PS3’s Vidzone Reviewed

I’ve spent the past couple of hours exploring and enjoying the new Playstation 3 Vidzone app that has been released on PSN in Europe today. And so far the news is good. Vidzone is a new on-demand music video service from Sony that allows you to control the playlist. With over 10,000 songs and 4,000 different artists at launch, there’s a masive variety of artists and songs to choose from. On Vidzone there’s something for everyone:

…including Metallica, Nirvana, Foo Fighters, System Of A Down, Oasis, The Killers, Kings of Leon, 50 cent, Eminem, Kanye, Jay-Z, Aphex Twin, Rage Against The Machine and Pearl Jam as well as Lady GaGa, Britney, Beyonce, Leona Lewis, Sneaky Sound System, Jamiroquai, Justin Timberlake…and tonnes of dance acts from Ministry of Sound and other huge global stars like Tiesto, Fatboy Slim, Maura Picotto, Eric Prydz, Armand van Helden, Basshunter, Freemasons and more!

What has suprised me is that Vidzone includes some artists and videos that have never had decent exposure in the UK. I was overjoyed to see 2 videos from Finch – Letters to You, and What it is to Burn, both of which I haven’t seen since the days of P-Rock TV on Sky (the best music channel ever, sadly now defunct). Other highlights for me included Warren G’s epic “New Jack Swing” song Regulate, Outkast’s B.O.B, and All-American Reject’s Gives You Hell (which isn’t getting any play on UK music channels).

Whilst Vidzone is a brilliant addition to the PS3 experience, there are some problems. Firstly, all the videos play in a 4:3 format; which means if you have a widescreen tv then the picture suffers from black borders on both sides, it’s especially bad on widescreen videos as the video is letterboxed and ends up as a small box in the centre of the screen! Other problems with Vidzone include a clumsy menu system, there’s alot of moving back and forward around the menus; and the biggest issue for me – the service isn’t compatible with the PS3’s blu-ray remote! I would’ve thought that was an essential peripheral to support, as who wants to browse videos with the controller when it’s much more intuitive with a remote? Hopefully that issue will be corrected in a future update…

Vidzone may signal the end of the music channel monopoly. YouTube has already made headway in allowing people to watch what videos they like when they like and now that Playstation’s Vidzone brings that same music choice from the PC to your TV, I think we’re seeing the next step in the erosion of music TV.

You can download Vidzone right now via the PSN store completely free of charge. I recommend you do.