the internal HDs on my Desktop and Laptop computers. The first being that the internal hard drives were already pretty full. The second being that I wanted to have the ability to take just the hard drive with me, and plug it into other PS3 and PCs.

it's also nice to access my home computer music files from my psp over a wireless connection and I'm surprised Sony isn't telling anyone who will listen about this feature
Quite true... In fact I came sooo close to buying a PSP today while I was at GameStop this afternoon... but I try and avoid impulse buys, so I decided against it for now. $170 still seems high considering I would unlikely use it for anything but remote access. If I knew I would use it for games and movies I might, but I just can't see me ever doing that.

I must admit though... it's a very nice looking piece of equipment. Very solid ergonomics, and for the size screen, it looked great! 👍
 
I still haven't downloaded the 2.0 update because I'm afraid I won't be able to play GT4 anymore.

What the 2.0 update does for your PS3.

The PLAYSTATION®3 system software version 2.00 update includes the following:

* Users

o You can now password-protect user accounts.

* Settings

o [Dynamic Normalizer] has been added as an option under [Sound Settings].
o [Energy Saver] has been added as an option.
o [Equalizer] has been added as a feature under [Music Settings].
o [Full] has been added as an option for [DVD Wide Display] under [BD / DVD Settings].
o [Photo Settings] has been added as an option.
o [PS / PS2 Settings] has been added as an option.
o [RSS Channel Settings] has been added as an option.
o [Sample Rate] has been added to [Audio CD Import] under [Music Settings].
o [Screen Saver] has been expanded under [Display Settings].
o The method of selecting an output resolution has been changed in [Video Output Settings] under [Display Settings].
o [Theme Settings] has been added as an option.
o [Zero Unused Disk Space] has been added as an option under [System Settings] > [Format Utility].

* Photo

o Additional slideshows have been added.
o [Photo Effects] have been added as a feature.
o Wallpaper feature has been added.
o [Zoom] has been added as a feature.

* Music

o Additional visualizations have been added.
o CD information can now be entered.
o Three-speed fast forward and fast reverse has been added as a feature.

* Video

o Files can now be played sequentially.
o Three-speed fast forward and fast reverse has been added as a feature.
o You can now select [Zoom] under [Screen Mode] when playing video files saved on the hard disk or storage media.*.
*An appropriate USB adapter (not included) is required to use storage media with some models.

* Game

o Support for PLAYSTATION®3 format software titles has been expanded.
o XMB™ (XrossMediaBar) is now accessible during gameplay.

* Network

o [RSS Channel] has been added as a feature.

* Friends

o You can now have multiple chat sessions.
o You can now select an image to use as your Avatar from [Photo].

* Other

o Date & Time is now shown when the PS button is pressed.
o File sorting has been changed.
o [Help] has been added as a feature.
o Playability status with the PS3™ system has changed for some PlayStation® and PlayStation®2 format titles.
To check on the latest status, visit the search site for compatible titles.
o [Secure Delete] has been added as an option.
o Some PLAYSTATION®Network features have been revised.

Source: http://games.fok.nl/news.php?newsid=17816
 
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