Whilst trying to find some info about Go!View the latest addition to the GO range of services/applications for the PSP I came across the official site which is one of the slickest web-sites I’ve seen in a long time. Eventually remembering what I went there for, Go!View is a video download service in association with Sky which will allow you to download and watch TV programs, movies and sport on a individual pay as you go basis or as a subscription. No prices as yet but in conjunction with PlayTV (the files are recorded in MPEG-2 format and they will be accessible from the XMB allowing transfer to the PSP) Sony seem to have the entertainment side of things sorted.

All this media does put a strain on memory and Pro-Duo sticks are not the cheapest format going which is nice that I discovered you can get a Pro-Duo adapter for micro SD cards. An 8gig micro-SD card with adapter is £35.99 inc VAT, half the price of the official memory stick.

Just a very quick post, Amazon UK have PlayTV listed for pre-order. Availability is shown as 31st of July 2008, and the cost? A very reasonable £59.99 (RRP £69.99). remember for that price you are getting twin (HD) tuners which will act as a PVR as well.

Video about the new PSN Store which should be available mid April along with version 2.30 of the PS3 firmware. Also mentioned was that 2.30 will have DTS-HD audio output for Blu-Ray movies (if it’s supported by the disc). Not being hugely into the audio side of things I have no idea what  difference this will make in reality but any advancement is always welcome.

Just came across this as I was posting the above and decided to stick it on the end.

PS3iPlayer uses the BBC iPlayer for Wii (didn’t know there was one!) and converts it for use with the PS3. You have to navigate to the site using the PS3 browser and quite frankly it’s brilliant. There are a few very minor issues but has the person who created it says:

“It’s mainly a demonstration of how easily the BBC could support the PS3 with their Wii version. This does nothing more than
mask your PS3’s user-agent string and makes half a dozen changes to make the JavaScript and CSS function correctly on the PS3.
It only took a day to produce, so come on BBC – how about implementing this properly?”

PSP Firmware update ver 3.95 is now ready for download. The update has the following changes:

Support for PSN titles has been expanded
PS1 titles, assign buttons feature has been expanded

On the PS3 blog site, although not in the ‘firmware changes’ section it states you now have the option to leave the PS3 on when you exit ‘remote connect’, which is handy if you are downloading something.

New Firmware for the PS3 is now available. Version 2.20 was announced about a week ago but is finally available for download. The changes are as follows:

Playlists from the PS3 can be copied including the content to the PSP. Play the content in the order it was set on the PS3 system.

BD Profile 2.0 is now supported. Giving BD Live and Internet access to content via the BD

Resume play for both BD and DVD discs even if the system is turned off and the disc has been ejected.

DivX content that exceeds 2GB can now be played and subtitles can now be displayed for DivX content.

An update for movie fans and it’s nice to see the resume feature in place. Not mentioned in the update is he fact that they have made some changes to the web browser, some sites I couldn’t access before I now can. I also expect there’s a few more hidden treasures are in there.

GamesIndusrty Biz have a very interesting interview with Ron Festejo and John Venables, the creative director and lead artist on the Home project. It gives a insight into what we can expect when it’s finally released and how Sony see it growing.

There’s also a very small firmware update (2.17) which has improved the operating stability of some online games.

I was hoping to write a little something about the Go!Messenger service which is now available for download via icon on the PSP XMB. Unfortunately whilst you can download it and fill out the registration details (very slowly on the PSP, I would recommend doing it via the PC website) when I attempt to log on I’m told the account verification has failed and username etc are not valid. When I log on to the PC site (username works here no problem) and go to the ‘Your Account’ tab I get the following message.

‘Go!Messenger service not yet active.’

Even after registration it may be that BT just can’t cope with the demand as the following message indicates.

‘Go!Messenger service has just launched, with heavy demand expected on registrations. Please be patient with us and we apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.’

Looking through the various FAQ’s and forums it seems that you need to receive 2 emails. The first is the registration of your BT.com account, the second for the Go!Messenger service itself which can take up to 48 hours! It’s a pity the service doesn’t work right from the off, but hopefully BT will get their act together over the weekend. Once/if you do manage to get it working a user guide can be found here (PDF format)

Edit: Having been messing around with this for a couple of days I’ve managed to get it to work! FYI if you sign up with the PSP rather then on the PC website you seem to get the second email through and all is good. It still takes a couple of hours for the second email but it’s better then a couple of days.

Here’s the extract from the latest Sony news letter.

“With system software version 3.90, PSP geared up for audio and video messaging. In the next few days the Go!Messenger service, offering you voice and video chat, will be launching for both PSP (PSP 1000 series) and PSP Slim & Lite (PSP 2000 series).

For information on how to get chatting head to goPSPgo.com.”

Sounds good, but slightly worrying (for me at any rate) is that when you click on the link there’s no ‘UK’ option but I can’t imagine BT would forget it’s home country.

My wife got me a PSP slim the other day so I thought I’d do a quick comparison. However there is a very nice C|Net review with accompanying video here and rather than repeat all that I’ll just give a quick resume of my thoughts.

The most immediate difference is the weight, a 3rd lighter, but it’s not until you get it in your hands that you appreciate the difference.

The TV out is a waste of time unless you have a large UMD movie collection (must be someone out there) although you can pick up some very good bargains now for these so I might start investing. Games in particular do not play full screen and quite frankly look poor when blown up on the big screen and you will need the component leads to be able to play them.

Screen is defiantly a bit brighter (see pic) although the screen protector does affect it slightly.

Change in the speaker location is good you no longer cover them up with your hands.

On the whole unless you want to lighten the load in your pocket (in more ways than one) or you really want Skype it’s probably not worth updating.

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The big news of course is Toshiba’s decision to drop HD-DVD. I’ve got mixed feelings on this, my preference would have been for HD-DVD because looking at it independently I believed it to be the better format. However I’m very happy that the ‘war’ is over and I can buy with some semblance of confidence.

The was an update for Folding@Home very minor just some improvements to uploading/downloading of data. Click on the update link for more info.

After the apparent publication of PSP phone in an official Sony magazine the rumour mill that is the Internet has gone into full swing. This is a very obvious place for Sony to go with the PSP especially given the recent inclusion of Skype my favourite is the image below which looks very cool but I fear is just a magazine mockup.