freeform goodness

I’ve had a PS3 for a little while now, and I quite like it. It’s a pretty polished consumer electronics device, and plugged into my TV it’s even a half-decent attached set top: running Medialink on the Mac that hosts most of my digital media lets me play audio & video in a lot of common formats in the living room. Combined with the fact that Sony’s XMB is actually really nice (one of the nicer non-Apple UIs in the industry) and it’s really useful for viewing family photos, HD video podcasts, and the like.

I was interested to see that Sony have added video rentals. I don’t have a Mac or Windows machine plugged into the living room TV, and I can’t bring myself to buy an TV when the only thing I’d really be using it for is rentals, not to mention the prospect of yet another blinking box to maintain/attach (the same reason Netflix/Roku’s device doesn’t appeal), but a device I’ve already connected to the TV is a different matter. (An aside here — WhyTF did Netflix sign an “exclusive” deal with Microsoft for this? Are they idiots? Do they not realize that broadening this to PS3 and Wii owners would vastly increase its utility and reach?)

I haven’t rented anything from Sony’s video store — I was on the road for a large part of the week. I’m curious how the user experience compares to Apple’s rentals.

:: 09:50
:: /entertainment/movies | [+]
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