How is the PS3 as a Divx player?

[Hank Kinsley]

^Topic. Is it fairly good (compatibility-wise)? Does it accept USB-drives with Divx movies on them?

[Ai Haibara]

As far as I'm aware, the PS3 doesn't support DivX/Xvid at the moment, unless perhaps you install Linux on it. They're reporting that DivX support will be added to the PS3 at some point (through a firmware update?), and that it will be a certified DivX player, but I'm not sure when, or if it will be Ultra-certified.

[aedipuss]

video mpg 1,2,4/avc is all it plays so far. Ai Haibara is correct about current divx status. <they're working on it>

[Megahurts]

Does it support ts, m2ts, m2t files?

[Ai Haibara]

Okay, so v2.10 of the PS3 firmware was apparently released today (12/18/07), in the US, and includes DivX/XVid support. I've been testing it a little; the PS3 seems to handle DivX and Xvid videos okay enough. I did notice the old blocky BFrame Decoder Lag message flash at the beginning of one video, though.

The version history claims it won't decode DivX3 video. It may not like Xvid video with GMC/QPEL, either... I'm not sure. The PS3 scans the video files when it's building the directory list, and if it finds any AVIs (or other video files, of course) encoded in ways it doesn't like, those videos are listed as "Unsupported Data," rather than their filenames, and you won't be able to play them. I don't know what limitations there are on Xvid videos, yet, but the PS3 didn't seem to mind packed bitstream or VBR audio. Not sure about any problems with multiple b-frames.

Also, I think there was something in the version history about it not supporting videos over 2GB, too.

The PS3 will read AVIs from a data DVD fine (I don't know if it'll handle data CDs yet...), and thankfully, you don't have to have the videos in a specific directory; you can browse to any directory and play them, if they're not "Unsupported Data."

I couldn't get the PS3 to recognize AVIs on an SD card or USB flash drive, however. The files wouldn't even show up. If I created a "Video" folder and placed the AVIs in it, the PS3 would recognize that there were files present in the directory, but claimed they were "Unsupported Data." Probably expecting to see only MP4 videos in that directory.
I don't know, yet, if you need to have DivX/Xvid videos in a certain directory when playing from a USB drive/SD card/Memory Stick (or what the name of that directory would need to be)... or if it even supports playing those videos from anything other than a data disc or the internal hard drive. Probably doesn't... at least, not yet.

[djferrick]

yeah same prob. Attached hard drive and it doesn't 'see' the files. Burn em on to a data disc and they play fine.

[mwthomasjr]

I can see DivX .avi and .divx files if I click the triangle and do show all files.

[agidol]

Is PS3 DivX Ultra certified? It seems PS3 does not do as good of job in reading DivX file as other universal players like Philips DVP5990. I do have the latest firmware installed. Any insights?

[buzzqw]

not ultra, just play divx and xvid (no qpel/gmc)
no external subs
yes ac3 and multi audio track

BHH