Ridiculously long titles are fun…Now on to other things…
One of the latest things I’ve done is look into streaming media to my newly bought PS3 and/or Xbox that I have lying around. Obviously, because of certain companies (cough MS and Sony cough), these “media” devices don’t support all the formats they should hence requiring users to at some cases find upnp serving applications that can remux and re-encode content on the fly if need be.
Enter PS3 Media Server – One of the easiest pieces of software I’ve ever had to setup, launch, and use. Literally took me longer to download this than get up and running!
Short install instructions:
1) Java. Java. Java. Make sure you have at least version 2 installed.
2) Download for your platform. If your using ubuntu linux 10.04 and up…you can use their ppa to install.
3) Launch it, setup your settings (most can stay default, obviously you will have to modify the share directories)
4) Save and Restart Server (big buttons on the top, they can’t get any bigger, seriously the developer made this grandma proof.)
5) Browse to the awesome through your LAN connected device under the Video section.
Notes/Recommendations:
a) It may take a while for the video files to show up in the listing (at least on PS3)..just wait a sec, they should show themselves.
b) To make this a daemon on linux, edit the /etc/defaults/ps3mediaserver file with the explanatory configuration flags (more under the How to run PS3 Media Server in headless mode as service / daemon (easy guide))
c) On linux, I ran into an issue with a an h.264 running at [email protected] because of tsmuxer vs mencoder.. Basically, tsmuxer can remux and is the default manager for making sure your video files are streamed properly for your media devices. Since the PS3 doesn’t support [email protected] (of course), tsmuxer can change the header of the file to make it look like a L4.1 file. This however will not work in all cases. In my case, I needed to make Mencoder the main program for dealing with and transcoding video files of this type so I moved it up on the “Video Files Engines” list under “Transcoding Settings” (there’s a little up arrow) and ensured that “Remux videos with tsMuxeR when possible instead of transcoding” check box was selected. Save the settings and you should be good to go. More here.
Other than that, this thing is a beast. I personally have WDTV box as well that plays anything ever but it’s nice to be able to use my consoles. I do hope you have a powerful computer system if your doing this. In the case where do you do have to re-encode on the fly, it can be somewhat intensive. But even on my Q6600 from 2007, I was able to transcode fairly smoothly.
