PS3 1.80 Firmware Released With Surprises

By Paul Munn | May 24, 2007

The new 1.80 firmware for the PS3 has rolled into town and brought along what was predicted in the stories that ran online yesterday announcing it, along with some surprises. The predictions that were fulfilled are:

* Upscaling of PS1 and PS2 games to HD resolutions.
* Upscaling of DVDs to HD resolutions.
* PSP Remote Play via the Internet (requires next PSP firmware 3.5).
* HPNA/UPnP support for audio, video, and image servers.
* Epson printer support.

The surprises are:
* Copying PS2 saved data TO a PS2 Memory Card using the Memory Card Adapter.
* A new Smoothing option for PS1 and PS2 games.
* A new Change Password option under Security Settings.
* A new slide show type under Photo.

I briefly kicked the tires on the firmware early this morning. You can read the details about how to use the new features, where where to find them in the XMB, and how they work after the jump.

Upscaling for Games
The new upscaling for PS1 and PS2 games is big news for the PS3, and I tried it out with a couple of titles and found it worked as advertised. Under System Settings, there is now a Game Settings item, which contains PS1/PS2 Upscaler and PS1/PS2 Smoothing items.

The PS1/PS2 Upscaler can be set to Off, Normal, or Full Screen. Normal is the default, and refers to 4:3 scaling. Full Screen scales widescreen games up.

The PS1/PS2 Smoother can be set to Off or On, and defaults to Off.

The Upscaler has solved one major problem I had with my TV set when playing PS2 games. The PS3 used to stretch all of my games out to be widescreen and now you can opt to have the Upscaler keep a game 4:3 or Full screen.

I tried the Upscaler on Champions: Return To Arms and it looks significantly crisper than it used to and it is now not stretched to fit my widescreen TV. This should make Devil May Cry 3: SE playable for me again — the distortion on that game made it look sub-par.

Upscaling made GTA: San Andreas look much nicer — I have older images from that game on the PS3 that I’ll probably post soon after I take new ones — and the Smoother also seems to improve things even further. I’ll try to take comparison photos in the days ahead and post them as well.

Media Servers
HPNA/UPnP support is shorthand for media server support. The PS3 will now automatically scan the local network for media servers that are UPnP and HPNA compatible. That should include the Xbox Media Center software, other software offerings like the TVersity media server, and hardware devices some folks may already have on their home networks to share media between computers. I’m guessing the Windows Media Center software for XP may also let you watch the TV shows you’ve recorded on your desktop on your PS3 now.

There is now a “Search For Media Servers” option under the Photo, Music, and Video items on the XMB. If you have a server already configured — remember to open TCP 5000 and UDP 1900 on your PC’s firewall to let it be discovered — it will show up when the PS3 boots up as a new item to browse through for media under each of those items on the XMB.

I tried it out with a newly set up TVersity server and was able to stream and copy down MPEG videos. (For some reason my PS3 doesn’t like the MP3’s I’ve recorded on my computer whether I put them on a USB stick or via TVersity, but that’s an unrelated issue I need to check into.)

New “Photo Album 2″ Slideshow Type
The new Photo Album 2 slideshow type is a variation on the already-well-regarded Photo Album which arranges all of the photos on a given day in a 3-deep grid. It’s a much more compact layout than the casual, photo-dropping method used by the original Photo Album layout, and it looks just as pretty on the white backdrop.

Other items
I haven’t tried writing to a PS2 memory card, haven’t messed with the printer support, and didn’t try out the password option, which looks to add the ability to add a password to your account.

Links:
My PS3 Is All About The TV
Unviersal Plug n Play port 5000 description.
TVersity