DVD Remote controls for the PlayStation 2 have been made by a number of companies since the launch of the system last year. However, Sony themselves had stayed away from making a standard for remotes which lead to all sorts of varying designs and functionality from these third party companies. Well now Sony is no longer sitting on the fence as they\'ve finally released an official remote control of their own. While it has been made available in Japan earlier this year, it is only now that the US version is being released.
The first thing about the remote that one will notice is not its size, or the layout of the buttons, but rather the price. At a moderate price of $19.99, it makes it really affordable, within the range of other PS2 remotes, ten dollars less than the Japanese version, and by far cheaper in price for a remote of its design and quality compared to the price of what remotes from Sony normally cost. But it doesn\'t end there. Not only for that price do you get a remote, but you get a software driver update, batteries and a full in depth manual as well.
Unfortunately for the driver update, instead of being flashed to the bios like it should be, this driver is stored on the memory card like the driver for the first generation Japanese PlayStation 2 systems. While the Japanese driver was around 600 kilobytes, the new 2.10U drivers take up a whopping 2 megabytes. Nothing is flashed to your system though as if you remove the memory card from the system, your existing driver will show up on the Version Information screen.
What the driver update does though is enable new features and the ability to use all the new buttons on the remote. Without it, you would only be able to use all the buttons that are associated with the Dual Shock 2. New features include a three speed scan, slow motion, program, repeat, shuffle, A<->B play, and time display. Here\'s a quick run down on what these new features do:
Three Speed Scan: The original driver allowed you to fast forward or rewind by pressing and holding down L2 or R2. Now, simply press the scan button and you will begin scanning at 2x normal speed. Press it again, and it will be at 4x normal speed. And finally, press it a third time and you will be at 10x normal speed. At any time you can simply just press the scan button until it plays at normal speed again or simply hit play on the remote to get out of it. The original scanning speed was at 4x. With the driver update, I can actually scan through DVDs faster than my main Sony DVD player which only has two speed levels.
Slow Motion: This is simply as it sounds. Press it and it will play the video at 1/4th normal speed. There is only one speed setting for this mode. Like the Scan mode, pressing play or hitting slow again will return it to normal.
Program: Like a CD player, you can program a specific order in which you would likethings to be played. Instead of tracks though, DVDs are usually divided into Titles and under each title is a number of chapters. Usually a movie is all under one title rather than broken up amongst a few. Here, you can simply enter which title you want and then what chapter under that title for up to ninety-nine different entries.
Repeat: Also like a CD player, you can set it to repeat playing. Here, there are three options. Repeat the entire disc, repeat an entire title, or repeat just a single chapter.
Shuffle: Again, like a CD player you can set it to randomly pick a play area. There are two settings here. You can shuffle between a complete title, or shuffle on a chapter by chapter base.
A<->B Play: Basically this feature allows you to define a point A, and then a point B and then it will simply play the video between those two points over and over until you tell it to stop.
Time: This is probably one of the most important features to be left out of the original DVD driver. You can now display how much time has progressed or is remaining on a complete title or an individual chapter.
While that may be it for the new features, the added number of conveniences is still growing. Almost every function that was shown in the software on screen menu is now accessible at the touch of a single button. Without going into much detail, those include audio, subtitle, angle, numerical keypad, and return. Existing functions that were mapped to various parts of the controller can also be found as much more recognizable buttons.
But enough with the features, let\'s get on to how well it actually works. To begin with, if you don\'t use the driver, you are limited to using the standard Dual Shock buttons and d-pad which have been placed on the remote, including R3, L3, start and select. This is compatible with both the Japanese and US system with their original DVD driver. You can also use it as a regular wireless control pad while playing games. It is even compatible with the original PlayStation/PSOne. One small bonus which could be a problem for some is that the remote uses Sony\'s normal infrared code id which they use in all their remotes that gives them functionality across numerous Sony products. In this case, the Sony remote is completely compatible with my Sony DVP-7000 DVD player. A problem though is that Sony thought it would be handy if you could simply press play and it would turn on the player and play the disc inside. I\'m sure you can imagine how many times it turned on when I didn\'t want it to while experimenting with the PS2 remote. On the flip side, you can use any Sony remote on the PS2.
So far, the range seems to be pretty good as I was standing in the hallway and the PS2 was responding without a problem. Speaking of responding, the remote itself is rather responsive without any type of lag. It seemed no less responsive than using it or my normal remote on my regular DVD player. In fact if you wanted to, it wouldn\'t be that hard to play through a game that doesn\'t need absolute lightning responses. Playing a game like Silent Hill or an RPG is entirely doable.
It looks like Sony has listened to the number of complaints about not understanding why settings are being saved. While the method hasn\'t changed, it is clearly stated quite a few times how you save the settings in the large manual that comes with it. Anyone unclear on any of the functions should definitely read the manual as it explains how all the functions work and what all the settings do in the menu. It is pretty comprehensive. I even found out a feature that I didn\'t know existed.
With all the positives and benefits, there are only two drawbacks to it all. Already I\'ve mentioned that the driver has to be stored on the memory card, but the second drawback is the infrared adapter. It is unfortunately not a pass through adapter, which means if you plan to play two player games, you, will need to unplug the adapter unless you are using a multi-tap.
Sony has essentially made the DVD aspect a much more functional feature with the addition of the remote control. For someone who isn\'t a hardcore home theater fan, in other words your average consumer, this will be a great addition for them. I still wouldn\'t use the PS2 over my existing DVD player (mostly because of being able to hear the fan on the PS2), but it should be more than adequate for those without. At a price of less than twenty dollars, anyone who uses the DVD feature of the PS2 should definitely pick one of these up.
