This morning, PS3 was graced with its latest set of firmware – 2.80 – which was so exciting it made v2.0 look like v1.93, seriously. Okay, no firmware update is going to be that exciting unless it transforms the PS3 into a means of delivering hot toasty snacks direct to your jowly face from across the room. This one though, was a good one. Following in Microsoft’s footsteps, PlayStation is now graced with full DivX support (and certification, no less) and Blu-ray profile 1.1.

High Def buffs will love 1.1 as it allows the use of 1.1 enabled Blu-ray discs that feature all sort of exciting things, including picture in picture. At the risk of making this sound far less exciting, this is basically one for people who lurve those directors commentary features on DVDs and have ever wondered ‘Wow, wouldn’t it be great if we could SEE the director as he yammers over the top of the film? Eh? Eh?’. So that’s all seven of you then.

Those who are less addicted to disc extras and more about getting the free movies and TV series off of naughty places on the interwebs that film studios would rather you didn’t visit are in for much more of a treat. DivX support means support for nearly every piece of pirated goodness you can wish for. It’ll run just about anything –most importantly XviD files – currently topping the illegal charts.

I’ve also run a couple of comparisons with the Xbox 360’s rival DivX support to see if there was any difference. Unfortunately there is. Before I go on, let me stress that I am not very clued up on different codecs and file compression techniques, so this is merely going to be anecdotal evidence.
Basically, I have found that the Xbox was able to play a couple more files than the PS3. Don’t worry – the only ones that either console struggled with are pretty damned old now downloads now and all the latest stuff I have downloaded (purely for research purpose, no need to send the goons round).

The PS3 has apparently been limited from playing DivX files over 2GB in size. None that I tried were that big, however, the ones that didn’t work each used the OpenDML AVI file format which is ( I believe) designed to support file sizes larger than 2GB. The Xbox 360, not having the same limitation, is capable of running these files just fine.

I’d be interested to hear opinions from anyone who has a better working knowledge of file types and codecs to see if we can narrow it down what can and can’t be played on the PS3 – please write in or drop me an email (on the right hand sidebar). For the most part though, the PS3 is now officially an amazing centre for piracy. If there was ever a time to upgrade your hard drive, that time is now.

If you wondering which of the PS3 and Xbox 360 is the better choice for scurvy practises, the 360 benefits from a better file organisation when you’re using external storage devices, but the PS3 wins for not sounding like a jet taking off.

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