The PS3 troubles continue to roll in. First the (admittedly minor) backwards compatibility issues, then we find out the PS3 can't run 1080i, now a new issue has come to light: some folks are having a rough time getting HDMI to work right.
The guys over at The Man Room have unpacked their PS3 (sans-ceremony) and immediately plugged it up to their HDTV using HDMI cables. The result was less than optimal; they were greeted by flickering that required some resolution changes -- our guess is HDMI can't output 480p, though not a big deal since who wants to play on 480p anyway -- to get the dashboard working right. Just when they thought it stopped, popping in a Blu-ray movie resulted in the same thing, which they said would sometimes stop and sometimes continue (the guys never really gave a definitive answer on what they did to fix it).
The Man Room postulated that the PS3 has some HDMI handshaking issues and their apparent resolution is to keep rebooting until it works right. HDMI is supposed to be Sony's main firearm in its arsenal against the 360; some gamers are going to have to put in a lot of work on top of hard earned cash to get their PS3 running properly. We recommend just keeping at it and pray for a firmware update from Sony to keep it fixed.