PS3 Video Server, Media Server Preliminary Setup and Tests

[wbassett]

That's good news EQdruid. Sorry about not getting back to you, I got tied up with some other projects too.

The Prestige worked fine for me, so I was going to say I wasn't sure what the problem might be.

Question, what brand of external drive are you using?

[EQDruid]

Seagate

Just it takes awhile for the ps3 to see all the videos on the exteral Hard drive

[wbassett]

Interesting.

I can say that the My Book powers up and down with the PS3 and by the time the PS3 is ready the drive is ready. However... I only have the drive half filled. I might run into the same problem when it gets closer to being full.

I'll keep an eye out for that.

WOW, just read most all of this and I have to say it's very interesting. I just got a 40 gig PS3 and want to use it to run my photos, videos and music. This is very good info and good news.

Are most of you just hooking a drive to the PS3 then run all your music, music from there? Or, are you using a seperate PC as a media server and running off the PC? Seems like the hard drive to PS3 is the best bet.

Looking forward to trying this out. All videos need to go in a VIDEO folder right? What about music? Pictures? Not sure I read that anywhere.

JUst got a High Def video camera as well (canon HV20) Now I have to figure how to transfer those on the PS3 or play thru the PS3. This might be my answer to my new Ent. system. AWESOME

Joe

[ALIENWARE]

Welcome to this forum,browndog.
To answer your question about where to put your media files on your external drive,put them the same way you put them on a memorystick,create a VIDEO,PHOTO,MUSIC folders and the PS3 will play them,but you can also put the files anyware on the drive,but you have to select DISPLAY ALL on PS3 (EXAMPLE-PUT MP3 ON VIDEO FOLDER,SELECT DISPLAY ALL ON PS3 WILE ON MUSIC SECTION AND SELECT THE VIDEO FOLDER,ANY MP3 ON THAT FOLDER WILL BE DISPLAYED ON THE PS3)

Sounds easy enough. Man, that really is good news. I don't suppose I can rip my cd's on the PS3 and have them go to the external hard drive...I'm sure wishful thinking. Never been big in the music part. Not sure how to get my CD's to the hard drive.

Man, I won't be able to sleep tonight with all this great info

Joe

[wbassett]

browndog wrote:

WOW, just read most all of this and I have to say it's very interesting. I just got a 40 gig PS3 and want to use it to run my photos, videos and music. This is very good info and good news.

Are most of you just hoocking a drive to the PS3 then run all your music, music from there? Or, are you using a seperate PC as a media server and running off the PC? Seems like the hard drive to PS3 is the best bet.

Looking forward to trying this out. All videos need to go in a VIDEO folder right? What about music? Pictures? Not sure I read that anywhere.

JUst got a High Def video camera as well (canon HV20) Now I have to figure how to transfer those on the PS3 or play thru the PS3. This might be my answer to my new Ent. system. AWESOME

Joe

Another welcome to the Shack!

I have our CDs and photos on the internal drive and movie's on the external drive.

[ALIENWARE]

browndog wrote:

Sounds easy enough. Man, that really is good news. I don't suppose I can rip my cd's on the PS3 and have them go to the external hard drive...I'm sure wishful thinking. Never been big in the music part. Not sure how to get my CD's to the hard drive.

Joe

Yes you can,just select the music you want to copy,hit triangle and select copy,from there you just copy the music werever you want

So I guess I did sleep. Look forward to trying all this stuff today. Seems renaming the Vob files is still the best bet. I'm not too worried about space. I have several TB available to me.

My wife is going to be thrilled.

I must be doing something wrong. I hooked an external drive to the PS3 and then put an audio CD in the PS3. asked it to mport and it went to the PS3 drive and not the external drive. I could not seem to find an option to get the CD to import to the external drive.

Am I missing something?

Yet another question. I have added photos to the external drive via my PC then hooked the external to the PS3..Videos work great...Music works great but photos says no files. If I hit the triangle and do all files, then navigate to the photo directory..Then I can view them. Wierd!

What are you folks using to rip your music? And, to see the cover art on the album on the PS3?

Don't suppose there is a way to link cover art for movie DVD's as well??

Man, this is fun

[wbassett]

Don't quote me on this, but I think that Photos under the PHOTO menu looks at the internal drive and when you go to the external drive you have to select view all.

I've never tried ripping a CD from the PS3 to the external drive, just the internal. I believe there is a move option though.

With the latest firmware update you don't even have to rename the VOB from .vob to .mpeg but you should still change the file name so you know what it is

So rename but leave the .vob extension? I'll try it. I think the photo issue was the directory needs to be PICTURE and not PHOTO. We will see in a bit

Has anybody bought DVDfab? I'm curious to find out if this would be a good software solution to backup my DVDs (few hundred, but not as many as some of you) to both disc and rip them to my PC (I like to stream to the PS3). I'll try to get to the downloaded free trial, but they show a $30 discount on the platinum edition. Unforunately, it expires today and I just found this thread. Any ideas?

I've tried the trial and I like it. I have not decided if I want to pay for it

This PS3 is addicting

[wbassett]

I've tried it as well. It has more features than DVDShrink and isn't bad.

DVDFab also converts to serveral different formats which is nice.

Basementjack is doing a lot of testing but I got tied up with some screen projects.

I really like the PS3 as an entertainment center and not just a game console.

Square... that $30 discount has been up there for weeks now saying 'expires today'

[basementjack]

I purchased DVDfab after playing with the trial. I think it always says there is a discount that expires today - I paid $50 for mine.

Fab seems to do a good job for me, and it's a very easy solution.

Hello!

After reading this thread, I picked up a 1Tb My Book at the weekend, and so far its working perfectly. I've been using DVD shrink which seems pretty good to me also.

Just going to take a while to churn through all those DVDs!

Stevo.

[EQDruid]

I got one of my 500 gig seagates 1/2 full with 4 gig movies, and it takes like a good 5 mins for all the movies to load up with icons... Anyone else having this issue?

I used swiss knife to format it to fat32.

I am guessing it has to do with the Ram inside the PS3.

When i use XP to open the folders things pop open almost instantly... ( 8 gig ram ) only 3 gig ram XP see's and use's.

EQDruid

[dirtmcgirt79]

Hi Everyone.. new to the board..

I myself have been trying to find a way to get my DVD collection backed up on HD that I can play on the PS3.

After reading the guide in this thread I decided to give it a try last night. So I formatted an external in Fat32, and used DVD shrink on a few dvds. Just used the movie file and the VOB came out to less than 4GB. I did 3 videos at first.. I wanted to try streaming from the PC before connecting the HD to the PS3 itself. So I created a folder called VIDEO at the root of the HD, and placed a renamed vob file that I changed to an mpeg. I shared the media in WMP11, and was able to open it up on the PS3. I was impressed. Picture quality was great, sound was great, no skipping.. the only problem was that I couldnt fast forward or it would freeze.. And this was over a wireless network, so I figured that that was probably the reason.. My thought was to use a wired connection once I figured out that streaming would work.

So I tried another movie, and this time I plugged the drive directly into the PS3. This time I could fast-forward, video quality was great, but the sound started out, about 15 minutes into the movie. It just quit. It was almost like my receiver was trying to cycle throught and find the right sound format. cause it just kept clicking back and forth. Now, I'm using an optical audio connection from the PS3 to an Onkyo reciever. Never had any issues with sound playing physical DVDs or games..

I checked the sound settings on the PS3 and though I'm not real sure what it should be set to, I cycled through all of the different settings, testing each one.. Nothing would work.

Tried 3 more movies and have the exact same problem. I'm just not sure what to try next. I think I'm going to try leaving the file extension VOB and see if that does anything..

I plan on building an esata tower on my network to store all of these, and just streaming to the PS3 if I can figure out the best way to rip them. I haven't tested DVDfab yet, so I may have to try that too..

Anything else that I should try..

Thanks for the great board!

Hi dirtmcgirt79 -

I had that problem with audio, and I fixed it by selecting only 1 audio option (such as Dolby 5.1) and not multiple audio settings. I also am using the optical cable and it works fine now - hopefully that helps you

[Ray3]

Wow, I don't know where to start - I guess a big hello to all as this is my first post!

I have been trying to do research and just getting bits and pieces, then I stumbled across this great thread. I'd like to share some ingo and ask a couple of questions.

I want to store/play my music, my pictures, my video (or d/l’d video) and DVDs. I want to see it on my 58” plasma and listen to it on my 5.1 sound system. With some powerline ethernet adapters, I am going to have a hard wired network (plugged into my wireless router) running to the basement HT and plugged into a switch.

I have considered and eliminated Sonos, Squeezebox and Slingbox as limited and/or expensive. I boiled the solution down to either a HTPC, PS3, Xbox or DirecTV HR-20. The PS3 has the edge because 1) it looks like it does everything I want to do, 2) it is a killer BluRay player 3) and I can use a Bluetooth keyboard/mouse to surf the net 4) HDMI and 5) Sony has a promotion going on right now that gives you $100 credit on your first purchase of $299 or more when you sign up for a Sony VISA card. Every other solution I mentioned would require that I buy a standalone BluRay player, so the PS3 is an attractive option.

Anyhow, some questions:
1) Based on the HTPC/PS3/Xbox/HR-20 choices above, does the PS3 emerge as the winner in a comparison for quality and simplicity based on your personal experiences and research? Seems like everything has some drawback.

2) Is there any better choice than the PS3 for accomplishing all of this within a reasonable price range?

3) Based on what I read, where can I can plug my external 750GB and be able to see it through the PS3?

4) What media server software is best to use? Along with Red Kaza(?) mentioned here, I have seen Tversity, Twonky and WMP mentioned with Tversity looking like the best choice.

Hmmm. I hope I didn't overstay my welcome on the first trip here.

[Ray3]

Bill - I just happened to see that you are in Upstate NY. Whereabouts are you? I am in Macedon, just outside Rochester. PM me if you would like to maintain a little privacy.

[shine5555]

Just wanted to say thank you for this. I have started my back ups. It is great for TV Shows I have on DVD. I just bought a 750 gig My Book (150.00 form best buy). I successfully tried a few shows of Arrested Development, on a thumb drive and it worked great

I do have one question. My folder structure on the PS3 under Movies looks like Arrested Development --> Season 1 --> Eposide one, Eposide two, … ect. Has anyone figured out how to put any graphics on the folders? I would love to have pictures or DVD Covers instead of folder covers? Just a thought

Thank you again, for this
- Scott

[shine5555]

Ray3 wrote:

Bill - I just happened to see that you are in Upstate NY. Whereabouts are you? I am in Macedon, just outside Rochester. PM me if you would like to maintain a little privacy.

I grew up outside of Rochester, as well. I lived in Henrietta