Original PS1 model: Any advantages?

[QuickSciFi]

There's no truth to that at all. I always hate it when I see this nonsense repeated. Let's look at the PS2 and DVD movies since that's one example you used.

DVD games and movies are identical in how they are made - they are both plain data DVDs. DVD's put the movie info into a certain directory with set names so that players can find them, but they are otherwise indistinguishable from regular data files on a game DVD. The ONLY difference is the speed that the data is read at. Video DVDs set the speed to 1X and leave the disc running all the time. Game DVDs set the speed to maximum and turn the DVD on and off as needed.

DVD drives are built so that leaving a DVD running at 1X doesn't affect the life of the drive. It's the primary mode of the drive. Running a drive faster to get data off it faster is NOT the primary mode of the drive, and different drives have different allowances for running the drive faster. Typically, you'll see something like a 33% duty cycle for maximum speed: the drive can be left on no more than 33% of the time at maximum or you can damage the drive.

Games have very specific guidelines set down by the manufacturer to avoid shortening the life of their console. Games that don't abide by those guidelines don't receive a license for the console. Games that meet the guidelines will not shorten the life of the drive, so if it's licensed, it's almost certainly not going to affect the console. Movie DVDs and audio CDs likewise don't affect the life of the console.

Gee, I didn't know you "hated" me that much. You do know I was being sarcastic don't ya? It's all there in the last two sentences .

[GohanX]

My comment on the CD sound quality on the first PS1 model:

It's overrated. Stereophile and all the audiophile websites been talking about this for years. I went to my friend's house who purchase two SCPH1000 units and was testing both of them in his $20,000 audio setup. I thought the SCPH1000 had a very boring neutral sound to them but does bring out good detail with the songs. For real music listening since the PS1 wasn't made for audio (you still have to use a controller or remote with no way of knowing which you are playing unless you have a TV in front of you) I wouldn't use it as a CD Player. I would get a real CD Player instead.

True. I actually use a model 1 PSX as my primary audio cd player (With a PS2 remote, lol) since with my tests it sounds the best out of anything I have regularly hooked up to my stereo. However, it's not even in the same league as a basic audio CD player.

[Leathco]

Also the original PS1 through early Dual SHock models had the expansion port on the back that could be used for a hardware Game Shark. Similar to the disc-based version but you can program in your own codes and save them to internal game shark memory.

[Chilly Willy]

Gee, I didn't know you "hated" me that much. You do know I was being sarcastic don't ya? It's all there in the last two sentences .

I don't hate YOU, I hate that nonsense that videos/cds wear out a drive quicker. To be fair, it's hard to tell when you're being sarcastic, and in this case, I've heard that info you were posting repeated by all sorts of people as if it were true, so I thought for a moment there you just had a brain seizure.

Sorry if there was a misunderstanding.

[TrekkiesUnite118]

For those with early model PS1's there's a very easy way to test the audio quality of the system itself to be sure it's the system making that sound and not your stereo set up. Hook your PS1 into your line in port on your PC and record a Song off a CD in Audacity and compare it to other players.

I personally did this recently as a person was going on about how the Sega Saturn was the best CD player ever, even better than newer models. So I tested my Saturn, 360, and PS2 and found Saturn and 360 produced the same quality of audio while the PS2 produced some badly distorted audio. On the PS2 it sounded like the volume on the mic was too high even though it wasn't.

[kool kitty89]

There's no truth to that at all. I always hate it when I see this nonsense repeated. Let's look at the PS2 and DVD movies since that's one example you used.

DVD games and movies are identical in how they are made - they are both plain data DVDs. DVD's put the movie info into a certain directory with set names so that players can find them, but they are otherwise indistinguishable from regular data files on a game DVD. The ONLY difference is the speed that the data is read at. Video DVDs set the speed to 1X and leave the disc running all the time. Game DVDs set the speed to maximum and turn the DVD on and off as needed.

DVD drives are built so that leaving a DVD running at 1X doesn't affect the life of the drive. It's the primary mode of the drive. Running a drive faster to get data off it faster is NOT the primary mode of the drive, and different drives have different allowances for running the drive faster. Typically, you'll see something like a 33% duty cycle for maximum speed: the drive can be left on no more than 33% of the time at maximum or you can damage the drive.

Games have very specific guidelines set down by the manufacturer to avoid shortening the life of their console. Games that don't abide by those guidelines don't receive a license for the console. Games that meet the guidelines will not shorten the life of the drive, so if it's licensed, it's almost certainly not going to affect the console. Movie DVDs and audio CDs likewise don't affect the life of the console.

Yeah, seeking and running at high speeds would wear the drive more (seeking especially -hence why burned DC games can put more hurt on the drive -repacked data to fit in less space with less redundancy and less linearity requiring more seeking)
Like the Sega CD, CD-DA and FMV at a solid 1x rate without seeking (or minimal seeking -for looping and occasional track change) is not very hard on the drive.

The laser thing also makes no sense since the CD laser is separate from the DVD laser (as the BluRay laser is from CD and DVD), 2 separate laser diodes (3 on BD/HDDVD drives) for the different media.

It's like saying playing CD games in a DVD drive on your PC will wear it out faster, or VCDs/SVCDs in your DVD player, or either on a BD drive.


On the DVD movie thing though: seeking is also a problem (or can be depending how the video/data is arranged). Most DVDs are far below the 1x data rate (in the extreme you have some stuff all the way down to 3 Mb/s or 240 kB/s -ie less than 2x CD-ROM), so you could end up with a LOT of buffering and re-seeking:
one way to avoid that would be to configure multiple parallel data streams at lower bitrates to allow continuous 1x streaming that "throws out" the undesired data and keeps the desired chunk (same thing I mused on with 8-bit PCM on the Sega CD) and only seeking when you need to start at the beginning of a new track.

I'm not sure if it was common practice to do that, but it would be a logical option to reduce drive wear and ease stable streaming/buffering.

Of course, a highly variable bitrate throws that out the window and you thus only have the option of re-seek perodically. (more limited varying bitrates could probably still use the parallel stream method -with less freedom- as long as you had enough room to buffer into -not sure what the standard buffer/RAM size is for the DVD video standard)

[ItellYaHuat]

My original Playstation I got for my birthday in '97 stopped working a good number of years later (about 2004-ish). It would power on and the screen would just stay black. It wouldn't even go to the splash screen. My cousin's Playstation had a laser-related problem. As for the PSOne, I don't know anyone who had one that broke on them. Of course, these are merely two cases in which an original Playstation failed.