First of all, an apology. You might have been noticing an increasingly frequent and increasingly annoying amount of adverts in-between videos recently. This was due to a bug and was certainly not intentional and we have been working like dogs to fix it. We would never overload you with adverts like this and we apologise for any annoyance and also ask you to keep using the service (and tell your friends) as this has now been fixed.
Now to the fun stuff…
Since VidZone launched back in the summer of love 2009 (Wow time flies when you are having fun) we have been asking all of you to let us know what you think of the service. What you liked, what you hated, what you thought was good but needed improving what you thought was rubbish and needed getting rid of completely, what you loved so much that you can’t live without… etc. We have had teams of people compiling all correspondence from the various tweets and blogs and Facebook messages and worked out what you all wanted the most…
Long story short we have a major update for you that makes VidZone better than ever!!
Pre-roll advertising will be shown no more than once every 15 minutes – No more adverts after every video, guaranteed!
16:9 support, true full screen display – This means that if the video is shot in widescreen, it will display in its full widescreen glory on your TV.
Virtual Keyboard is now supported in Search – Use your external or the standard PlayStation virtual keyboard to type instead of scrolling through each letter.
Search is faster and improved – Faster searching and you are now able to search for special characters (ie you can now search for P!nk etc)
Start up time is reduced – No more waiting about to get partying!
Audio volume on music videos can now be normalised – Each video will play at the same volume meaning no more volume control surfing
PlayStation Network presence now shows the music video being watched in VidZone on the XMB™ friends list – Your friends will now know what you are watching so no more secret Celine Dion video viewing sessions!
Support for PlayStation Store purchases in Download menu – Videos will link to equivelant RockBand track in the PlayStation Store with more game/product links coming soon.
Default settings are now saved – If you have turned the clicker off, it will remember it for the next time you open VidZone.
Cache has been increased – VidZone will store more of your last viewed videos on the PlayStation’s hard drive so you don’t have to stream so much data.
Help screens are available in Settings menu – Having issues? Try the new help screens to answer your questions
Settings menu has been reordered – More logical ordering of the setting menu.
As well as a load of other little bug fixes to make your VidZone experience a much more pleasurable one.
So that’s what you have all been waiting for I think. Of course we will continue to update both content and the application until it is perfect but hopefully this will keep you happy until we update again.
We want you to keep suggesting improvements to the service so below are all the channels of communication for you to get requesting.
1. Reply to any blog entry that is posted here on http://blog.eu.playstation.com
2. Twitter us www.twitter.com/vidzone
3. Email us playstation@vidzone.tv
4. Facebook
For any problems you having with the service please e-mail ps-problems@vidzone.tv
That’s it I think, and this is me signing off once more. Let me know what you think and I will be back to write about more exciting stuff shortly.
Keep it real
Ben
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189 CommentsAdd Yours
151
Posted on 15 September, 2009 at 4:04 am by Darkscorpius
sweet update. Just booted up vidzone and everything seems faster and smoother than before. Loving the fullscreen videos and they seem better quality too or is that my new tv? lol
All we need now is more rock/metal, where’s the Pink Floyd, Iron Maiden, Lacuna Coil and AC/DC at? There’s only so much of Celine Dion’s cover of You Shook Me All Night Long you can take lol.
152
Posted on 15 September, 2009 at 6:34 am by sebsta
Lookin good – can’t wait for the release date here in NZ
153
Posted on 15 September, 2009 at 8:37 am by Britt78
We ( Sweden ) want this!
Could you please tell us where ( detailed ) in the process you are?
154
Posted on 15 September, 2009 at 9:49 am by Apnomis
@ theshepanator, I know I couldn’t believe this was treated like a minor update and it was only 11MB too – I’d have been quite happy if this was called version 2.0 and was a 110MB file! lol
@ Vash80, I have an old 60GB PS3 and it worked fine for me…
@ Jaqb, they made a tweet about HD videos – sounds like if they do come it will be a paid for ad free version of the program.
@ Nowonmai, Yes you can shuffle your playlist – navigate to the “Now Playing” menu option and press triangle instead of X, this will bring up options to Shuffle, Delete or Save As Playlist etc – it’s a bit silly that you can access these options when you’re in your playlist, but that’s a minor usability issue.
155
Posted on 15 September, 2009 at 9:50 am by weaselEST
Somewhere should be a general requests “place” where people could submit their ideas (e.g Ideas Twitter). I posted the following on the gtplanet.net forums, but I’m not sure somebody who’s involved would notice it. So it would help everybody if there was a special place somewhere.
http://www.gtplanet.net/forum/showpost.php?p=3544574& ;postcount=3421
Posted on 15 September, 2009 at 10:31 am by Ben Creasey
Hi weaselEST
All requests can be sent to playstation@vidzone.tv, we log all requests from all the communities though so don’t worry too much.
156
Posted on 15 September, 2009 at 11:11 am by NotASnark
Any plans to add classical music to the selection? Currently, there’s almost nothing of interest for those of us with less modern tastes. How about some Beethoven, Mozart, Verdi or Wagner for example. Even ‘modern’ options like Medieval Babes would be good.
157
Posted on 15 September, 2009 at 1:41 pm by rp2000
Great update, not much else to add as busy seeing which videos are in 16:9
rp2000
158
Posted on 15 September, 2009 at 1:49 pm by Ivan_Krazy
Thanks Ben for the update. Just one thing though…. the advertisements slightly annoy me that take up my whole background of VidZone. I’m in the Australian region and I get this big huge yellow-white advertisement of ‘Optus’ in the background of the application and it gets very distractive on my High Def television, basically my eyes almost go blind. The other advertisements are small, good and suitable. But taking up the whole screen is not that good
Sorry that is my opinion and I hope you are listening.
Cheers buddy,
Ivan
159
Posted on 15 September, 2009 at 1:52 pm by Haribo_Kart
Great update, is there a reason why the user needs to be signed in when using Vidzone? Other apps that use the internet don’t require this
160
Posted on 15 September, 2009 at 3:27 pm by elephant_stone
Great update!!!
161
Posted on 15 September, 2009 at 4:15 pm by Elim_Garak
Such an excellent update!!!
Too bad you’re not the ones developing PS3 firmware, too.
162
Posted on 15 September, 2009 at 4:42 pm by sam_w
Awesome!
The virtual keyboard and 16:9 support was needed so damn badly! And I like how people can see what you are listening to as well
163
Posted on 15 September, 2009 at 5:01 pm by wiktorclunk
WHEN POLAND???
164
Posted on 15 September, 2009 at 5:48 pm by laz1973
Glad you’s fixed the sound as it burst my tv speaker a while back.Got new tv now so might start using it again
165
Posted on 15 September, 2009 at 6:32 pm by rick_x
Hey Ben, great update! Could you clear something up for me though? I’m a UK user but the missus is Greek, now when she searches for some Greek artists the names come up in the search function (Sakis Rouvas for example) but then no videos come up. Does this mean the videos aren’t licensed for the UK or there aren’t any on Vidzone?
Cheers!
166
Posted on 15 September, 2009 at 8:12 pm by LoveDoctor
…. you asked .. we listened.?? YOU ASKED WE LISTENED??????
Not really Iwould say for all the Second-Rate EU countries.. like:NETHERLANDS, Belgium, Finland, Norway, Poland… etc et.
So… if asking will help: When will the poor, stupid stepchild-countries be getting this. And be specific… what’s the holdup
Posted on 16 September, 2009 at 4:18 pm by Ben Creasey
Hi LoveDoctor
We are launcnhing in 11 more countries by the end of the year, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, New Zealand, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Austria, Switzerland and Portugal to be precise.
We havent finalised the exact date as yet but we will let you know as soon as we do.
As always, i’m sorry i can’t be more accurate, if i knew i would tell you.
167
Posted on 15 September, 2009 at 9:48 pm by jayphex
@ sully1311- working now, cheers for the tip.
168
Posted on 15 September, 2009 at 9:50 pm by brihar
YOU ASKED… WE LISTENED… AND WE DON’T CARE.
I’m still amazed to see on this blog the amount of people from the rest of Europe ASKING about getting VIDZONE and not getting any answer at all.
169
Posted on 15 September, 2009 at 10:22 pm by Ruzzi7
Lol u guys are mad, whining for a FREE WONDERFUL software for your PS3…:S
By the way i lol’d at the “ads were a bug” xD C’mon u don’t need to lie like that, especially because we all know that since the software is free, Sony needs to get money in some way from it, for this ads were (are) needed.
Posted on 16 September, 2009 at 4:21 pm by Ben Creasey
Hey Ruzzi7
You calling us liars?
i promise it was a bug. it would se stupid of us to overload you with ads so people didn’t come back to the service ever. We want as much of you to enjoy the service as possible and we did our sums so we knew we could do this for free without annoying you guys too much with the adverts that fund the service.
170
Posted on 15 September, 2009 at 10:54 pm by G0DFATHER---74
can you fix it so it doesn’t crash on ps3 slim ive had to restart ps3 a few times when im using vidzone.
171
Posted on 15 September, 2009 at 11:13 pm by mogun123
I need some Jayceon Taylor on vidzone
172
Posted on 15 September, 2009 at 11:59 pm by Smegzilla
Brilliant update, I’m much more interested in using the service now you’ve made it a bit more user friendly.
All I really ask now is that you keep up the negotiations with labels to get us some proper rock and metal! It’s the only thing that’s missing, I can’t abide all this awful chart music.
Cheers!
173
Posted on 16 September, 2009 at 2:42 am by AaronAMM
I’ve sort of fallen in love with vidzone, glad to see its taken seriously.
174
Posted on 16 September, 2009 at 10:51 am by Ghidora84
OMG what an massive super nice update… sounds like this will be the perfect music video application once it hits the other announced country’s…
Cant wait!
Ghidora84
- Denmark
175
Posted on 16 September, 2009 at 1:18 pm by wiktorclunk
when Poland??
176
Posted on 16 September, 2009 at 3:29 pm by nemesisND1derboy
Thanks for the reply Mr. Creasey good to hear u are working on it
177
Posted on 16 September, 2009 at 3:29 pm by patate12
F A T A L E R R O R in Vidzone.
It’s one of the very few ps3 programs to have this bug:
Take a Japanese PS3 (CECHA00). Its OK button is “O (circle) button” and its CANCEL button is “X (cross) button”. Well, Vidzone blindly and erroneously forces the opposite.
178
Posted on 16 September, 2009 at 4:12 pm by wiktorclunk
When Poland????
179
Posted on 16 September, 2009 at 4:27 pm by kodoque
good update but i have a complaint about the virtual keyboard. why can’t you change to the smaller sized keyboard? i type much faster with the smaller one.
180
Posted on 16 September, 2009 at 7:16 pm by Ruzzi7
Dear Ben Creasey, first of all thanks for you answer.
Please don’t get me wrong, i really love VidZone and i use it daily especially because it is a FREE software, and that’s too awesome to see nowadays where everything is under fees etc…
But, what i have said is that, considering you guys must have spent a lot of moneys to get those videos available for free to us, you need to get some money with the ads (and i think it is totally acceptable since the application is free
)
Then if it was really a bug…then ok, but my post point wasn’t absolutely to offend you guys, just a thought
Keep the good work, cheers.
181
Posted on 16 September, 2009 at 9:09 pm by sinky94
Brilliant update keep up the good work all we need now is hd streming.
182
Posted on 17 September, 2009 at 11:09 am by Ivan_Krazy
Most Music I like are not even there
183
Posted on 17 September, 2009 at 11:34 am by kodoque
Hi, Sorry to double post but i think my complaint is a valid one that i don’t anyone else has mentioned. just to clarify, i would like the option to be able to switch over to the smaller sized virtual keyboard (the one that’s layed out like a mobile phone’s keyboard) like how you can in the ps3 internet browser. a reply would be great.
Thanks.
184
Posted on 17 September, 2009 at 12:26 pm by DJDEANO
Great update! but can you update the sound level on the adverts and turn them down? and also why is vidzone now red looked better blue imo
185
Posted on 19 September, 2009 at 3:05 pm by wiktorclunk
When we get videozone????? West Europe???
186
Posted on 19 September, 2009 at 4:58 pm by mikeuk2004
There is one other fix which doesnt seem to be listed.
My Blu-ray remote finally works with Vidzone, or was that fixed before??
I have not used vidzone this it came out because it did not support my official Blu-ray remote. I mean if you market the machine as a multimedia system im gonna use it like one. It got annoying havingt o get the joypad out after wathcing play Tv and switching to Vidzone or after view photos or watching videos.
At least now I can sit back with my remote and joy the vidzone
Only annoying thing is that there should be a option to back up your playlist. I created nealy 30 of them and lost them when I upgraded my 80GB PS3 to the slim. Now I got to spend an hour redoing them
187
Posted on 19 September, 2009 at 5:35 pm by Robert1995
hmm… Everytime I try and update my PS3 crashes and reboots it self
– Any Suggestions without having to delete the whole App?
188
Posted on 19 September, 2009 at 5:38 pm by mikeuk2004
I had that problem with life with playstation. Then a month later it just updated without any problem.
189
Posted on 25 September, 2009 at 9:59 am by wiktorclunk
When we get videozone????? West Europe??????
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