PS3 Video Server, Media Server Preliminary Setup and Tests

**wbassett** · **03-23-08, 05:22 PM**

Quote:

kravits28 wrote:

Man, this works really well, i cant believe it, i tried lots of different programs for a week and then i found this, really nice, i recommend it 10 out of 10, the only problem i am having is that on some movies it has 2 files in the main movie section, i know you said to pick the longer one of the 2 but the 2 files are needed to finish the movie ,when i compress it compresses the 2 files seperate and when the first is done i still have to open up the other manually, any ideas how to fix this to make it all one movie. and hey once again awesome job!

I'm working with someone right now on a similar problem with the Friends DVDs, mainly the first season.

The only thing I have run into has been when a movie has alternate angles, or some have both wide screen and full screen on the same disc (always bad for video quality when they do that... takes up too much space).

Any particular titles you are having this problem with? So far I haven't had this problem myself.

The only problem so far that my son ran into with his 40GB PS3 was with Band of Brothers. What's weird is they play fine on my 60GB PS3 when I plug his drive into my system . Originally I thought it might have been some sort of copy protection, but it doesn't seem to be. I fully understand studio's concerns in this area and again want to stress this is only for movies that you actually own, but even at that studios don't like this too much and always throw something out there to mess things up.

My son is going for maximum space savings while I go for best video quality. So he compresses everything while I don't. Does it make a difference and what about DivX? We just tested them both out and on a smaller screen they look acceptable, but on my 55" SXRD you start to see a lot of compression artifacts and to me it looks more like VHS than DVD. So I personally don't compress unless I absolutely have to in order to get it to the 4GB size limitation.

I'll be honest in saying I haven't tried DivX at higher resolution settings because time is also a factor to me. I can do an entire season in the time it takes to do one disc with DivX, and I wasn't impressed with the end results.

Everyone will have different needs, so I am not trashing DivX, just saying I prefer this method myself.

**wbassett** · **03-23-08, 05:47 PM**

A note about My Books.

For Christmas I got my wife a kitten as one of her presents. She loves the little guy and he is a cute little devil, but devil is the key word there and he certainly is living up to his name of Alvin (from Alvin and the Chipmunks since he's always in trouble about something!)

Today he jumped on my desk (I was across the room at the time) and I am doing some PS3 archiving so I have both the 320GB and 500GB My Book drives sitting on my desk, and he knocked them both off. They dropped around 3 feet to hardwood floors and I was flipping out to say the least! Surprisingly, no dents, dings, scratches, and most important, both drives still work perfectly fine.

I definitely dodged a bullet on that one, but these are pretty tough drives as I just found out the hard way. Right now the prices seem better too- I just picked up the 500GB at Best Buy last week for $120.

I really do like the My Books, but I will probably be switching to these drive enclosures.

YouTube - Ultra Stackable External Hard Drive...

Mainly because this will give me one power source and one USB connection to the PS3 as well as having nice uniform looking drives sitting there. My Book changed their case style and I can't get the same design anymore at a local store. eBay still has plenty of them with the circle on the front though, but this is a much cleaner layout in my opinion.

**jet757f** · **03-23-08, 05:53 PM**

Quote:

wbassett wrote:

A note about My Books.

For Christmas I got my wife a kitten as one of her presents. She loves the little guy and he is a cute little devil, but devil is the key word there and he certainly is living up to his name of Alvin (from Alvin and the Chipmunks since he's always in trouble about something!)

Today he jumped on my desk (I was across the room at the time) and I am doing some PS3 archiving so I have both the 320GB and 500GB My Book drives sitting on my desk, and he knocked them both off. They dropped around 3 feet to hardwood floors and I was flipping out to say the least! Surprisingly, no dents, dings, scratches, and most important, both drives still work perfectly fine.

I definitely dodged a bullet on that one, but these are pretty tough drives as I just found out the hard way. Right now the prices seem better too- I just picked up the 500GB at Best Buy last week for $120.

I really do like the My Books, but I will probably be switching to these drive enclosures.

YouTube - Ultra Stackable External Hard Drive Enclosure

Mainly because this will give me one power source and one USB connection to the PS3 as well as having nice uniform looking drives sitting there. My Book changed their case style and I can't get the same design anymore at a local store. eBay still has plenty of them with the circle on the front though, but this is a much cleaner layout in my opinion.

Yes I have the 1TB My Book and have been very happy with it so far. Just as an experiment I put all of the Friends Season on it and also a couple of Tomb Raider movies. So far plenty of space. Also the PS3 server seems fine with all of the titles.

**artvr4** · **04-03-08, 06:08 PM**

hi!!! new to the thread!!!!! do the movies output in dd or dts?

**ALIENWARE** · **04-03-08, 09:23 PM**

Well,if you gona transfer your movies in .vob files (original as DVD)you can make them in DTS,the PS3 will play them,but if you plan to convert the movies to other formats (like MP4 or DivX) you have to rip them in DD5.1 or 2.0,just be sure to only select only 1 audio format when you rip your movies

**artvr4** · **04-04-08, 12:49 PM**

Quote:

ALIENWARE wrote:

Well,if you gona transfer your movies in .vob files (original as DVD)you can make them in DTS,the PS3 will play them,but if you plan to convert the movies to other formats (like MP4 or DivX) you have to rip them in DD5.1 or 2.0,just be sure to only select only 1 audio format when you rip your movies

thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

**MediaBlitz** · **04-05-08, 11:49 PM**

As a owner of both a PS3 and a 360 id have to say (and not just being a Sony fan boy) but the PS3 is more reliable. Now I'm not rich so I had to get the 40 gig, now it's not bad but if you want it for a media server....you don't want firmware 2.10. This is the firmware I had and video playback was very messed up. With one second flashes of green then sometimes flashes of scenes of different parts of the video at random. I took my hard drive and used it with my fathers 60 gig PS3 and everything worked fine, so I thought my 40 gig had to be broken. So I called up Sony and it's covered by them, but before I sent it out I upgraded the firmware to 2.2 and everything works now. So if you have problems using the 40 gig as a media server then try updating your firmware to the newest one...but don't update the firmware blindly, always read up about the firmware

**sbelleque** · **04-17-08, 01:08 AM**

I started trying this out over the weekend. I am just storing them on one of my extra drives on my server. Other than the odd movie getting wierd audio things, not everytime I play them, and sometimes not at all the only problem I have is the video gets cropped either on the tops or sides or both. I figure this is due to the resolution or what ever its called from the native dvd to the 1080p on the PS3. Anything I can do?

**wbassett** · **04-17-08, 07:11 AM**

Quote:

sbelleque wrote:

I started trying this out over the weekend. I am just storing them on one of my extra drives on my server. Other than the odd movie getting wierd audio things, not everytime I play them, and sometimes not at all the only problem I have is the video gets cropped either on the tops or sides or both. I figure this is due to the resolution or what ever its called from the native dvd to the 1080p on the PS3. Anything I can do?

Interesting. One difference I observe is you are storing on a server and not the internal or an external drive on the PS3. Are you streaming to the PS3 or does the server come up as a storage device?

What model PS3 do you have, what is the firmware level, and how are you archiving your movies?

They should look just like the DVD when the DVD is inserted into the PS3. Check and see if it does the same thing with the DVD, if so then it is either a display setting on the PS3 or the TV.

Also make sure when you archive with shrink, you only select one audio track for playback.

**sbelleque** · **04-18-08, 12:15 AM**

Quote:

wbassett wrote:

Interesting. One difference I observe is you are storing on a server and not the internal or an external drive on the PS3. Are you streaming to the PS3 or does the server come up as a storage device?

What model PS3 do you have, what is the firmware level, and how are you archiving your movies?

They should look just like the DVD when the DVD is inserted into the PS3. Check and see if it does the same thing with the DVD, if so then it is either a display setting on the PS3 or the TV.

Also make sure when you archive with shrink, you only select one audio track for playback.

PS3 40 gig / 2.3 (I think). I am using the method outlined in the beginning of this thread, with DVD Shrink. Windows media sharing. DVD's play normal. Standard DVD 480p, blueray 1080p. I have the storage space on my server so I didn't want to spend the extra money to get the external USB drive. Is there another way to set up the connection between the server and the PS3? I tried TVersity and it does the same thing as well.

**wbassett** · **04-19-08, 09:17 PM**

Makes sense about wanting to use the storage space on the server.

I am thinking it is how Windows is handling the media sharing. Shrink will duplicate the DVD exactly, so what you see is how the DVD looks. The only things that can come into play are compression (then the video quality will be lower) or if a secondary video was inadvertantly used.

I'll have to look into this some more and see if I can duplicate it and then find out how to fix it.

**Blaser** · **05-05-08, 11:41 AM**

I have entered the 60 Gb PS3 world...I didn't know I was missing that much!

**Blaser** · **05-06-08, 10:27 AM**

Knowing that I have the PS3 60 Gb region B, it came with firmware 1.8 and I upgraded to 2.3. Only one question:

- VOB FIles bigger than 2 Gb will play correctly but will freeze if 30x or more fast forward is performed. Any idea? Will this change if converted to MPEG 2?

**ALIENWARE** · **05-06-08, 11:53 PM**

Yes,if you convert the movie to MPG4 or DivX,it will solve the problem,but you will lose 5.1 sound when converted,only 2.0 will be played,and depending in conversion,you will lose video quality.
If you dont mind loseing 5.1 or DTS in the VOB files,if for you is OK the play the movie in 2.0 sound,I recomend converting the movie to DivX (AVI) format

**Blaser** · **05-07-08, 12:31 AM**

No, I don't want that...I am playing it in my HT!! Just wondering if there is any means to keep 4 Gb size and solve the freezing issue when fast forwarding.

**GundamWZero** · **05-25-08, 02:24 PM**

Hey guys, I am new to the forums but not quite new to the home theater gig (in fact I am kinda "seasoned'). Glad to be on board...... so glad in fact I am going to offer you all a challenge:

I have been running my PS3 as a media server for my computer for a while. I just converted my 500GB external hard drive to be compatible with the PS3, so I can play videos from the external HDD through the PS3 when I am away from home.

Now here is the challege:

Can anyone access their external hard drive through the media server while the external HDD is still connected to the PC? So far I have been only able to come up with two internal HDDs; the C drive and the G drive (I have currently four internal hard drives) through the PS3 media server. I have tried nearly everything, including setting the external drive for sharing, but the PS3 can't properly locate it.

Any takers???

**Blaser** · **05-25-08, 03:31 PM**

Welcome Rodney,

Have you tried Windows Media Player 11? It plays everything but DVD movies.

**dloose** · **06-16-08, 08:57 AM**

I just tried this weekend to rip and stream a couple of DVD to a new 40 Gb PS3 with 2.35 firmware. First thing I noticed was that playing the ripped VOB file on the PS3, it did not fill the whole screen horizontally (as it dis when the disk was played on the PS3), as was posted by others above. Both TRUELIES and INDEPENDENCE day did this. Both are ~ 2.35 aspect ratio so there will be bars top and bottom but should fill the screen horizontally. I don't think the image is "cropped" but I'll have to do a close A B comparison. I can expand the image with WIDE on the TV (Sammy HTS-5687); my point is the ripped file and the original are not behavig identically. More digging

**Blaser** · **06-17-08, 04:26 PM**

Welcome to the Shack dloose!

There must be something wrong. I obtained exactly the same aspect ratio. Try with other movies. What are u using? DVDshrink?

**counter5th** · **06-17-08, 09:29 PM**

First off i want to say what a great thread this, i've learned so much from reading these first 6 pages. Great job guys! I think the dvd shrink method is great and works really fast but i have run into a couple of snags just like a few other users out there. I have a small collection(compared a few other users on this forum!) of about 300 dvd which i would like to archive to an external hd and play off the ps3. Sony has done a great job of turning the ps3 into a ht media server power house and when paired with the psp, i can have access to all that media from any wifi connection.

My first attempt was with The Matrix (trilogy box set edition) and it failed to play properly on the ps3. It shows two files of the same length and size in dvd shrink If i select and output one file it shows the incorrect time length in the ps3(about 1 hr and 15 min) and has trouble fast forwarding. I havent sat down and watch the whole file but it seem like it contains the beginning and the end of the movie. it's really weird.

If i try to output both files, i get two .vob's and that's not the result that i'm going for as i dont want to stop in the middle and select the next .vob.

Same thing happened with the Incredibles except that one has 3 files of the same size and length in dvd shrink.

My third attempt was with Dumb and Dumber(original dvd release) This one worked flawlessly. Didnt need any more compression as the original was under 4 gb and i didnt even change the .vob to mpeg.

So i'm getting the feeling that newer dvds that have the movies spread over two layers are going to be harder to transfer over, i still cant figure out how to do it. Both the matrix and the incredibles were well over 6 gigs on a dual layer dvd while dumb and dumber was only about 3.5 gigs on a single layer(The dvd is actually dual layer but one of the older ones that you have to flip over and it contains the 4:3 version).

Any help with this would be much appreciated. If anyone has had success with any of these two titles please let me know so i can maybe trouble shoot from my end. here is my pc hardware spec:

Custom pc
Mobo- asus p5ld2
Pentium D 3.00
2 gb ram
dual booting Vista/Leopard OSX

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