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[Porticus]

The custom audio solution that Sony is using (PlayStation Link) is almost certainly going to be over the 2.4Ghz band as well and I don't see it being any better on battery life then Bluetooth is, which is not that much as the drain on battery from maintaining an active Bluetooth connection is tiny. That being said most users should connect over 5Ghz for WiFi as that would offer a much better experience then 2.4Ghz, in addition Sony can just offer the option with a warning message so the consumer is informed of any issues that might arise from Bluetooth and 2.4Ghz WiFi interference.

Dude what are you saying, please go and research about high bandwidth isochronous data traffic because here we don't want ignorant people.

Nevermind that almost every mobile devices in this world between pc, laptop, tablet, smartphone has a wifi + bt chip.

Playing the portal on WIFI6 while having BT on would have literally made the experience so laggy and stuttering that would be impossible to play anything, if not literally make the device exploding in your hands.

 

[Zheph]

Playstation Portal |OT| From WC with Love

PlayStation Portal™ Remote Player for PS5® console Feel the power of PlayStation® in the palm of your hand. ------- Play your game collection PlayStation Portal™ Remote Player can play compatible games you have installed on your PS5 console, including your favourite games...

www.neogaf.com

Here is the "controversial" OT

 

[midnightAI]

I'd see a doctor about that if I was you, may be an STD

 

[BbMajor7th]

DFs review sounded way too harsh and frankly the same way they review anything PS and why most PS fans think they are full of shit.

I can almost agree with every word they said even though they downplayed. It's the tone and choice of words that makes this sound very disappointing.

Jon compared it to WiiU. Sorry Jon the Wii U was 480 resolution. One of them said this is all you get for about the same price as Vita and PSP. Those were a long time ago. Google the price of a steamdeck and rog or other stand-alone if so inclined.

When they omit the negatives in anything xbox review and go out of their way to find a flaw in GT7. Or take pics together at an event you sort of know.

They wondered why they got it a week after everyone else hmmm.

Although I completely agree it needs a big firmware update for Video features and apps.

DOOM (2016) running 460p / 25-30FPS with major visual cutbacks and uneven frame-pacing? Outstanding! It's amazing you can have this in the palm of your hand. It's never going to match a high-spec PC or a dedicated home console, but given the form-factor, it's incredible!

DOOM Eternal running at 1080p / 60FPS with ray-tracing, plus occasional artifacting and 3-5 frames of additional latency? It's fine - it does the job. The WiiU gamepad though, now that was great. People saying there's no latency are wrong. It's there; it's undeniable. I was hoping for some secret sauce, but it's just Remote Play - cool that it has DualSense features I guess.

This isn't a device for me, but if I had to choose between playing Hogwarts Legacy on the Switch or on the Portal, I'd pick the one with fewest compromises.

 

[jasondefaoite]

I'm not giving him a view, but no one technical would make such a poor argument when bluetooth operates in the same unlicensed spectrum as WiFi and disproportionately interferes with 2.4Ghz WiFi - which is the most common - because of its shorter range design giving it greater consistent signal to noise ratios at closer proximity - like headphones to Portal would be - so it would increase error rates for many users and would massively drain battery power to maintain both WiFi and bluetooth connections on the Portal.
Using the portal with wired phones or specialised buds that can work in the unlicensed spectrum in a controlled .complimentary, non-interference destructive way is just such an obvious choice, and an obvious solution where the design is from necessity.

Linus not understanding such an obvious thing is a bit of a surprise.

The decision not to use Bluetooth has nothing to do with interference in my opinion. Both PlayStation Link and Bluetooth operate in the same unlicensed spectrum ~ 2.4 GHz.
Early days Bluetooth did have the potential to interfere with Wi-Fi, but that has long never been an issue.

Bluetooth uses 1 or 2 MHz channels and hops across the potential 79 channels in the 2.4GHz band. A minimum of 20 channels are required for operation, and it's possible for the Bluetooth controller to mask out channels which are actively in use by Wi-Fi in the same 2.4GHz band to avoid this interference.

Both PlayStation Link and Bluetooth use the same modulation type (π/4 DQPSK) but PlayStation link uses 4MHz channels to increase bandwidth for the DTS Audio used over the Link. PlayStation Link also uses two of these connections (so they are using 8 MHz of spectrum here) to allow simultaneous connections to more than one device. What I don't know is the hopping rate of PS Link (if any) as I don't believe Sony have published this information.

Ultimately, PS Link has a higher bandwidth compared to Bluetooth for the DTS audio and Sony feels this is a requirement for operation in the PS Portal.

 

[Porticus]

Finally someone that has the knowledge to shut up the ignorants, thank you Jason, much appreciated.

 

[PaintTinJr]

The custom audio solution that Sony is using (PlayStation Link) is almost certainly going to be over the 2.4Ghz band as well and I don't see it being any better on battery life then Bluetooth is, which is not that much as the drain on battery from maintaining an active Bluetooth connection is tiny. That being said most users should connect over 5Ghz for WiFi as that would offer a much better experience then 2.4Ghz, in addition Sony can just offer the option with a warning message so the consumer is informed of any issues that might arise from Bluetooth and 2.4Ghz WiFi interference.

The power use comes from the interference on 2.4Ghz leading to lost/resent packets and the overhead of processing those; especially when the client is as thin as can be for the purpose of minimizing power consumption. The portal would then need to actively draw power to filter all generic bluetooth hosts within the range of the portal from smartphones, watches, etc. Effectively placing a unicast transmission into an unnecessary multicast environment while potentially compromising the primary use feature of the device, instead of a tiny inconvenience of getting users to phono jack their headphones or to get wireless phones that support a superior complimentary bluetooth-esq protocol.

Anyone claiming the choice isn't for maximum benefit to power draw and to maximise the experience isn't fully considering the problems/constraint the design takes account of.

 

[jasondefaoite]

The power use comes from the interference on 2.4Ghz leading to lost/resent packets and the overhead of processing those; especially when the client is as thin as can be for the purpose of minimizing power consumption. The portal would then need to actively draw power to filter all generic bluetooth hosts within the range of the portal from smartphones, watches, etc. Effectively placing a unicast transmission into an unnecessary multicast environment while potentially compromising the primary use feature of the device, instead of a tiny inconvenience of getting users to phono jack their headphones or to get wireless phones that support a superior complimentary bluetooth-esq protocol.

Anyone claiming the choice isn't for maximum benefit to power draw and to maximise the experience isn't fully considering the problems/constraint the design takes account of.

Bluetooth Low Energy uses a max transmission power of 2.4 mW to maintain a connection over a distance of ~ 10m. For 1m distance it's 1mW.
PlayStation Link uses a transmit power of just over 4mW. I don't know the distance supported but I assume it's not more than 10m.

I'd argue the power requirements for Link are more than BLE.

For whatever reason Sony wants DTS audio on the Portal. It's not possible to do this over Bluetooth. Either you need a much more complex modulation scheme (which would require more power to decode the signals) or you keep it simple, use the same modulation scheme as Bluetooth but increase the channel size allowing more data be transmitted.

 

[Zathalus]

The power use comes from the interference on 2.4Ghz leading to lost/resent packets and the overhead of processing those; especially when the client is as thin as can be for the purpose of minimizing power consumption. The portal would then need to actively draw power to filter all generic bluetooth hosts within the range of the portal from smartphones, watches, etc. Effectively placing a unicast transmission into an unnecessary multicast environment while potentially compromising the primary use feature of the device, instead of a tiny inconvenience of getting users to phono jack their headphones or to get wireless phones that support a superior complimentary bluetooth-esq protocol.

Anyone claiming the choice isn't for maximum benefit to power draw and to maximise the experience isn't fully considering the problems/constraint the design takes account of.

The Switch and various other handhelds seem to deal with it just fine. The SOC in the Portal should be more then capable of doing it as well, the CPU in it is about as powerful as the one in the Switch.

That being said, BT and 5Ghz WiFi should cause zero issues when used together.

 

[PaintTinJr]

The decision not to use Bluetooth has nothing to do with interference in my opinion. Both PlayStation Link and Bluetooth operate in the same unlicensed spectrum ~ 2.4 GHz.
Early days Bluetooth did have the potential to interfere with Wi-Fi, but that has long never been an issue.

Bluetooth uses 1 or 2 MHz channels and hops across the potential 79 channels in the 2.4GHz band. A minimum of 20 channels are required for operation, and it's possible for the Bluetooth controller to mask out channels which are actively in use by Wi-Fi in the same 2.4GHz band to avoid this interference.

Both PlayStation Link and Bluetooth use the same modulation type (π/4 DQPSK) but PlayStation link uses 4MHz channels to increase bandwidth for the DTS Audio used over the Link. PlayStation Link also uses two of these connections (so they are using 8 MHz of spectrum here) to allow simultaneous connections to more than one device. What I don't know is the hopping rate of PS Link (if any) as I don't believe Sony have published this information.

Ultimately, PS Link has a higher bandwidth compared to Bluetooth for the DTS audio and Sony feels this is a requirement for operation in the PS Portal.

Signals get modulated in unpredictable ways in the environment they pass through and this is an unlicensed frequency spectrum in which devices must be prepared to handle interferences and may produce interference for others, as was the intention for unlicensed frequency use.

Just because you use modern bluetooth on one device with another doesn't stop your old bluetooth devices still using that spectrum - and appearing as viable endpoints until they've been computationally filtered - interfering with that environment, unlike say a proprietary link where filtering happens at a protocol level.

 

[DrFigs]

The Switch and various other handhelds seem to deal with it just fine. The SOC in the Portal should be more then capable of doing it as well, the CPU in it is about as powerful as the one in the Switch.

That being said, BT and 5Ghz WiFi should cause zero issues when used together.

is it just fine? you've used bluetooth on the switch?

 

[PaintTinJr]

The Switch and various other handhelds seem to deal with it just fine. The SOC in the Portal should be more then capable of doing it as well, the CPU in it is about as powerful as the one in the Switch.

That being said, BT and 5Ghz WiFi should cause zero issues when used together.

where does the switch use high bandwidth isochronous traffic for its primary use? network gaming is lightweight and I haven't seen reviews of people doing cloud gaming on switch using standard bluetooth headphones with old protocols to compare for lag/glitching and impact on Switch battery life.

 

[jasondefaoite]

Signals get modulated in unpredictable ways in the environment they pass through and this is an unlicensed frequency spectrum in which devices must be prepared to handle interferences and may produce interference for others, as was the intention for unlicensed frequency use.

Just because you use modern bluetooth on one device with another doesn't stop your old bluetooth devices still using that spectrum - and appearing as viable endpoints until they've been computationally filtered - interfering with that environment, unlike say a proprietary link where filtering happens at a protocol level.

Interference from radio transmissions ... damn if only there were regulatory standards manufacturers would have to adhere to do minimize this interference ... if only ...

Your argument on this filtering is that it requires more power compared to using a different technology which is not compatible with BLE. However Link uses wider channels which by their nature require more power. Why is this?

The reason bluetooth isn't used is DTS. Plain and simple. For whatever reason Sony is mandating DTS on the portal. Maybe it's needed. Maybe it's to sell more accessories.
It has nothing to do with power requirements and nothing to do with interference in my opinion.

 

[Zathalus]

where does the switch use high bandwidth isochronous traffic for its primary use? network gaming is lightweight and I haven't seen reviews of people doing cloud gaming on switch using standard bluetooth headphones with old protocols to compare for lag/glitching and impact on Switch battery life.

What an oddly specific set of criteria you have. Fact is the Switch, Steam Deck, Logitech G Cloud and almost every single mobile device out there has very little issues with BT and WiFi connectivity. Certainly nothing causes a significant increase in power consumption, worst thing anyone complains about if the added latency on some BT headsets. The Portal is certainly capable of it as well, if the SoC specification sheet is anything to go by.

 

[PaintTinJr]

Interference from radio transmissions ... damn if only there were regulatory standards manufacturers would have to adhere to do minimize this interference ... if only ...

Your argument on this filtering is that it requires more power compared to using a different technology which is not compatible with BLE. However Link uses wider channels which by their nature require more power. Why is this?

The reason bluetooth isn't used is DTS. Plain and simple. For whatever reason Sony is mandating DTS on the portal. Maybe it's needed. Maybe it's to sell more accessories.
It has nothing to do with power requirements and nothing to do with interference in my opinion.

Switching filtering is power consuming and provides slower switching - more latency - because latency is a impact of memory latency, and the more things you have to process the more memory accesses, and the more error recovery you have to do, results in more latency too.

If you really are technically minded you should be able to see my responses in your mind before I even write them, and then decide to maybe not oppose the argument I'm making.

 

[PaintTinJr]

What an oddly specific set of criteria you have. Fact is the Switch, Steam Deck, Logitech G Cloud and almost every single mobile device out there has very little issues with BT and WiFi connectivity. Certainly nothing causes a significant increase in power consumption, worst thing anyone complains about if the added latency on some BT headsets. The Portal is certainly capable of it as well, if the SoC specification sheet is anything to go by.

The criteria isn't odd, high bandwidth isochronous traffic is quintessentially Cloud gaming, and if you offer bluetooth audio, then unless caveats to not support all headsets is okay and not confusing to consumers, then you have to take a worst case scenario from a design standpoint and not assume bluetooth audio means whatever latest, greatest and most expensive non-Sony headphones is all that needs to support.

Everyone can use a cheap pair of wired buds with a 3.5mm jack or use that jack to get their headphones in there some how.

 

[Porticus]

Now I understand why when I use moonshine on the deck and I use BT headphones the stream becomes an utter mess of quality, stuttering, latency and the battery depletes much faster, thank you for your lesson.

Having a great encoder and a good wifi chip is much more important that all the BS you are spreading around with this stupid switching filtering, this is a matter of being pedant on a minor technicality rather than seeing the bigger picture.

 

[PaintTinJr]

Now I understand why when I use moonshine on the deck and I use BT headphones the stream becomes an utter mess of quality, stuttering, latency and the battery depletes much faster, thank you for your lesson.

Having a great encoder and a good wifi chip is much more important that all the BS you are spreading around with this stupid switching filtering, this is a matter of being pedant on a minor technicality rather than seeing the bigger picture.

When exactly did a laptop(brawny quad core CPU with 16GB: Steamdeck) become a thin client?

 

[jasondefaoite]

Switching filtering is power consuming and provides slower switching - more latency - because latency is a impact of memory latency, and the more things you have to process the more memory accesses, and the more error recovery you have to do, results in more latency too.

If you really are technically minded you should be able to see my responses in your mind before I even write them, and then decide to maybe not oppose the argument I'm making.

I disagree with your shifting arguments because they are not valid.

Interference ... already explained why the BLE/Wi-Fi interference you mention isn't an issue.

Power .. Your argument is the SoC would use more power to 'filter' other Bluetooth devices. How much more power, please be specific. Is it more than actually increasing the channel width used by up to 4x that of BLE?

You would agree BLE is bi directional? How does one of those tag devices, using a coin cell battery and BLE last more than 1 year+ if power was an issue to maintain a bluetooth connection?

Anyways I'm done for the night.

 

[Spukc]

Playing with my PP

 

[Gamer_By_Proxy]

The decision not to use Bluetooth has nothing to do with interference in my opinion. Both PlayStation Link and Bluetooth operate in the same unlicensed spectrum ~ 2.4 GHz.
Early days Bluetooth did have the potential to interfere with Wi-Fi, but that has long never been an issue.

Bluetooth uses 1 or 2 MHz channels and hops across the potential 79 channels in the 2.4GHz band. A minimum of 20 channels are required for operation, and it's possible for the Bluetooth controller to mask out channels which are actively in use by Wi-Fi in the same 2.4GHz band to avoid this interference.

Both PlayStation Link and Bluetooth use the same modulation type (π/4 DQPSK) but PlayStation link uses 4MHz channels to increase bandwidth for the DTS Audio used over the Link. PlayStation Link also uses two of these connections (so they are using 8 MHz of spectrum here) to allow simultaneous connections to more than one device. What I don't know is the hopping rate of PS Link (if any) as I don't believe Sony have published this information.

Ultimately, PS Link has a higher bandwidth compared to Bluetooth for the DTS audio and Sony feels this is a requirement for operation in the PS Portal.

I think the reason they didn't include bluetooth is because the PS5 doesn't have bluetooth. So it would be weird going from the Portal to PS5, having to change headsets. They wanted a better solution that would work with both. In addition to what you said about DTS.

 

[mckmas8808]

The comparison isn't weird IMO because the those of us that loved the WiiU see the value in offscreen play within the same lounge and are part of that target audience Portal is selling to. Expect it to work equally well in the first 8m is hardly unreasonable IMO.

But for people that live in homes bigger than 1500 square feet..........you can play the Portal on a whole different floor from the PS5. You couldn't do that with the Wii U.

 

[demigod]

I watched their DF direct. First John goes on a rant about how this thing got bad reviews then when he was corrected by Richard that it didnt, he went on a rant about how useless it is. Like wtf dude. You didnt even play it.

Then they praise the Wii U before casually mentioning it was only 480p. yay?

He also talks about having bad wifi coverage. I am sorry but thats not the fault of the system. I have played this thing in several rooms including upstairs and because i have good wifi coverage everywhere, i had no issues. Even the written review talks about this as if this is some kind of secret. of course, you will need a good wifi router to get good streaming. Whats next? reviewing tvs based on your wifi setups? reviewing multiplayer games based on what router you bought? wtf is he even talking about?

you are digital foundry. get better internet.

John hates streaming quite a bit. He also hates LCD (so much he never got a Steam Deck). For that matter he hates digital libraries on consoles as well. So he would obviously hate the Portal. Fair enough, not everyone will like it.

And DF is fully correct in pointing out your experience is dependent on your wifi, it's a reviewers job to point out things like that. They also make the excellent recommendation to test remote play out first and see if it works for you before purchasing the portal.

This is pathetic. A tech channel with shitty wifi. He is in the wrong business. Also you don’t need digital library to stream games.

Did they even mention the recommended settings? I know they start off angry that they didn't get a review unit early. Then 2 guys were chiming in basing their review and opinions on YouTube videos and other reviews. Were they expecting one each? How about they go out and buy one? It's $200. Its their job. It's like an NFL analyst not watching all22 or having Sunday ticket. Do the work.

DF buying games? Lol

 

[Zathalus]

This is pathetic. A tech channel with shitty wifi. He is in the wrong business. Also you don’t need digital library to stream games.

Are you telling me your portal doesn't have progressively worse image quality the further away you are from your router or WiFi point? Not everyone is going to have Mesh WiFi blanketing the entire house in a perfect signal. Dropping to two bars in your lounge is not shitty WiFi, that is basically what your average person likely has.

You are basically getting mad at someone for some mild (and valid) criticism. It's not a perfect device, it has a few flaws that are worth pointing out.

As for a digital library it is not a requirement, but it certainly makes the experience better. Not having to walk to the PS5 everytime you want to change a game is obviously a benefit and you certainly can't change a disc while streaming away from home.

 

[demigod]

Are you telling me your portal doesn't have progressively worse image quality the further away you are from your router or WiFi point? Not everyone is going to have Mesh WiFi blanketing the entire house in a perfect signal. Dropping to two bars in your lounge is not shitty WiFi, that is basically what your average person likely has.

You are basically getting mad at someone for some mild (and valid) criticism. It's not a perfect device, it has a few flaws that are worth pointing out.

As for a digital library it is not a requirement, but it certainly makes the experience better. Not having to walk to the PS5 everytime you want to change a game is obviously a benefit and you certainly can't change a disc while streaming away from home.

Who is talking about the “average person”? We are talking about df here. If df doesn’t have the correct equipment to “review” said product, they should not be doing the review. Let some real tech channels do it. I’m getting full bars from my iphone and pc using AT&T’s modem router. Router on 2nd floor. My bedroom downstairs opposite direction.

 

[Zathalus]

Who is talking about the “average person”? We are talking about df here. If df doesn’t have the correct equipment to “review” said product, they should not be doing the review. Let some real tech channels do it. I’m getting full bars from my iphone and pc using AT&T’s modem router. Router on 2nd floor. My bedroom downstairs opposite direction.

He tested it a 'perfect' environment, and got around 60ms of latency, which is one of the best results I've seen, he then wanted to test what it would be like if the WiFi signal wasn't as strong which is obviously useful information to know for those that might face similar conditions.

You're basically stating that reviewers should only review something in a perfect environment and not test anything when circumstances are less then ideal. There is absolutely nothing wrong with valid criticism, which mentioning the PS Portal streaming quality suffers under less then ideal conditions absolutely is.

 

[TrebleShot]

This restocked on PS direct UK and sold out instantly.
NO NO NO IT MEANS THEY ONLY MADE THREE.

Stay mad

 

[midnightAI]

This restocked on PS direct UK and sold out instantly.
NO NO NO IT MEANS THEY ONLY MADE THREE.

Stay mad

They are restocking everywhere when they can, US, UK and Italy are sold out though, stock comes in and is immediately gone, now some may be to scalpers, but that will only last so long especially as it seems that this isn't an absolute must have item so I cant really see people paying scalper prices, this is just an accessory afterall, but some people do have more money than sense and, well, it is the Christmas period.

 

[mckmas8808]

They are restocking everywhere when they can, US, UK and Italy are sold out though, stock comes in and is immediately gone, now some may be to scalpers, but that will only last so long especially as it seems that this isn't an absolute must have item so I cant really see people paying scalper prices, this is just an accessory afterall, but some people do have more money than sense and, well, it is the Christmas period.

It's selling for $300 - $325 on eBay in America over the past 3-4 days. The demand is real.

 

[midnightAI]

It's selling for $300 - $325 on eBay in America over the past 3-4 days. The demand is real.

Oh yeh, it is, just not sure how long that will last. There are one on eBay in the UK now that is up to £280 with 19 bids ending in 2hours so some are paying scalper prices. There is even one on there buy it now for £400 so that's double RRP, you'd have to be pretty desperate to pay that much.

Edit: looking again there are a few around the £600 mark and even one at £1000, I think they have watched Jingle All The Way a few too many times, this isn't Turbo Man

 

[MidGenRefresh]

Reasonable review

 

[TVexperto]

The PlayStation Portal is flawed but fun

Like an air fryer, it’s convenient yet completely unneeded.

www.theverge.com

Sometimes, for what seems in the moment unexplainable, a game will freeze up and skip whole seconds of gameplay. I never quite know if it’s because another device on my network is suddenly soaking up bandwidth, or there’s more congestion from my ISP in the neighborhood, or maybe it’s just a strange anomaly. You never really know why, but you have to live with the reality that every once in a while you might have your swings in Spider-Man 2 or your axe throws in God of War Ragnarök disrupted.

 

[THE DUCK]

The PlayStation Portal is flawed but fun

Like an air fryer, it’s convenient yet completely unneeded.

www.theverge.com

I guess a month late on the review is better than never?

 

[Killjoy-NL]

I guess a month late on the review is better than never?

He should've gotten better internet during that month.

 

[FrankWza]

He should've gotten better internet during that month.

His editor had to pay for Christmas

 

[Lunarorbit]

Just a heads up the ps portal is available on ps direct website. Just grabbed one a minute ago