VidZone - Free Music Videos on your PS3!

Sony’s cool VidZone service went live on 11th June 2009 offering PS3 owners an 'on demand' free music video channel. And it’s really cool!

Screenshot of Vidzone

Once you’ve downloaded and installed the app on your PS3, you need to agree to the EULA and choose whether to receive email updates on the service. Then it sets itself up, installing various components and doing God knows what else for about five minutes before you can start watching your favourite music videos.


From the homepage, navigation is a little confusing. There’s a whole heap of predetermined playlists, like the Top 10, best rock, sexiest and “star cameo” playlists.

If you don’t actually want to listen to any of those, you need to press the circle button to enter the menu. There you’re given the option of searching for songs, artists or genres and creating or listening to playlists.

The search feature is probably the first area that VidZone struggles and one where improvements I'm sure will be made. Typing in the name of your desired artist is annoyingly slow. Rather than using the PS3’s usual on screen keyboard, you have to manually scroll through each letter, and it’s not responsive at all. If you’re trying to type in a name with a lot of letters around the middle of the alphabet, like Foo Fighters for example, you’ll need a couple of minutes!


The cool thing is the sheer number of songs and artists is impressive. It’s not just restricted to the latest music either – there are tracks from the likes of James Brown as well. And John Mayer is there too.

The videos themselves look and sound very good, except for one little problem – they’re all restricted to 4:3 ratio, meaning your big ass 16:9 TV has two black bars down the sides. Even clips that are 16:9 in nature, like The Pretender by the Foo Fighters is restricted to 4:3, which means you have black bars all around the clip. Hopefully this is something Sony fixes post-haste, because not being able to view clips full screen is a huge disappointment.

As we saw from the screenshots yesterday, the ads are unobtrusive and varied, although at the moment a lot of the ads look to be directly imported from the UK, considering the pound signs everywhere. I’m sure that’s just a launch phase thing though – as the service kicks off we’ll probably see a lot more localised ads.

On the whole, VidZone is pretty impressive. It’s not something you’ll use all the time, but if you’re having a party or just want to sit around watching sexy videoclips, it’s a cool solution.

Sony to sell movies, TV shows via PS3

Sony Australia plans to begin selling high-definition movies and TV shows via its PlayStation 3 as early as this year, hammering another nail in the coffin of the rigid free-to-air TV networks.

Movie download stores have long been hampered by the complexity in moving downloaded content from the PC to the TV, but this niggle is finally evaporating thanks to new services that deliver video directly to the TV via games consoles and set-top boxes such as TiVo and Apple TV.

The final hurdle - Australia's comparatively slow broadband speeds and strict download quotas - is also set to disappear, with the upcoming National Broadband Network promising speeds of at least 100Mbps to 90 per cent of the population.

Sony has sold movies and TV shows through the PS3 in the US since June last year, and Australian Sony Computer Entertainment head Michael Ephraim said work was progressing on a launch in this country. "We're looking at launching some time towards the end of this year or into 2010," he said in a phone interview. Jack Ford, managing director of Sony Pictures Television, gave a similar projection at a Sony event in Sydney last week. I'd also expect that, within the next 12-18 months, high definition film and television content will be available through the PlayStation Network."

As a starting point, Sony announced today it would soon introduce VidZone, allowing PS3 users to watch music videos for free through the console.

Last week, Blockbuster and TiVo opened their joint movie and TV download service, allowing users of the TiVo set-top box to rent more than 100 movies and several TV shows directly from the device.

Internode customers can use the BlockBuster/TiVo service without eating into their download quotas.

Telstra BigPond, which sells movies, music and other content through its various websites, is rumoured to be heading down a similar path later this year by selling a set-top box similar to the TiVo that can provide unmetered access to BigPond's online services.

Yesterday, Apple Australia announced it was now selling HBO shows, including The Sopranos and Sex And The City, through iTunes.

Other studios including Disney, 20th Century Fox, NBC, Sony and MTV already offered episodes through the service, while a broad selection of movies can also be rented or bought.

Those with an Apple TV device can watch content bought from iTunes directly on their TV sets.

Soon, intermediary devices such as the PS3, TiVo and Apple TV will not even be required, as TV makers are now building internet connectivity directly into their new models.

So far in Australia the internet-enabled TVs are offering little more than YouTube clips but this is set to change shortly, with Americans already enjoying movie downloads via Netflix.

While Australia has lagged behind, those in the US have long been able to buy scores of movies and TV shows over the internet using a range of devices.

In fact, much of the latest content is offered for free - with advertising - through the Hulu website, which is not accessible to Australians.

Locally, TV networks have begun offering some of their biggest shows such as Underbelly as free advertising-supported downloads, but the process is slow, ad hoc and nowhere near as smooth as Hulu, which operates like YouTube.

The only exception is the ABC, which streams its shows for free through its iView player. Unlike the commercial networks, the ABC does not have to worry about online viewing eating into broadcast ad revenues.

More and more Australians, who are fed up with waiting for local networks to air US shows and not being able to watch episodes on their own schedules, are turning to BitTorrent sites to access the content illegally.

Video Demo of PS3 Motion Controller - with Playstation Eye

Video of Sony demonstrating its amazing PS3 motion controller with Playstation Eye at E3. This is just a prototype at the moment and is due to be released spring 2010. This new controller is just what PS3 owners were all waiting for. We were blown away with what this can controller will do, how precise movements are and what it will bring to the PS3 in terms of Wii type games. Just imagine playing Star Wars games with light sabers or games like Time Crisis, Call of Duty with guns etc....check it out!



Sony has released a few more PS3 Motion Controller details to developers and confirmed that staging its motion sensing assault “across all genres” with support from first-party and third-party content providers. It also revealed that the PS3 Motion Controller will have force feedback, something that rival Project Natal can’t achieve for obvious reasons.

The final design and even the name of the PS3 Motion Controller are both still up in the air. The quirky looking device shown off on stage at E3 was by no means the finished article.

Sony also stated that you’ll be able to play with up to four of them at the same time. Four is not an unusual number for a console, but it is interesting given that part of the E3 demo showed a pair of Motion Controllers being used together. Therefore it seems that the more complex games could be limited to two players only.

However, Sony also reveals that it’s “looking into the possibility” of combining the Motion Controller with the standard Sixaxis / DualShock 3 controllers to be used in tandem. The example given was of using the Motion Controller as a sword while the standard controller acted as a shield.

Still no word on prices or a fixed release date yet.

With this controller, PS3 owners have a PS3 and Wii in one console. Look forward to reporting more on this is the coming months. Stay tuned!