gamedevlists-consoles

[GD-Consoles] Generic MP3 Player for Playstation 2

[Leath M. <Lea...@en...>]

Not game related, but it's a quiet list so far... :)

Not having access to a development kit for the PS2, could someone please
let me know how feasible it is to have a PS2 as a generic home MP3 player?

Maybe some software on a CD that loads up on the PS2 and plays all the MP3's
on the disk, or a mini-player that sits on a memory card and loads up MP3's
on CD as per normal music CD's?

How hard is it to format to the PS2's format disks from a generic CD writer?
(eg: like windows, is there an autorun?) Could a person just setup a directory
on a CD with an included executable that auto loads?

I'm happy to talk about this offline if anybody is interested... and I don't
suspect a (yes/no/hard/easy sorta answer would really go against any NDA's :)

Leathal.

Re: [GD-Consoles] Generic MP3 Player for Playstation 2

[Jason G D. <jas...@py...>]

> Not having access to a development kit for the PS2, could someone please
> let me know how feasible it is to have a PS2 as a generic home MP3 player?
> 
> Maybe some software on a CD that loads up on the PS2 and plays all the MP3's
> on the disk, or a mini-player that sits on a memory card and loads up MP3's
> on CD as per normal music CD's?

Ok, so there's two parts to this.  Firstly, could you write/port an MP3
player on a PS2.  Yes.  The PS2 is more than capable of playing MP3, and
indeed I've seen it done.

The problem comes when you want a consumer machine to boot up a program
to do it, because of course without a naughty modchip (which invalidates
your warranty and will make us take you off our Christmas card list) then
a machine will simply not boot anything other than a legitimately duplicated
PS2 CD or DVD.  You can't get an ordinary CD writer to make CDs which boot.

If you're a developer then you can just get a TEST unit, which can boot
from gold CD's, but these are not available to the general public.

However, all is not lost.  The PS2 linux kit will enable people to write
their own software.  While only available in Japan right now, if enough
interest is shown in it, it will no doubt be released in the other territories.

Using this (complete with it's own HD and network interface) It would probably
be feasible to compile up an MP3 player (complete with funky user interface)
and have it play a selection of tracks stored on the internal hard drive.

For information, and to register interest in the linux kit, pop along
to the Sony technology site:-

http://www.technology.scee.net/cgi-bin/scee/scee.pl?ps2linux

That's the european one, I don't have the US one to hand.

> How hard is it to format to the PS2's format disks from a generic CD writer?
> (eg: like windows, is there an autorun?) Could a person just setup a directory
> on a CD with an included executable that auto loads?

Well I've sort of answered this above. However, I'd just like to make a
friendly suggestion that this list doesn't launch into a discussion of
bypassing the PS2's copy protection methods :)

Cheers,

Jase.

-- 
Jason G. Doig
Senior Engineer, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe.
Opinions expressed are mine, not necessarily anyone else's, yadda yadda...

Re: [GD-Consoles] Generic MP3 Player for Playstation 2

[Tom H. <to...@3d...>]

At 12:30 AM 10/5/2001, Jason G Doig wrote:
>The problem comes when you want a consumer machine to boot up a program
>to do it, because of course without a naughty modchip (which invalidates
>your warranty and will make us take you off our Christmas card list) then
>a machine will simply not boot anything other than a legitimately duplicated
>PS2 CD or DVD.  You can't get an ordinary CD writer to make CDs which boot.

This is very true. However, there may be a way to boot up with a legitimate 
CD/DVD that contains the MP3 decoder/playback program and then swap out 
that disk for a CD-R containing a bunch of MP3s. As I understand it, there 
difficulties involved with being able to swap disks after boot, but it 
isn't impossible (GameShark does it).

I suspect there would be a market for such a thing. Imagine a WinAmp style 
program with really neat visualization stuff. Once broadband for PS2 is 
available then downloadable updates (stored on mem carts or HDs), user made 
plug-ins, and streaming MP3s would also be really cool. I know I'd think 
about buying such a thing :)

>Well I've sort of answered this above. However, I'd just like to make a
>friendly suggestion that this list doesn't launch into a discussion of
>bypassing the PS2's copy protection methods :)

Such discussions would be "bad" and defeat the purpose of the list.

Tom

Re: [GD-Consoles] Generic MP3 Player for Playstation 2

[Arn <ar...@bl...>]

Tom Hubina wrote:
> [..] 
> I suspect there would be a market for such a thing. Imagine a WinAmp style
> program with really neat visualization stuff. Once broadband for PS2 is
> available then downloadable updates (stored on mem carts or HDs), user made
> plug-ins, and streaming MP3s would also be really cool. I know I'd think
> about buying such a thing :)

Interesting, this is exactly what Modern Groove was trying to do.  They
picked up the Ministry of Sound and then made a MP3 player / vis
program.  Unfortunately Modern Groove is no longer with us so I don't
know if this product will ever hit the market and if it does I think
they only manage to accquire a publishing deal in Europe.  Here's the
link:

http://ps2.ign.com/previews/16282.html


Arn