Here’s some answers from Sony to a selection of PlayStation Eye questions.
Does the new Eye differ from EyeToy much?
“It’s superior to EyeToy in nearly every way: four times the resolution, two times the frame-rate, two times the sensitivity and no compression artefacts. It has two fundamental new features: a two-setting optical zoom lens, and a built-in microphone array.”
Is the EyeToy even compatible with the PS3?
“Yes, but the picture quality is inferior to the PS Eye.”
Is the PlayStation Eye backward compatible with the PS2?
“No.”
What software comes with the camera? And what software and games will be available at launch or in the near future?
“It’s supplied with EyeCreate, which allows people to save photos, video and audio clips, as well as editing them and create truly individual movies using the different capture modes such as time-lapse and slow motion. Future software and games planned for use with the Eye will include Eye of Judgement, Ember, Skyblue and Aqua Vita, but the list will grow considerably over time.”
It sounds nice but what does ‘ability to reduce background noise and focus on the spoken word for smoother, more accurate speech recognition and transfer’ mean to a consumer?
“PS Eye’s high-quality mic array allows PS3 to analyse the audio input and separate human voices from other sounds, such as fans, traffic sounds, laundry, vacuums, etc. This makes your voice clearer on the other side during chat, and makes it easier for games with speech recognition to understand what you are saying.”
Can the PS Eye work in low light?
“It’s much more sensitive than EyeToy, to the extent that although it still works best in a well-lit room, it can produce reasonable quality video by simply using the illumination given off by the television set.”
If you compare the PlayStation Eye with a normal digital camera, how does the zoom lens compare?
“The lens on PlayStation Eye has two optical settings: normal, which is a 56 degree field of view and wide, which is a 72 degree field of view. This is similar to some point-and-shoot cameras. The normal setting is similar to EyeToy’s configuration and the addition of the wide setting is intended for full-body tracking. The user can switch the setting according to match his desired experience.”
And how does the frame rate compare to other web cams?
“It has a very fast frame rate. Most webcams max out at 30 frames/sec, but the Eye typically runs at 60 frames/sec, which makes it twice as responsive and can also run at 120 frames/sec mode for extreme high-speed tracking applications. This makes it a very unique camera.”
What format(s) do the video and audio save in?
“All video and audio files produced via the Eye are specific files created for use only on EyeCreate, the software available free with the Eye. These files cannot be used on the XMB and therefore not exported.”
Aaaah! It’s a PS3 news blowout day! Good to have some facts cleared up
Comment by Ben Furneaux — Apr 26, 2007 @ 1:34 pm
I don’t understand the resolution being 4 times higher.
The original EyeToy has a 640×480 resolution. Unless the EyeToy software was only capable of lower resolutions, fair enough - but we’re talking hardware here.
Plug it in to a PC and it has 640×480 resolution.
Comment by Tom Kiss — Apr 26, 2007 @ 1:35 pm
i really think the Eye toy can take on the Wii if Sony focuses on combining the interactivty of th Eye toy with the graphical cpability of PS3 would love to hear more about the games and wehther this wilbe achieved.
Comment by phil — Apr 26, 2007 @ 1:37 pm
Thanks for the update.
“All video and audio files produced via the Eye are specific files created for use only on EyeCreate, the software available free with the Eye. These files cannot be used on the XMB and therefore not exported.”
Is there any chance this will change so we can use it in Home, etc.?
Comment by Sullyj — Apr 26, 2007 @ 1:50 pm
“All video and audio files produced via the Eye are specific files created for use only on EyeCreate, the software available free with the Eye. These files cannot be used on the XMB and therefore not exported.”
Er, what? That’s in direct contradiction with the earlier “The ability to capture videos and audio clips directly to your PS3’s hard disk drive”. It would also suck if we weren’t able to save our recordings to our HD.
Let’s just assume that the paragraph is referring to the original video recording, and that after editing it in EyeCreate you can save it (as MP4) after all. That’s the only spin I can give it.
~Grauw
Comment by Laurens Holst — Apr 26, 2007 @ 2:01 pm
“…games with speech recognition…”
“…the wide setting is intended for full-body tracking…”
Speech recognition & movement-tracking… SOLD !!!
Comment by Carlos — Apr 26, 2007 @ 2:11 pm
My question is, will it work in conjunction with a Bluetooth headset, so that we can use the mic on the headset rather than the camera one. While I expect it to work well, it probably wont match a headset mic in terms of being able to pick up voices clearly.
Comment by Andy — Apr 26, 2007 @ 2:25 pm
Interesting, if the Eye camera does the microphone job well, SCEE should release a super-lightweight Bluetooth earset that’s only a speaker so it cuts down on battery usage. They should aim to match the controller battery life so you’re not recharging the earset more often than you’re potentially playing online.
Comment by Shin-Ra — Apr 26, 2007 @ 2:27 pm
I wonder if it is back-compatible with the eyetoy games (played on the PS3)… Or do I need to hold onto my eyetoy so I can still use Kinetica…
Comment by Sembazuru — Apr 26, 2007 @ 3:32 pm
Why o why have they gone with a proprietary format for the audio and video files?! Shoot yourself in the foot why don’t you. Not exactly much of a selling point when your mate asks you to send him that funny video you’ve been telling him about and you say “O, errr well I can’t”
Comment by Sean — Apr 26, 2007 @ 4:11 pm
i wonder about the other software and games of the new PS3 Eye, Ember, Skyblue and Aqua Vita, What are theese software? any info about theese?? We know eye of Judgement it is a Card based game , it is fantastic. but i cant find anything about the other three games or software. Can you tell me what are theese? (blog owner can mail me please)
Comment by Serhan — Apr 26, 2007 @ 5:51 pm
Okay I’m sold. Name your price.
Up to 120 FPS? Nice, I doubt we’re see much of this but the smoother a web cam FPS is, the better.
Comment by PSN: Neil — Apr 26, 2007 @ 6:20 pm
Why the proprietary video and audio format ? Is it because of performance reason ? Will Sony have a (free) transcoder to convert them to mainstream format ?
Comment by patsu — Apr 26, 2007 @ 6:24 pm
the eye toy functioned at 320×240 on the PS2 to increase the frame-rate to 30fps, so the eye is 1280×960 @60fps which is pretty good.
Comment by mark — Apr 26, 2007 @ 8:38 pm
“These files cannot be used on the XMB and therefore not exported.”
Wow. Way to cripple it’s usefulness and value. Perhaps Sony could explain the rationale behind such a counter-productive decision?
Comment by consoul — Apr 27, 2007 @ 12:06 am
@14: 640×480 is 4x resolution of 320×240, not 1280×960.
Comment by serotoninzero — Apr 27, 2007 @ 2:20 am
The original eyetoy had little value to me. This one seems better kind of…
Comment by dmd — Apr 27, 2007 @ 5:58 am
how much will it cost in America?
Comment by Devin — Apr 27, 2007 @ 8:06 am
“All video and audio files produced via the Eye are specific files created for use only on EyeCreate, the software available free with the Eye. These files cannot be used on the XMB and therefore not exported.”
No! Sony - don’t miss the boat on this one. How about letting us upload our PS-made movies to YouTube? Surely this would be one of the most popular usecases? We also want to be able to email pictures to other people - people with PC’s / Mobiles / etc, not just other PS3 EyeCreate users.
Comment by reakt — Apr 27, 2007 @ 9:24 am
@19
They are using their own “youtube” application. So you will be able to share it with other PS3 users. They are trying to create a community of PS3 (and PSP) users.
But I think they need to make it so you can upload this to Home, if you aren’t able to now.
Comment by Lachoy — Apr 27, 2007 @ 12:43 pm
bloody nora sony!!! why cant we sodding export our movies???? (ive got my fingers crossed from what the other poster up top said about it ….’Let’s just assume that the paragraph is referring to the original video recording, and that after editing it in EyeCreate you can save it (as MP4) after all. That’s the only spin I can give it.’ )
:0
Comment by seedaripper — Apr 28, 2007 @ 10:59 am
Here’s a new (April 26th) video of the Playstation Eye in action with Eye of Judgment.
http://www.mtv.com/overdrive/?vid=146023
Comment by PSN: Neil — Apr 30, 2007 @ 7:23 pm
What the hell happened to Eyedentify?!
Comment by C H — Apr 30, 2007 @ 10:29 pm
Make a EYE action game bundled with a sword and I’ll be extremely happy. (not into card game)
Comment by FungLip — May 1, 2007 @ 4:56 pm
I understand what has been said so far, but i still have a question. Details on the “Eye” mention chat, but what i wonder is, how can you hear the person you are talking to?! Obviously its meant to replace the headset, but if you can’t hear anyone during chat, whats the point
Comment by Liamario — May 13, 2007 @ 9:46 pm
—>Is the PlayStation Eye backward
—>compatible with the PS2?
—>“No.”
so does that mean if i want to play/use a ps2 eyetoy game on a ps3 i have to use a ps2 eyetoy?
Comment by MaNicXs — Jul 2, 2007 @ 6:50 am
[…] The above video clip also contains a glimpse of Skyblue. Other than it’s existence being confirmed in a Sony Q & A about the Playstation Eye on the ThreeSpeech blog, nothing else is known about this title. It might be another interactive screensaver like Aqua Vita. I didn’t realise there was such a demand for interactive screensavers. […]
Pingback by The Average Gamer » Aqua Vita - The PS3 Gets All Fishy — Aug 28, 2007 @ 8:38 am
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