Sony announced today that the UK PlayStation 3 community will be receiving a new system software update on Tuesday December 18th. The announcement was posted through PlayStation UK’s system software updates page and details all the new features that will be added with this update.
One of the most exciting features to be released was the recently announced partnership with DivX Inc., to bring DivX playback to the PlayStation 3. This has been something that PS3 owners have looking forward as the system excepted most movie/video files in the past except those that are DivX encoded.
Another new feature is a voice changer that can be used in conjunction with your bluetooth headset. The voice changer will allow you to change the tone of a voice being input from your headset or microphone. There are five preset levels from which the user can choose from. The tone will be modifiable when using voice/video chat under Friends.
One last feature that the update brings is for the Blu-Ray player as it updates the Blu-Ray profile to the new 1.1. The biggest feature that the new profile brings is the ability to play picture in picture videos (it is dependent on each individual disc). The picture in picture may be useful when watching a movie and in a corner there is a video of the director commenting on a particular scene.
Below are complete details of the 2.10 update:
An update to the PS3 system software was released on December 18, 2007. If you update your PS3 system, the system software version will be 2.10 and the following features will be updated. In order to download PS3 system software version 2.10, you will need a minimum 120Mb of free space on either the PS3 Hard Disk Drive (System Update) or on removable storage media (PC Update).
The PLAYSTATION 3 system software version 2.10 update includes the following:
Voice Changer
The Voice Changer feature has been added to voice / video chat. Visit the Voice Changer guide in Help & Support under PS3 at eu.playstation.com for more details.
Other new or revised features in version 2.10
Music
* You can now select [Type 3] as an option under Settings > [Music Settings] > [Bitmapping]. This bitmapping process was developed specifically for the PS3TM system to enhance audio playback.
Video
* DivX and VC-1 (WMV) have been added to the types of files that can be played. *
* Blu-ray Disc Profile 1.1 is now supported. **
* [BD Data Utility] has been added. ***
*To play VC-1 (WMV) format files, you must go to Settings > [System Settings] and set [Enable WMA Playback].
– Copyright-protected files or files that were encoded by using DivX 3.11 cannot be played. – Files that are 2GB or more cannot be played.
**You may now be able to use several additional features such as playback of two videos at the same time with Profile 1.1-compatible Blu-ray Discs. The available features vary depending on the disc.
***The management data that is used by the Blu-ray Disc is saved.