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PS4 Launch Thread [Thread being archived 1/1/14]

Hasney

Member
Is anyone using an HDMI switch for a PS4/XB1/Cable box? I picked up one and it did not work ... for ANY of the devices.

I got a really cheap one that auto-switches when powered on and has a button on the box for manual switching. Has worked fine with PS4/PC/PS3/Wii U/Sky box.
 

AndyD

aka andydumi
Just because I'm totally ignorant to it from an audio standpoint, can you (or anyone) explain the idea behind a sound bar? I just don't understand it very well. It seems like it's one massive speaker. Why this over, say, a surround system or a nice 2.1 system?

Again, totally ignorant to it. Zero knowledge, and I'd like to upgrade my sound eventually.

A soundbar often comes with a separate subwoofer. So it is in effect a good looking 2.1 system.

What I am confused from the pictures, is that I see 2 speakers up top, so why is a soundbar needed as well?
 
I got a really cheap one that auto-switches when powered on and has a button on the box for manual switching. Has worked fine with PS4/PC/PS3/Wii U/Sky box.
Yeah was thinking about getting a switch. We got PS4, Wii U, 360, and an Android smart stick plugged up to one TV. Not to mention the Wii, PS3, PS2, and a Magnavox hooked to another TV as well.
 
Just because I'm totally ignorant to it from an audio standpoint, can you (or anyone) explain the idea behind a sound bar? I just don't understand it very well. It seems like it's one massive speaker. Why this over, say, a surround system or a nice 2.1 system?

Again, totally ignorant to it. Zero knowledge, and I'd like to upgrade my sound eventually.

I'm with you. I absolutely hate sound bars. They just take up too much room on an entertainment center and is very limited to placement due to its horizontal design. I don't see the need in them either. On the other hand, I like sound towers because they are vertical, stand, and can be accommodated anywhere in the room. Plus they make your entertainment center have a more clean look in my opinion. I have a Besta Ikea set and soundbars would not work for me, but some polks on the side, black, would definitely make it have a more contemporary look. Plus my room design goes along with the decor.
 

Hasney

Member
Yeah was thinking about getting a switch. We got PS4, Wii U, 360, and an Android smart stick plugged up to one TV. Not to mention the Wii, PS3, PS2, and a Magnavox hooked to another TV as well.

Christ. Glad I don't have that much right now and the 360 is still component since my aging TV only has one HDMI input.

I'm assuming it's not a Magnavox Odyssey then. Don't think they had HDMI back then.
 

Melchiah

Member
Just because I'm totally ignorant to it from an audio standpoint, can you (or anyone) explain the idea behind a sound bar? I just don't understand it very well. It seems like it's one massive speaker. Why this over, say, a surround system or a nice 2.1 system?

Again, totally ignorant to it. Zero knowledge, and I'd like to upgrade my sound eventually.

Well, I don't really have space for several speakers, let alone back speakers due to the location of the hospital bed. A sound bar would be a step up in sound quality from the TV speakers. I'm still debating on whether to get a soundbar or 2.1 system, I just don't think I can set the latter in a sensible way.


EDIT:
I'm with you. I absolutely hate sound bars. They just take up too much room on an entertainment center and is very limited to placement due to its horizontal design. I don't see the need in them either. On the other hand, I like sound towers because they are vertical, stand, and can be accommodated anywhere in the room. Plus they make your entertainment center have a more clean look in my opinion. I have a Besta Ikea set and soundbars would not work for me, but some polks on the side, black, would definitely make it have a more contemporary look. Plus my room design goes along with the decor.

Come to think of it, a 2.1 system with two tower speakers would probably fit in there, but I presume those are priced higher?


EDIT.2:
A soundbar often comes with a separate subwoofer. So it is in effect a good looking 2.1 system.

What I am confused from the pictures, is that I see 2 speakers up top, so why is a soundbar needed as well?

The old mini-stereo doesn't have proper inputs for the PS4/TV.
 
Well, I don't really have space for several speakers, let alone back speakers due to the location of the hospital bed. A sound bar would be a step up in sound quality from the TV speakers. I'm still debating on whether to get a soundbar or 2.1 system, I just don't think I can set the latter in a sensible way.


EDIT:


Come to think of it, a 2.1 system with two tower speakers would probably fit in there, but I presume those are priced higher?.

Ah, I see. I think maybe you could fit some tower speakers in there, but otherwise, yeah, I see your point. Nice set up, by the way.
 

imtehman

Banned
so i got CoDGhosts for the ps4 and i enjoyed the single player. Will i enjoy the single player of BF4/killzone?

And i'm not much of a Assassins creed player, i played the first one and thought it was cool but got bored after 2 hours or so. How different is it from that and black flag? how is the gameplay mechanics different from that part 1 and part 4?
 

zarnold56

Member
I am looking to get a PS4 this week. I can borrow AC4, Knack, and Killzone from a friend. What is the next best game I can buy for the PS4? Is Madden worth it if I haven't bought it since 2011?
 

AndyD

aka andydumi
EDIT:
Come to think of it, a 2.1 system with two tower speakers would probably fit in there, but I presume those are priced higher?

EDIT.2:
The old mini-stereo doesn't have proper inputs for the PS4/TV.

Ahh. As to price, with soundbars you are sometimes paying for the aesthetics and not the quality, and with standalone systems of course quality will drive up the price.
 

Melchiah

Member
Ahh. As to price, with soundbars you are sometimes paying for the aesthetics and not the quality, and with standalone systems of course quality will drive up the price.

Yeah, I just checked a couple of local webstores, and both cost at least 250-350€, which is more than what I was ready to pay. Their selections were pretty limited though, so I'll have to check some other places, like Amazon.UK.
 

ParityBit

Member
I think I might have already told you this, but I have the same exact one and you do need a power adapter to get it to work with the PS4. For most anything else, passive is fine. In your case, it sounds like you have a defective item. You should get it replaced.

I will test on my other TV tonight and see. Otherwise I will have to contact Amazon. Feel stupid doing that for a $9 device.
 

AndyD

aka andydumi
Yeah, I just checked a couple of local webstores, and both cost at least 250-350€, which is more than what I was ready to pay. Their selections were pretty limited though, so I'll have to check some other places, like Amazon.UK.

You may be able to find a small/cheap receiver and pair speakers with it. Rather than a boxed solution. Or even a small 5.1 home theater in a box and not use the rear speakers. Not sure about the UK market, but something along those lines would be doable on a $2-300 budget int he US.
 

partime

Member
Just because I'm totally ignorant to it from an audio standpoint, can you (or anyone) explain the idea behind a sound bar? I just don't understand it very well. It seems like it's one massive speaker. Why this over, say, a surround system or a nice 2.1 system?

Again, totally ignorant to it. Zero knowledge, and I'd like to upgrade my sound eventually.

That .1 would cause major complaints from the apartment beneath me.
 

Vinneh

Banned
Is there a way to stop some (not all) activities from showing up on the 'Whats New' list?
I don't want to bother my friends with some of the things I'm doing.
 

partime

Member
Got delivered today from AMAZON!

Considering the original delivery date was Jan 8th, I'm super excited.

One more hour @ work until greatness, .... one whole hour...
 

KevinRo

Member
Fuck these launch consoles. Thank god I never buy them until a year or so after launch.

I just had the worst experience with a PS4 than any other launch console ever to try and enable the simplest feature.

The stupid thing doesn't play dvd's or br's offline and the usb firmware update doesn't install playback (which one would think it does). So you have to sign online to download the update no matter what. Meanwhile, it's not my PS4 and my friend who lives a couple hours away doesn't have Internet for a couple more days. We just spent hours driving back and forth between his house and my house (he lives in the city and it's more fun to hang out there) just so he can play offline dvd's and br's.

Not only that, the fucking HDMI port in the back wouldn't accept any of my three HDMI cables in my house. So I had to drive back to his house to grab his HDMI cable. I googled the problem thinking I broke his PS4 to find that the HDMI port in the back isn't aligned right for the oddest fucking reason. Talking about alignment, the indented USB ports in the front of the console is the dumbest idea I've ever seen. My fucking USB stick couldn't fit.

So after updating his firmware to 1.52 via another USB stick and finding that the updates still doesn't activate dvd and br functionality, I plug his PS4 into my home network only to get a su-30696-4 error when trying to connect to the internet. Oh god, I'm thinking I fucked his firmware up with the 1.52 update. How the fuck does this shit happen? It's the official firmware off the sony website and it brakes online functionality. Thank god the factory reset was incredibly fast which allowed me to finally get on the internet.

Activating something simple as offline dvd and bluray viewing shouldn't be this hard. It should come fucking standard. Not to mention the games looked like shit. I won't be touching either this or the xbone until something looks better than a two year old PC game. Oh and his receipt for a controller, a couple games, 2 years of PSN+ was ~$800.00. That was how much my PS3 package cost years back and that monstrosity was $599.99. I will admit, the PS4 is sexy.

*edit*

I almost forgot, touching the controller felt like sex. I always thought the previous iterations of the DS controller was for midgets. This new one fits really well, shades of the GC controller handles. The sticks, the stick feel like shit though.
 
Fuck these launch consoles. Thank god I never buy them until a year or so after launch.

I just had the worst experience with a PS4 than any other launch console ever to try and enable the simplest feature.

The stupid thing doesn't play dvd's or br's offline and the usb firmware update doesn't install playback (which one would think it does). So you have to sign online to download the update no matter what. Meanwhile, it's not my PS4 and my friend who lives a couple hours away doesn't have Internet for a couple more days. We just spent hours driving back and forth between his house and my house (he lives in the city and it's more fun to hang out there) just so he can play offline dvd's and br's.

Not only that, the fucking HDMI port in the back wouldn't accept any of my three HDMI cables in my house. So I had to drive back to his house to grab his HDMI cable. I googled the problem thinking I broke his PS4 to find that the HDMI port in the back isn't aligned right for the oddest fucking reason. Talking about alignment, the indented USB ports in the front of the console is the dumbest idea I've ever seen. My fucking USB stick couldn't fit.

So after updating his firmware to 1.52 via another USB stick and finding that the updates still doesn't activate dvd and br functionality, I plug his PS4 into my home network only to get a su-30696-4 error when trying to connect to the internet. Oh god, I'm thinking I fucked his firmware up with the 1.52 update. How the fuck does this shit happen? It's the official firmware off the sony website and it brakes online functionality. Thank god the factory reset was incredibly fast which allowed me to finally get on the internet.

Activating something simple as offline dvd and bluray viewing shouldn't be this hard. It should come fucking standard. Not to mention the games looked like shit. I won't be touching either this or the xbone until something looks better than a two year old PC game. Oh and his receipt for a controller, a couple games, 2 years of PSN+ was ~$800.00. That was how much my PS3 package cost years back and that monstrosity was $599.99. I will admit, the PS4 is sexy.

good to hear about the ps4.

sorry for the shit experience though.
 
And i'm not much of a Assassins creed player, i played the first one and thought it was cool but got bored after 2 hours or so. How different is it from that and black flag? how is the gameplay mechanics different from that part 1 and part 4?
They're clearly the same series, but over time they've added lots more side mission stuff to the game. So climbing and assassinating are still in there and much the same, but there's lots more collectibles and stuff. As for mechanics, they moved away from the "puppeteering" concept of the first one, so the controls are more like other action games now. My memory says that combat is much easier now due to new combos and so on, but it's been a long time since I've played the original.

The best part of Black Flag is the setting, though: the verdant forests, sparkling seas, and sudden storms of the Caribbean are much more interesting to look at than the dust of the Middle East. (Though perhaps the architecture isn't as neat.)
 

Melchiah

Member
You may be able to find a small/cheap receiver and pair speakers with it. Rather than a boxed solution. Or even a small 5.1 home theater in a box and not use the rear speakers. Not sure about the UK market, but something along those lines would be doable on a $2-300 budget int he US.

That's one option as well. Thanks for the suggestion.
 
Fuck these launch consoles. Thank god I never buy them until a year or so after launch.

I just had the worst experience with a PS4 than any other launch console ever to try and enable the simplest feature.

The stupid thing doesn't play dvd's or br's offline and the usb firmware update doesn't install playback (which one would think it does). So you have to sign online to download the update no matter what. Meanwhile, it's not my PS4 and my friend who lives a couple hours away doesn't have Internet for a couple more days. We just spent hours driving back and forth between his house and my house (he lives in the city and it's more fun to hang out there) just so he can play offline dvd's and br's.

Not only that, the fucking HDMI port in the back wouldn't accept any of my three HDMI cables in my house. So I had to drive back to his house to grab his HDMI cable. I googled the problem thinking I broke his PS4 to find that the HDMI port in the back isn't aligned right for the oddest fucking reason. Talking about alignment, the indented USB ports in the front of the console is the dumbest idea I've ever seen. My fucking USB stick couldn't fit.

So after updating his firmware to 1.52 via another USB stick and finding that the updates still doesn't activate dvd and br functionality, I plug his PS4 into my home network only to get a su-30696-4 error when trying to connect to the internet. Oh god, I'm thinking I fucked his firmware up with the 1.52 update. How the fuck does this shit happen? It's the official firmware off the sony website and it brakes online functionality. Thank god the factory reset was incredibly fast which allowed me to finally get on the internet.

Activating something simple as offline dvd and bluray viewing shouldn't be this hard. It should come fucking standard. Not to mention the games looked like shit. I won't be touching either this or the xbone until something looks better than a two year old PC game. Oh and his receipt for a controller, a couple games, 2 years of PSN+ was ~$800.00. That was how much my PS3 package cost years back and that monstrosity was $599.99. I will admit, the PS4 is sexy.

*edit*

I almost forgot, touching the controller felt like sex. I always thought the previous iterations of the DS controller was for midgets. This new one fits really well, shades of the GC controller handles. The sticks, the stick feel like shit though.

Yup another reason for me to wait till a revision
 
I think the only thing I'm dissapointed in, other than that shitty earpiece, is the lack of any Youtube support or flash support in general for the web browser. I really hope both are somewhere down the pipeline. That and Tales of Zestria are the only things keeping my PS3 hooked up to my TV at the moment.
 
I think the only thing I'm dissapointed in, other than that shitty earpiece, is the lack of any Youtube support or flash support in general for the web browser. I really hope both are somewhere down the pipeline.

Yup, that's pretty shocking really. There's a semi-solution for Youtube by using youtube.com/tv instead, but still, it's pretty unacceptable the state that the web browser is currently in.
 
Yup, that's pretty shocking really. There's a semi-solution for Youtube by using youtube.com/tv instead, but still, it's pretty unacceptable the state that the web browser is currently in.

Exactly, especially when you consider that pretty much everything and its brother has a Youtube app-even its younger brother. Thanks for the tip though. I wasn't aware youtube.com/tv actually worked on PS4.
 

RedAssedApe

Banned
don't think flash is coming. although its strange since it was somewhat supported in Ps3 browser no?

if only you could change the user agent for the browser. lotta sites like gametrailers seem to support HTML5 but only load those versions of the pages when mobile OS browsers like Android and iOS are accessing the sites.
 

Knight77

Member
Today I bought the official charging station for the dualshock 4, any problem leaving the pads always connected there when I don't use them? Someone said is bad for the batteries to be always charging...I thought that I'm 2014 this kind of issues were already solved...
 
don't think flash is coming. although its strange since it was somewhat supported in Ps3 browser no?

if only you could change the user agent for the browser. lotta sites like gametrailers seem to support HTML5 but only load those versions of the pages when mobile OS browsers like Android and iOS are accessing the sites.

Actually yes, the PS3 web browser supports Adobe Flash 9. Some sites actually ask you to update to the latest edition of FlashPlayer. I think flash will come sooner or later just like the Youtube app. Outside of not wanting to pay for the license for flash I can't see a real reason why they wouldn't. Too many websites use flash for it to be ignored.
 

Hasney

Member
Flash is a relic of the past. I really hope the PS4 is another device to not use it so adoption of it can finally be killed off.
 
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