BYE BYE HTPC hello PS3 !

[supersub40]

After years of having an HTPC under the TV I have now decided to officially retire it , top silverstone case included and replace it with a PS3 which for the £300 is an amazing piece of kit.

I stopped using my HTPC for TV when i got a plasma as my virgin+ box completely blows it away, so then it was largely used for music and movies.

however like all pc's it's not exactly user friendly esp for the non technical and has to boot up etc etc and occassionally crashes.

enter the ps3, plays music, blurays, hidef movie rips,Divx, photos, could even do TV if i was interested, can also Stream to it via WMP11 or Tiversity from my main PC and ANYONE can use it oh and it plays games as well.

I think the HTPC was a good idea but ultimately usability becomes a liability and when sonething comes along that does everything it can do only more reliably, cheaper and quicker then for me its No brainer

[CrazyindianZA]

fair point. I can't say that I've considered getting rid of my htpc yet. I find that the HTPC is a lot more flexible than the ps3 along with providing superior sound (except for the hd sound decoding of course).

best of luck.

[ColonelK]

You can't upgrade a PS3 easily nor change the software on it to suit the purpose you want to achieve.

I've thought about a PS3 but ultimately the flexibility, upgradeability and suitability to my purposes rule it out in favour of an HTPC.

I'm only hoping that what I eventually buy will be easy for the wife to use

[andy1249]

My HTPC is used almost exclusively playing music and for recording HD music shows , mostly from BBC HD ( Live Earth , Glastonbury and all that good stuff ) which would fill up the SkyHD box in one go and with SkyHD you couldnt watch it from anything else because of the encryption and so forth.

Regarding the music , Compressed MP3 ( lame VB 0 ... the best I'm told ) is not a patch on uncompressed wavs or flac. Neither of which the PS3 can do either because of the space requirements or the codec requirements.

But the Showstopper for me with using the PS3 for a media center , is the interface , its just not good enough for a music / movie jukebox.

Compare that to Vista MCE's album / my movies view and that is why a HTPC is essential for me.
( I have somewhere between 3 and 4 thousand albums , all ripped to uncompressed format ... no PS3 can handle that , there is no hard drive big enough. )

Also , if you build a HTPC capable of S3 powerdown , then booting is a non issue and the unit can be controlled with a Harmony remote.

[Maxamus]

I have both a PS3 and a HTPC under my plasma.
I much prefer my file based HTPC over my PS3 as a total media solution.

- Surfing the internet is way better on my HTPC
- Organising/Cataloging Music and Films is better on my HTPC
- .mkv files only play on my HTPC (because my main PC is not powerful enough to convert on the fly)
- I have better control over my settings on the HTPC.

The PS3 however, is the only solution for BluRay in my opinion. Pop in a disk and off you go. No messing about.

PS3 -> For watching BluRay (disk based) & DVD Upscaling
HTPC -> For everything else

Its a win win situation in my living room

[Stephen Neal]

Yep - the PS3 with the PlayTV is a pretty good Blu-ray and PVR solution (though the live TV pause is a bit klunky). The upscaling of Freeview works very nicely. If you have a LOT of disc space then you can use WAV files for uncompressed audio on the PS3 as well - though I don't know about tags on WAVs.

However the HTPC is a good solution for satellite HD, and for DVD Jukebox applications if you want menus etc. (Though the PS3 does a VERY good job of scaling SD DVDs as well)

[Razor]

Sounds like the OP doesnt have a clue.

A PC is a far superior games machine and media player. You also need a pc to stream to a ps3.

[Stephen Neal]

Possibly a little harsh. The PS3 is a good "works out of the box" solution for people who aren't interested in tweaking and building their own solutions.

[mrm3]

HTPC is the only solution for all the annoying formats / codecs out there with a nice interface like MCE.

Other alternatives, like the PS3, you need to play by their rules. Fine if you find their rules tolerable.

PopcornHour is close though...

[supersub40]

Originally Posted by Razor

Sounds like the OP doesnt have a clue.

A PC is a far superior games machine and media player. You also need a pc to stream to a ps3.

well it depends on what games you want to play and whether you want to pay £300 every other month for the latest whizz bang SLi, triple SLi graphics cards to play variations on the same first person shooters that seem to be much the only half decent games left on the PC before piracy wipes out the PC gaming world.Develpers are abandoning the format in droves

plus the whole drivers , patches nonsense that still plagues PC gaming
and the fact that most games these days are bad console ports!

been there done that and still have a pretty handy Main PC for playing the odd PC gaming gem which are few and far between these days CMON HL3!


still lets not get into a childish boring old console vs PC debate ad infinitum.

Like most of the modern world i have a main pC in my house so naturally i use that and if i can stream from it all the better. For me the TV quality of an HTPC is poor compared to a V+ upscaled picture so my HTPC basically was reduced to movie playing and music.

PS3 is easy for everyone to use not just the geek minded and just works, no catalyst/nvidia driver issues to worry about, just plays blu ray and MKV without any probs and the music player is nice and easy as well.

I have been and done the whole HTPC thing and its a bit like people keep tropical fish after about 5 years you get fed up with looking after it.

[Apone]

My HTPC has played every single BD disc i have thrown at it so far. Picture and Cyberlink decoded HD sound is very very good imho.

Besides, the PS3 is lets face it- pig ugly as a piece of AV kit

[CrazyindianZA]

Originally Posted by Apone

My HTPC has played every single BD disc i have thrown at it so far. Picture and Cyberlink decoded HD sound is very very good imho.

Besides, the PS3 is lets face it- pig ugly as a piece of AV kit

better looking by far than a 360 or a Wee

[Maxamus]

Originally Posted by Apone

Besides, the PS3 is lets face it- pig ugly as a piece of AV kit

Best looking console on the market!
Looks great with my AV set up

[supersub40]

Originally Posted by Maxamus

Best looking console on the market!
Looks great with my AV set up

like PC's are the most attractive things ever!

[Donnacha]

a big plus for a HTPC for me is the ability to make it region free for SD and Bluray discs (as long as you use something like AnyDVD)

I assume a Ps3 is region fixed?