PS3 Media Server / Universal Media Server Guide

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Disclamer: I don't condone piracy, and nothing in this guide is illegal in anyway. Rip your own movies. For any moderators in fear, check the official PS forums, talk about PS3 codec/file support and the programs mentioned is ok.
 

Revisions

Release 3.0 - 22/06/08 - Everything updated, cleaned out obsolete information and added PSP remote play section.
Release 2.0 - 06/03/08 - Everything updated and streamlined... PSP remote play section coming later tonight.
Release 2.0b - 24/02/08 - Quick update on the new version of MKV2VOB which does everything, GOTSent support dropped from guide. Still WIP - Rough, and some sections incomplete/outdated
Release 1.4b - 22/02/08 - Overhaul of the guide - Added new PSP section
Release 1.3 - 28/01/08 - Updated guide to reflect MKV2VOB 1.52 (ff/rw now supported)
Release 1.2.1 - 17/01/08 - Added FAQ section at bottom
Release 1.2 - 17/01/08 - Added DVD copying
Release 1.1 - 17/01/08 - Fixed spelling mistakes/added some minor additions
Release 1 - 17/01/08 - "Prone to errors version" :laugh:

Introduction:
(the read for your own good part)

What you will need:

1. PS3
2. PC (decent hardware for optimal results)
3. TVersity - http://www.tversity.com/
4. MKV2VOB - http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=131782
5. CCCP - Codec pack (clean & best there is) - http://www.cccp-project.net/

I thought I'd tie this all up in a short guide to get everyone started. Reason being it's simple to enjoy your HD content and use your PS3 as a media hub (Y)

First off, I assume you have one of the following

1. 720p HD Rip (MKV) of your Movie, taken from your Blu Ray/HD-DVD disc
2. 1080p HD Rip (MKV) of your Movie, taken from your Blu Ray/HD-DVD disc

1080p has more limitations/more complicated to play than 720p, but I'll cover that in my guide.

The next thing you have to decide is will you be wanting to stream your movies, or play them natively off your PS3 hard drive?

I'll cover converting your movies first, then streaming & hard drive playback.

Converting Your Movies:
(the time consuming part)

So, let's get down to business, this is the most important part to get done properly. The PS3 has support for lots of video/audio codecs, but it is picky with containers - Throw all your Divx/Xvid content at it and it will play them natively, but sneak an MKV in it's direction and it will make you cry.

I'm not going to cover TVersity's on-the-fly transcoding as it is not recommended to use it, and to be honest a waste of your time/your HD content quality. So what we will be covering is remuxing which means changing the container from MKV to VOB/MP4/MPG/M2TS/AVI without losing any quality on the video/audio.

The program we are going to use is MKV2VOB.

It supports every MKV file out there, AC3/AAC audio as well. 720p files work 99% of the time with no transcoding, 1080p files most of the time have to be transcoded.

Nothing we can do about it just now - Progress is being made all the time on getting ALL 1080p files working on the PS3 without transcoding.

MKV2VOB (latest version 2.24)



First thing to do BEFORE converting any movies is to setup the program.

1. Make sure you are on the config tab.
2. The temp directory where the program does the converting - Make sure you have some free space.
3. Sets the preferred audio language. If this language is found in the mkv it is used, if not found, the first audio track in the mkv will be used.
4. Splits the final result file into smaller pieces. Use this if you want to burn onto a DVD or a removable hard drive (FAT32).
5. Sets whether video transcoding will be used. Some videos will not play without transcoding, mkv2vob detects this automatically. Recommended setting is Automatic.
6. Sets the extension of the output file. Does not effect codec or file format. MPG extension offers the most playback compatibility.
7. By enabling this option, if the mkv contains the desired subtitles, and the subtitle language is not the same as the audio language, subtitles will be enabled and the video will be transcoded regardless of the transcoding setting!
8. Sets the video codec to use when transcoding. Xvid files will be split in 2GB segments as the PS3 requires - I recommend you leave this on x264 for best quality/compression.
9. Miscellaneous options - Hover to find out more...

Lets move onto the actual converting now that the program is setup!



1. Make sure you are on the add file tab.
2. Choose your MKV movie.
3. Choose the output folder for your new PS3 compatible file.
4. If checked the MKV you're converting will be deleted once the job is done.
5. Click to begin the process.
6. Status bar, shows progress.
7. Textual updates here.
7. Clear/Delete from the list of jobs done.

Batch converting explanation - "Add Directory Tab"



1. Make sure you are on the add directory tab.
2. Choose your folder with MKV movie(s).
3. Choose the output folder for your new PS3 compatible file(s).*
4. Leave on default.
5. Start converting.
6. Status bar, shows progress.
7. Textual updates here.
7. Clear/Delete from the list of jobs done.

* When doing multiple movies, make sure you have adequate space in your output folder.

Now you want to know how to play the movie on your PS3? Of course you do, let's get started on the fun part! (Y)

Playing those movies through your PS3!:
(the satisfying part)

This is what it all comes down to, playing your movies through/on your PS3 on your HDTV.

You have 4 choices here - I'll cover all 4.

1. Streaming
2. Internal PS3 hard drive
3. External USB hard drive
4. DVD

Streaming (send that movie through the air)

This is a fairly popular choice, as it keeps space on your PS3 hard drive free, and also lets other devices in your house benefit! (2nd PS3 anywhere? )

We are going to use TVersity.

TVersity

In regards to setting TVersity up, im not going to cover that for now - There are plently of guides, and in relation to this guide we won't be transcoding any files, therefore not much has to be tinkered with in TVersity anyway. I actually believe the standard options, setup from install, are fine for our purposes.



Lets have a basic look at what you should see anyway...

1. The movie we converted earlier should be here, either drag n drop, or add with the green + button.
2. You MAY need to start the sharing if it is turned off - Tray icon will be red if off, blue if on.

Lets see TVersity in action on your PS3,

First thing you want to do on your PS3, go to Video and click Search for media server.
Your server should be found. If not, try restarting the TVersity server on your PC.
Back on the Video part of the XMB, your Media Server should be shown (ignore videos below for now, those are on my PS3 hard drive).
Navigate through the folders (Video -> My Video -> All Video) and the file you added to TVersity above should be displayed and is ready to play by hitting x!

Hard Drive Play (playing it safe)

You have three options here.

1. Copy the movie over the network through Tversity.
2. Copy the movie from an external drive (PC -> External USB Drive -> PS3).
3. Copy file from DVD.

All have the same conclusion, but have different pluses.

TVersity Copying to PS3's Internal Drive

Setup your media server in the exact same way as above, but this time once you get to your movie...



Push triangle on the file, and go to "copy"...



Voil?, the movie is copying from your PC hard drive, to your PS3 hard drive. This is fairly quick on a wired setup, and a bit slower on wireless.

USB External Drive Copying/Playing

When copying to a USB Portable Drive, your drive MUST be in FAT32 - The PS3 only reads external FAT32 drives.

Doing this works exactly like above, hovering on your movie of choice, and then pushing triangle and going to copy.

Small tip - if you plug in your external drive and it says no files found, push triangle on your drive and go to display all.

You can also just play your media files off your external drive.

DVD Copying

You're thinking didn't I just copy this movie FROM a DVD, why would I want to do it again? :laugh:

Two simple reasons

1. To fit 2 movies on one disc (2 x 720p rips could fit on a DL DVD)
2. You don't have a USB External Drive/Don't want to wait on a file copying over the network.

Simply burn your movie to DVD and either play from the DVD in your PS3, or copying the file to your PS3 hard drive. Works with the usual method, triangle -> Copy.

Sony PSP (Remote play):
(the connectivity that lets you watch movies, anywhere!)

The first thing to do is register your PSP with your PS3. We can't do anything until we do this.

Go to settings -> remote play settings, then register device on your PS3. Push x.

Next we have a message telling us to connect our PSP to our PS3 using the USB cable you use to charge your Sixaxis/DS3, and then on our PSP to go into USB mode. Connect your PSP now,

As said above, enable USB mode as well on the PSP XMB.

Push X on the PS3, and you should see the screen above if everything has gone well. Your PSP is registered with your PS3.

If you go into the registered device list on your PS3, your PSP should be there.

Now go to remote play on your PS3.

Your PS3 will now enter remote play, and ask you to now connect your PSP to it.

Go to remote play on the PSP XMB.

Choose "Connect Via Private Network" - Seeing as right now we are in our house and within range of our PS3, we'll just connect directly to the PS3. Connecting over the internet is for when you're outside of your house (eg Airport). I'll be adding to this guide to show you how to configure that soon.

As we're within range of our PS3, we can connect directly to it. "Devine House" is my router - As I said above for now we're just focusing on remote play in our house. I'll be covering remote play on the go in the next guide update.

Your PSP will display your PS3s XMB. Familiar sight

We can now watch all the movies on our PS3!

If your PC is on as well, you can as you'd expect connect to the TVersity media server and watch the content on your PC on your PSP.

That's it!

As I mentioned above, I'll be updating this section with a walkthrough on how to setup your router to allow your PSP to connect to it anywhere in the world where you have internet. You don't need to leave your PS3 on to do this, your router will actually turn your PS3 on for you, and then back off when you stop using remote play.

Your PS3 goes into a sleep state that uses slightly more power than standby, but far less than actually leaving it on.

Extras/Thanks/Shout Outs:
(the stuff that just needs to go here)

Let's thank the authors/guys who made this possible.

3r1c (MKV2VOB) - http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=131782
TVersity crew - http://www.tversity.com

&

Any others who created the codecs/information needed to create this guide.

FAQ:
(the members of ieXbeta chip in)

- Cleaned out for version 3.0 of the guide - (New questions from now will be added here)

 

------------

Guide being rewritten, for now install PS3MediaServer from here and ask questions in this topic.

Edited April 5, 2014 by Andrew G.

[Huleboeren]

Great guide - good work

I vote this get pinned

[PiracyX]

Dude......Nice guide!!! This will become very helpful for many.

Surely this has to be sticky?

[PinkShirtGuy]

Is there any good reason to rip your own movies and then play them back on your ps3 or hd-dvd/bd drive in your pc that you ripped them from? On the other hand downloading rips and watching them i can see. why can't people just admit what they're doing?

[Huleboeren]

Is there any good reason to rip your own movies and then play them back on your ps3 or hd-dvd/bd drive in your pc that you ripped them from? On the other hand downloading rips and watching them i can see. why can't people just admit what they're doing?

Some people prefere having their collection stashed in a huge library on their harddrive where theyre easy to access - which they are not when on the shelf..

Oh and. . . SHHHH

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Is there any good reason to rip your own movies and then play them back on your ps3 or hd-dvd/bd drive in your pc that you ripped them from? On the other hand downloading rips and watching them i can see. why can't people just admit what they're doing?

How about not needing to have 50 cases/discs to rotate between through viewing?

It is MUCH easier to have those 50 movies on your PS3. Actually possible as well.

Average 720p rip = 4GB

50 x 4 = 200.

PS3 can support up to a 350GB drive (only limited by current laptop drive size, it should be able to go higher as laptop drives increase).

[jerzdawg]

Is there any good reason to rip your own movies and then play them back on your ps3 or hd-dvd/bd drive in your pc that you ripped them from? On the other hand downloading rips and watching them i can see. why can't people just admit what they're doing?

Anyone who has the space to keep a digital copies has the luxury of just turning on his pc/ps3 and going through his movie selection.. no need to take any discs out.... not everyone is a pirate

[PinkShirtGuy]

you slide a case off the shelf, open it, pop in the disc. its pretty much the same amount of time if not faster than going through all types of folders and sub folders. not to mention all the hrs devoted to converting your files.

and don't get me wrong, h'm not badmouthing downloading, but lets be honest.

[Huleboeren]

you slide a case off the shelf, open it, pop in the disc. its pretty much the same amount of time if not faster than going through all types of folders and sub folders. not to mention all the hrs devoted to converting your files.

and don't get me wrong, h'm not badmouthing downloading, but lets be honest.

Being honest gets you killed(banned) in this world(neowin)

Why must you all discuss this?

Its off-topic..

Now lets move on..

Any way to get subtitles on the PS3 yet? :/

Both xvid and mkv-x264

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

you slide a case off the shelf, open it, pop in the disc. its pretty much the same amount of time if not faster than going through all types of folders and sub folders. not to mention all the hrs devoted to converting your files.

and don't get me wrong, h'm not badmouthing downloading, but lets be honest.

Fair enough, but some find it less time consuming in the long run.

Can you imagine taking your PS3 away with you for a weekend/week/however long to somewhere outside of your Home?

Are you going to carry 5-10-15-20+ movies with you as well?

I see your point, but as long as no one condones piracy in here, benefit of the doubt? (Y) ;)

Plus if you go down the streaming route, you can stream your movies to multiple locations in your house - You can't play a disc in multiple locations.

Also Home is going to allow playback of media files from your PS3 to your appartment.

Now lets move on..

Any way to get subtitles on the PS3 yet? :/

Both xvid and mkv-x264

Sadly no, I don't believe so :(

Lots of people are ****ed cause they have tons of anime :p

[randomnut]

Thanks a lot Audioboxer! Very well written and useful guide, will come in very handy in the future (Y)

[Doli]

Taking your PS3 somewhere then a small cheap cd holder will do just fine to hold your movies and you get full quality in your HD movies.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Taking your PS3 somewhere then a small cheap cd holder will do just fine to hold your movies and you get full quality in your HD movies.

Ok ok guys :p

Stop beating the horse to death.

It's a personal choice how you want to watch/store your movies.

The PS3 can support drives up to 350GB, so if you want to keep your movies on there, knock yourself out! If you want to carry/keep things to physical discs, knock yourself out again!

Ouch, 2 black eyes :pinch: :laugh:

[PinkShirtGuy]

Fair enough, but some find it less time consuming in the long run.

Can you imagine taking your PS3 away with you for a weekend/week/however long to somewhere outside of your Home?

Are you going to carry 5-10-15-20+ movies with you as well?

I see your point, but as long as no one condones piracy in here, benefit of the doubt? (Y) ;)

very good reason to do such a thing, i did not consider it. i just always get annoyed at "i don't condone piracy" and "rip your own material" being in the same sentence or paragraph. if you have the source, why rip it, but portability is a fair reason. sorry for jumping the gun.

[Coldgunner]

with mkv2vob I always get an unsupported codec error on A_AAC, any ideas?

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

with mkv2vob I always get an unsupported codec error on A_AAC, any ideas?

You have a movie ripped with AAC instead of AC3.

MKV2VOB only supports AC3 DTS - 95% of movies are ripped in this.

Only choice is to go with GOTsent in my knowledge, unless someone else knows of another program.

[Guest]

You have far too much time on your hands buddy ;)

Awesome guide man, thanks (Y)

[Julius Caro]

What about burning larger files (>4gb) onto a double layer DVD? The ps3 is probably going to take half a life to copy it to its own harddrive, but I guess that could work if we use the latest versions of UDF?

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

What about burning larger files (>4gb) onto a double layer DVD? The ps3 is probably going to take half a life to copy it to its own harddrive, but I guess that could work if we use the latest versions of UDF?

Doh! :pinch:

I forgot about doing that.

I'll update the guide to reflect with credit.

MP4 files will still have the 4GB limit though, only streaming beats that.

[ShawnDude]

I to store my movies on my media server, because I can view any of the movies on any of my tvs throughout my house. I have only done it with my dvd's so far, as I haven't read much into how to store hi def movies onto my server.

[Julius Caro]

I was obsessed with HD playback on the PS3 ever since it was released in Europe. I tried everything, read every forum when they (or should I say we) were trying to figure out what was wrong.

Two things were key: the firmware update that enabled high profile playback in the XMB and having the certainty that x264 encoded files had the level flag set to the highest by default, when it shouldn't have been like that.

If mp4 have that limit, why not use .VOB all along? Even if it's all shady and mysterious how the PS3 is correctly able to read those streams that way, .VOB supports ac3 and all that stuff, and most files come with AC3 anyway.

[gunnerhkjp]

Is there any way to make the PS3 automatically play the next file in the folder after the previous file has finished playing?

It seems music files do this, but not the video files.

[Huleboeren]

The reason there is a 4gig limit is because the only filesystem/format the PS3 reads through external harddrives is FAT32

Harddrives formatted in FAT32 have a limit - files cant be larger than 4gigs

If the PS3 supported other filesystems/formats(like NTFS/HFS/ext2 blah blah) through external we wouldnt be having this issue :(

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

I was obsessed with HD playback on the PS3 ever since it was released in Europe. I tried everything, read every forum when they (or should I say we) were trying to figure out what was wrong.

Two things were key: the firmware update that enabled high profile playback in the XMB and having the certainty that x264 encoded files had the level flag set to the highest by default, when it shouldn't have been like that.

If mp4 have that limit, why not use .VOB all along? Even if it's all shady and mysterious how the PS3 is correctly able to read those streams that way, .VOB supports ac3 and all that stuff, and most files come with AC3 anyway.

Yup PS3 doesn't support level 5.1, only 4.1. These programs when remuxing the video, change to it 4.1 - One of the major issues for 1080p as well, it doesn't like having it's level changed.

Yeah VOB is the way to go, and it is what I use. People still stick with MP4 though if for whatever reason they must have ff/rw. Pause/Resume works fine on VOB, and if you're watching movies very rarely do you need to ff/rw. As I said though for whatever reason, 1.5x ff on VOB works.

With VOB one other thing I should of mentioned is, if you go to play a file and its a black screen, exit out, and press traingle on the movie and go to "play from beginning" - Just a small bug you might come across.

The reason there is a 4gig limit is because the only filesystem/format the PS3 reads through external harddrives is FAT32

Harddrives formatted in FAT32 have a limit - files cant be larger than 4gigs

If the PS3 supported other filesystems/formats(like NTFS/HFS/ext2 blah blah) through external we wouldnt be having this issue :(

Correct, but wouldn't make a difference with MP4 files.

MP4 files ALSO have a 4GB play limit on the PS3 regardless of what drives the PS3 supports.

This is something thats hard to explain as people get confused, I done my best in my guide to explain it.

PS3 File System - NO size limits.

HOWEVER, the PS3 will only support FAT32 formatted drives - Therefore that is a drive limit of the device you are plugging in.

Now MP4 files, they have a 4GB limit on the PS3 regardless of the file system. No one knows why, but an MP4 file over 4GB will not play on the internal PS3 hard drive.

Streaming is the only way to get an MP4 file over 4GB to play on your PS3.

Is there any way to make the PS3 automatically play the next file in the folder after the previous file has finished playing?

It seems music files do this, but not the video files.

Good question but I dont think so.

Would be useful for 2 part movies (Y)

By the way, I added a FAQ section, and im going to cherry pick the best questions you guys ask! ;)

[Keito]

I'll keep alookout on the original (Dutch) GOTsent topic for you Audioboxer, as I'm also active on that forum

Also, on a side note; if you are a mac user and you're using Mac OS X's native filesystem (HFS) on an external drive, it should also work on your PS3 AND allow files larger than 4GB - note: as far as I know, this is still not something to solve the mp4 4GB issue