Sony Reveals Filmy, AVCHD viewing on Playstation 3

I thought this interesting, but not mainstream Monday-Friday interesting, so here we are on a Saturday. It seems that Sony is working to instill brand loyalty, or perhaps reward it, by offering an application on the Playstation 3 that allows you to watch AVCHD video from your Sony camera on the gaming console. Since they have a slightly different format for AVCHD, there can be problems from time to time on other devices and software packages. But for $5, is Filmy worth it?

Sony introduced a new movie viewing application exclusively on the Playstation Network. The new application, called Filmy, allows easy organization and viewing of AVCHD video recorded with Sony cameras on PlayStation 3. With Filmy, you can enjoy smooth operability and easy video playback of your AVCHD videos. Simply connect an AVCHD-recordable camera to your PS3 with the USB cable, and you can view those high-definition AVCHD videos right on your TV.

The Filmy application is available in the media category within the PlayStation Store as a free trial version that allows you to operate full features for 15 minutes and also as a paid version that unlocks all content functionality for $5 USD. Once downloaded, Filmy will install under the Video icon of your XMB.

So, you could pay $5 for the Filmy application, or you could just run a cable from your camera (which most likely has an A/V out) to your television and control playback from the camera. Of course, Filmy probably lets you download your AVCHD to the PS3 to store and organize. Then again, if you were going to do editing on it, you would need to put it on a PC anyway. Then you could just stream it over to the PS3 once it's edited. Seems sort of frivolous to me.