PlayStation3′s Blu-ray Profile 1.1 Capabilities Explored

As I posted on Monday, the PlayStation3 did indeed receive firmware update 2.10 on Tuesday. Among other things, this gives the PS3 Blu-ray Profile 1.1 support – the main feature of which is PIP support. (The PS3 is expected to be upgraded to Profile 2.0 aka BD-Live in 2008. It has the required hardware.) While there are not yet any commercial available Profile 1.1 titles to try, Blu-ray.com received a screener copy of Resident Evil: Extinction, one of the first titles that will have Profile 1.1 content, and put it through its paces. The Profile 1.1 features worked perfectly on the PS3, providing interactive commentary tracks during playback of the film. And, despite the FUD from some HD DVD fans, the Profile 1.1 disc worked just fine in a 1.0 player (the Panasonic DMP-BD10), and the 1.1 content was simply not presented to the viewer as an option at all. Just as it is supposed to work – backwards compatibility. Checkout the Blu-ray.com article for screencaps of their testing.