Often enough, when I come back to the hotel, I want lie down and relax. The bloody old sequential TV is likely not a solid option.

I faced this problem and was looking for a solution.

For now let us make the assumption that your hotel-room offers WLAN and a TV with a spare HDMI-slot: Pack your Playstation 3!

I own one and ignore for a long time already. When turning back to “travelling consultancy”, because I did not get a job around my home, I faced this problem: I want a media-centre. I want Music, Video and Gaming.

Features

Now … Gaming is probably the most obvious features a PS3 has. But there is more to it: it is a decent music-player, it can play videos from disk and sticks, you can use Amazon Prime Video and Netflix, provided you got thos subscriptions. Let us look into this a bit later.

Going mobile

When roaming with your Playstation 3, there are some things to think about … best beforehand:

• enhancing your PS3:
  • disksize: your music and video should fit on the internal disk
  • usb-interfaces: a hub might be cool
  • bluetooth-transmitter
• equipment: you need your gear complete and flexible
  • controller
  • remote-control
  • headset
  • keyboard
  • USB-sticks
• transport
• apps

Why not an Xbox 360?

For me the blueray-drive is the killer feature in the PS3. I do think that Sony did a lousy job on the UI of the PS3, but the optical drive gives me more flexibility.

Pimping your PS3

Disk: 1 Terabyte

I do not like mediocre solutions. I want my music to fit into the box and we talk about 1000+ CDs in my case. So the PS3 need storage. I checked out google and youtube and found enough description on how to pimp my PS3. Now it has a 1TB-SSD. 1TB is by the way a limit that seems to be originated somewhere in the PS3. There are reports that some 1.5 might work, but not reliably. So I stick to 1TB. It is enough. The costs were 88€ (June 2019). This is enough space for a lot.

Regarding the SSD: it is not mechanical, so it will not suffer or break during transport. The PS3 does not profit a lot from the speed of an SSD: it has only SATA-3G. So do not expect too much on the speed-side.

When following the descriptions for upgrading the PS3 with a new disk: keep in mind that formatting this disks takes ages, no matter how fast the SSD actually is.

Audio

The PS3 has a very annoying shortcoming: the main audio cannot be routed via its own Bluetooth transmitter (idiots!). So I bought a comparably cheap homespot-transmitter. The PS3 requires adapters for analogue audio … bad! So I chose a transmitter that offers a TOSlink socket. This is helpful: the PS3 nativly offers a TOSlink output and all you need to do is configure the main audio to use it.

I completed this with a TOSlink-conductor that has plugs on both sides that do not get lost. So when carrying my equipment I can close the connector and protect them from dust. A small plastic-bag would probably do it as well.

I consider bluetooth Audio important, because you are in a hotel-room. Playing late on speakers is likely not welcome by the rooms around you.

My blutetooth transmitter is poweried by USB, so the PS3 can supply power to it. As I am also listending to music, I wanted something that support AptX, just in case.

I haven’t used this setup a lot, yet. I might find issues with lip-sync on movies or games, because the transmitter might cause latencies. Then I will find a transmitter that supports AptX-LL.

USB-Hub

There are clickable USB-hubs for the PS3. I have one. I consider this luxury.

You simple plug it into the PS3 to stay there permanently. No cables, no thinking. Mine even has a card-reader.

Equipment

Controller

I use an original Sony Dual-Shock controller. Good enough for me.

Remote-Control

I like the original Sony remote-control. Very helpful with Media and Apps.

Headset

I became a fan of Anker, mainly because of their support, but also because of their BT-Speakers: when I had trouble with one of their headsets, they immedialy replaced it. Other than that, I do not have any relation to them. I even consider them … high prized … but the prize for their equipment only appears high until you experience a problem and get it solved. Then it is all worth it. At least to me!

In contrast to that I had bought an immensely expensive headset at Turtle Beach, once and 2 years later I could not even get replacement ear-cushions … shame on them!

Currently my headset of choice is the Anker Soundcore Spirit X. Decent quality of sound for a reasonable price (below 30€ as a special offer at Jeff Bezos’ bookshop).

It connects easily to my bluetooth transmitter as well as my PS3. So I do have the choice to run main audio through it, or is it as a communications headset: let me remind you …

The PS3 can connect audio equipment via Bluetooth, directly. But this equipment can only be used as communication-headset. If you want to use BT-equipment for the main audio, you need to use a Bluetooth-transmitter and connect your headset to this.

Keyboard

I am busy experimenting with this. I believe a Logitech K480 is quite a choice. It can keep three bluetooth devices connected, so I can switch it between the PS3, my iPad and a NUC or Notebook. Cool.

There are cases to carry it and protect it, genuinely made for this type of keyboard. Looks like perfect to me.

USB-Sticks

You can list to music and watch videos from a USB-Stick or USB-Disk. There are things to be kept in mind:

• watch the required directory structure, the PS3 needs specific diretory names
• use FAT32, not exFAT, whateverFAT … just FAT32! You cannot natively format these with Windows10, anymore. At least not with the size of filesystem you would want to work with. Thanks for nothing, Microsoft! You will need an 3rd party formatting tool. There are plenty. Linux and MacOS still can do it, I think.

Personally, I use and love Sandisk iXpand sticks. I needed to reformat these, so the PS3 can read them, but they do work on iPhone and iPad the same. So having my music-library on one of them allows me to: - update my PS3 disk with them - play them on any of my apple devices

If you do not work with an Apple infrastructure, any decently sized USB storage will do for you. Again: speed is not a factor … the PS3 is actually using USB 2.0!

Bagging

A larger notebook bag will help you carry your PS3 and the equipment. I use an old Crumpler-bag, because it was large enough and sitting somewhere in my shelf. Anything for a 17” Notebook will do. Keep in mind that there is equipment you want with you:

• headset
• controller
• remote-control
• maybe a keyboard
• bluetooth transmitter and cables
• charging-equipment
• USB-sticks

More important even:

• games
• bluray disks

The optical media is a bit bulky in its original cases. I takes them out of these and transport them in CD-cases for 20 CDs, 2 cases in total do the job for me.

This way, everythink fits into the bag, nicely. Any you got a complete media-solution with it.

Apps

I use Amazon Prime Video and soon there will be Netflix as well.

When residing in a hotel and using their WLAN, check their policies: some do not allow video via WLAN. In this case you still have your music library and your own videos on disk or stick.