Well, that was fast. Less than a week ago Sony announced that the PlayStation3’s 2.20 firmware would include BD-Live support, amongst other things, and it is now available. So gentlemen, and ladies, start your upgrades!

Via EngadgetHD.

Sony has announced that the next firmware update for the PlayStation3, 2.20, will include BD-Live support, aka Blu-ray Profile 2.0, and it will street in ‘late March’. Since there are only 11 days left in the month, that means we’ll see it very soon. In one fell swoop this will make the vast majority of Blu-ray players in the world BD-Live capable, which should encourage more studios to make use of the technology. And it should help put pressure on the standalone player vendors to step up and release BD-Live enabled decks.

Unfortunately, this firmware update does not include the hoped for addition of DTS-HD Master Audio support. DTS-MA is the one major audio codec the PS3 lacks. It will internally decode Dolby TrueHD and output it as uncompress PCM, but there is no support for DTS-MA at this time. The PS3 will not bitstream TrueHD, and this is believed to be a limitation of the HDMI chipset used. So it is unlikely that the current PS3 HW could ever bitstream TrueHD or DTS-MA, but it could internally decode DTS-MA and output the uncompressed PCM, as it does with TrueHD, for the same end result. Perhaps Sony will update the HDMI chipset in future PS revisions to allow bitstreaming.

BD-Live isn’t the only addition in 2.20. PSP owners will be able to copy their photo and music playlists from the PS3 to the handheld. And there are other new additions:

• “Resume play” will enable PS3 system to start playing a Blu-ray disc and DVD at the point it was stopped, even if the disc had been removed.(*1)
• “Audio Output Device” will be a new Remote Play setting, enabling PSP to serve as a remote control for music played through PS3.
• PS3 system’s Internet browser will be enhanced: Video files directly linked from a Web page will be able to be streamed, and the browser’s view speed will be improved.
• DivX and WMV format videos that are larger than 2GB will be playable.
• “Mosquito Noise Reduction” will be added as an AV setting in the control panel of the DVD/BD player for improved movie playback.(*2)

*1 BD-J format disc is not supported.
*2 BD discs recorded with BDMV format are not supported.

Here’s the full press release:
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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.

It looks like the PS3 will get Blu-ray Profile 1.1 (aka Final Standard Profile aka ‘Bonus View’) tomorrow. The European PlayStation site let the cat out of the bag by prematurely posting a page which referred to the 2.10 firmware update as “released on December 18, 2007.” The 2.10 update includes Blu-ray Profile 1.1 (the most noticeable feature being PIP support), DivX support, and VC-1/WMV support, amongst other features. Via Gizmodo.

As users have been reporting in the TiVo Lovers community and TiVoCommunity.com, Comcast just pushed out a firmware update for their Motorola cable boxes which incidentally disabled serial control of the boxes. This means that if you’re using a TiVo Series1 or Series2 with a Comcast cable box and you’re using the serial cable instead of the IR blasters, your TiVo will lose its ability to control the cable box. The solution is to go back to using the IR blasters. If you’ve misplaced your IR blasters TiVo sells replacements and I have compatible SmartHome cables in the store.