The mission I chose to accept is one Jim Phelps would probably have turned down!
Here is the objective outline.
I have a substantial DVD library, somewhere in the neighborhood of 1200-1300 DVDs. A lot of these are movie series boxed sets, or TV series on DVD. The PS3 is much more than just a game console, so I decided to put it to the test and see what this thing can really do.
Most are aware that it can be used as a media server- You can store photos, music, movie clips or even full movies on the internal hard drive, but 60GB can fill up quick. Those four USB ports on the front of the PS3 are for more than just joysticks and open up the door for a lot of add on devices.
I picked up a 320GB My Book external USB drive. One thing to keep in mind is that the PS3 uses the FAT32 system. That imposes a file size restriction of 4GB, so until NTFS is an option it doesn't look like any major High Def content will be practical, but for what I need to do that is not a problem. USB drives come preformatted in FAT32 so this worked out nicely.
The first test was to check if the PS3 could recognize the drive and play a movie from it. That worked like a champ, Sony even fixed the sub folder problem people were complaining about.
The problem I did run into though... how to get the DVD over to the hard drive with the best quality conversion?
I first used DVD to PS3 Converter. It took HOURS to convert one DVD. When I say hours I mean set it up at night and go to bed. I can say I definitely was not pleased with the video quality. It looked like a worn VHS tape- This was a major setback. I can try the setting that converts to 1080p, but I am skeptical at this point if that will really do anything. Also the audio quality wasn't DVD quality either.
Next I downloaded PS3 Video 9. This looks pretty much like DVD to PS3 Convertor but it's free. It too took over eight hours to do just ONE .vob file. Seeing that my test movie has four, this obviously is too time consuming to be practical to anyone. I am still checking out both of these programs, there is probably some settings that will improve the PQ, but they are still slow.
Next up is a trick that I am going to check out. You can rename a .vob file to .mpeg and it will play on Windows Media player and supposedly the PS3 will play it as well. Theoretically this should be the exact same image quality as the DVD source. Problem #2... As of now the PS3 does not support play lists. What this means is it plays one video file at a time. So you would have to go back to the drive and select the next file of the movie, and do this four times which is unacceptable.
I am going to run a test where I rename the .vobs and then join them. Also DVD Decryptor will output a single .vob file.
Now, I want to state this and make it perfectly clear. This is NOT a topic for pirating and no questions will be allowed on that topic. I own all the DVDs I am working with, I just want to consolidate some of the series onto a drive for convience and the coolness factor.
So far for this project, if it can be done easily it would definitely be a 9.5 rating. The ease factor is definitely a 4 rating as of now, and the coolness factor is probably a bazillion or something like that.
Anyone out there that has done this? Specifically with a USB HD? So far the preliminary test are promising... the PS3 will recognize the drive and it will play movies from it. Now the problem is making this easy and keeping the quality good.
Here is the objective outline.
I have a substantial DVD library, somewhere in the neighborhood of 1200-1300 DVDs. A lot of these are movie series boxed sets, or TV series on DVD. The PS3 is much more than just a game console, so I decided to put it to the test and see what this thing can really do.
Most are aware that it can be used as a media server- You can store photos, music, movie clips or even full movies on the internal hard drive, but 60GB can fill up quick. Those four USB ports on the front of the PS3 are for more than just joysticks and open up the door for a lot of add on devices.
I picked up a 320GB My Book external USB drive. One thing to keep in mind is that the PS3 uses the FAT32 system. That imposes a file size restriction of 4GB, so until NTFS is an option it doesn't look like any major High Def content will be practical, but for what I need to do that is not a problem. USB drives come preformatted in FAT32 so this worked out nicely.
The first test was to check if the PS3 could recognize the drive and play a movie from it. That worked like a champ, Sony even fixed the sub folder problem people were complaining about.
The problem I did run into though... how to get the DVD over to the hard drive with the best quality conversion?
I first used DVD to PS3 Converter. It took HOURS to convert one DVD. When I say hours I mean set it up at night and go to bed. I can say I definitely was not pleased with the video quality. It looked like a worn VHS tape- This was a major setback. I can try the setting that converts to 1080p, but I am skeptical at this point if that will really do anything. Also the audio quality wasn't DVD quality either.
Next I downloaded PS3 Video 9. This looks pretty much like DVD to PS3 Convertor but it's free. It too took over eight hours to do just ONE .vob file. Seeing that my test movie has four, this obviously is too time consuming to be practical to anyone. I am still checking out both of these programs, there is probably some settings that will improve the PQ, but they are still slow.
Next up is a trick that I am going to check out. You can rename a .vob file to .mpeg and it will play on Windows Media player and supposedly the PS3 will play it as well. Theoretically this should be the exact same image quality as the DVD source. Problem #2... As of now the PS3 does not support play lists. What this means is it plays one video file at a time. So you would have to go back to the drive and select the next file of the movie, and do this four times which is unacceptable.
I am going to run a test where I rename the .vobs and then join them. Also DVD Decryptor will output a single .vob file.
Now, I want to state this and make it perfectly clear. This is NOT a topic for pirating and no questions will be allowed on that topic. I own all the DVDs I am working with, I just want to consolidate some of the series onto a drive for convience and the coolness factor.
So far for this project, if it can be done easily it would definitely be a 9.5 rating. The ease factor is definitely a 4 rating as of now, and the coolness factor is probably a bazillion or something like that.
Anyone out there that has done this? Specifically with a USB HD? So far the preliminary test are promising... the PS3 will recognize the drive and it will play movies from it. Now the problem is making this easy and keeping the quality good.