ok so far the PS2 has broken many limits to its intended use, officially it is supposed to play PS2 games,PS1 games and Video DVD's.
however many talented ( and eternally thanked) programmers have worked their way around and provided us with many home brew programs, the following is a description of one of these programs and ( in my humble and very biased opinion ) the best so far, it is called SMS (Simple Media System) this very small yet handy piece of software grants the user the ability to play movies on his/her PS2.

"so what? isn't it supposed to do that?" is what a normal person would say, however the PS2 does not support .avi file formats nor does it allow you to play Divx or Xvid encoded videos, something that the SMS solves in a beautiful manner. + it plays MP3's.

basically SMS allows you to play movies you download from the net (Legally i hope) directly onto your TV set without conversion and directly from your hard

disc (details on how will follow).

this here is a simple guide on how to:
1: get it.
2: rig it.
3: use it.

a detailed explanation can be found here

Ground 0:
in order to use this software you must have a modded PS2 (ie a system that can play Cross regional games sadly people in the UK cannot use it as it is deemed illegal people in the US however are free to use it provided the copy was legally aquired)

Ground 1: What you need.....

1: The Software:
a) SMS (Simple Media System).--------------------|
b) Sony CDVDgen 1.2--------------------------------|----- can all be found here
c) IML2ISO---------------------------------------------|
d) Nero or any image burning software.
e) The Videos you wish to play.

2: The Hardware:
a) A DVD Writer.
b) A Moded PS2

Ground 2: We Begin.....

ok to begin first create a new folder to place everything you need in it.

open up notepad and paste this:(what is written between the lines)
-----------------------------
BOOT2 = cdrom0:\BOOT.ELF;1
VER = 1.00
VMODE = PAL/NTSC


-----------------------------
(the empty lines are no mistake make sure you keep them)

Save the file as SYSTEM.CNF.

Start up Sony CD DVD-ROM Generator 1.2, follow the screen shots:





fill in the Volume tab. The information in here really doesn't matter much, this is what i used.



on the directory tab, drag in order, one by one:

A) SYSTEM.CNF
B) BOOT.ELF (rename the file "SMS Version 2.8 (Rev.3).elf" into BOOT.ELF)
C) Your video files. make sure there is at least 2GB. (these can be any kind of .avi movies)

Choose File -> Export iml file. Save the IML file somewhere easy to get to, such as on the desktop.

close Sony CDVDGen now, and open iml2iso.

press the ... button, and pick the IML file you saved with CDVDGen, then press Start.



It may take a while, and the program may look like it's crashed, but just wait, it will finish.



the last step is to burn it on a DVD Disc using Nero.

Ground 3: Using it.....

this screen shows it listing files available on a hard disc attached to the PS2 via network cable. initially when the program starts it will list the video

files and MP3 files you added to the DVD in part C above.



here is a screen shot of it playing a movie as you can see the quality is amazing (depends on the source)


NOTE: in order for the SMS to recognize the external hard disc/flash drive, it must be formatted into FAT system files.

so now you can put 6 movies on a single DVD (6x700=4200 MB = 1 DVD) and watch them on your TV.
You can Also back up some MP3's just because you can

PS: most of the steps follow the original guide but some have been altered to actually become much more straight forward.

Nice guide. Greate for those who don't want to watch their porn on their computer monitors like every one else.

i use my Xbox 360 to do the porno thingy

i do the same with my PS3 this here is for the good old PS2 very handy combined with axxo titles

Terriffic guide. One of my employees has been trying to find a "how-to" for this very purpose. Perhaps now he can get some work done...

i'm really glad that it is of some use, i've been thinking of making a guide for quite some time and this happens to be my first of hopefully many to come, knowing that this guide has been useful is a great drive to make others, i was worried for a while that it might not be so useful since the PS2 is now considered a dieing console. thnx for the comments and keep an eye for my future guides, peace out.

Nice guide, it's unfortunate the PS2 doesn't seem to have a homebrew media application anywhere near as good as XBMC - but still useful for people only with a PS2.

i'm not sure if i entirely understand what you mean, but there are tons of homebrew programs for the PS2, unless you mean a dedicated program to create software on the PS2, but from what i read and the source codes for some of the homebrew programs, it isn't that hard, all it needs is dedication and time.

He means that XBMC has been worked on and improved on since the beginning of xbox homebrew, and is still being tweaked and features are being added, you can just put the .avi on without any manipulation from a computer for example and it will play. If you haven't heard of it you try to find a wiki on it, you'll be amazed.

that i am doing just as i am posting this, if thats what he means, then the same goes for SMS and MP, to name a few, unless XBMC is official from microsoft, if it is then that is really great, sony should adopt a similar strategy as it will attract more people to try out their console not to mention open up more possibilities.

This is an excellent guide; thank you for sharing it.

So, can I use my USB stick- plug it into the ps2 and play movies off it?

-WiReD-

you most definitely can, you just have to have it formatted to Fat32 file system to use it, same goes for portable hard drives. you can see it in the second to last picture.

Thanks alot for your reply.. I was hesitating to burn it to dvd lol but I'll burn it right away - it's more than worth it:P

Thank you once again for a wonderful guide

-WiReD-

how can i format a cd/dvd as fat32?

You don't. They use their own filesystems. He was referring to formatting the USB stick or portable harddrive to FAT32

Thanks

No, Xbox Media Center (XBMC) is a homebrew application for the Xbox. It allows you to playback media from your Xbox to your TV. It has great support for alot of filetypes and is simply amazing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_Media_Center