PlayStation 3 Media Streaming
Now I had a old thread a few months ago asking how to get mkv files working on a PS3 and was suggested the PS3 Media Server. After using that for a month or two, I started having problems with playback so invested in some better cabling but was still experiencing troubles. I then switched to TVersity, however problems occurred with that one as well to my frustration.
After a few days of searching, I found Mezzmo recently, and was using that until the trial ended today. I'm not too keen on paying $29.95 a year when there is probably free UPnP streaming services out there that are potentially better. So I was wondering what people were using to stream from computer to PS3? It needs to support MKV files as well as being free. |
09:29pm 25/05/12 Permalink
the 2 you mention are the best I know of. what went wrong?
alternatively don't dl mkv files, or use format factory to convert |
09:45pm 25/05/12 Permalink
i've never had problems with ps3 media server, so i haven't tried out any other streaming programs.
you could try mkv2vob to convert the files then stick them on a usb drive instead of streaming. i've used it to convert a s***load of videos (takes about 20 secs per vid) to store on a usb stick. last edited by ravn0s at 21:58:04 25/May/12 |
09:48pm 25/05/12 Permalink
playstation media server works fine for me.
Do you have more than one playstation on the network? Or even a sony tv as sometimes having two renders on the same network can cause issues. Try disabling the HTTP Engine V2 in the General Config screen if it is turned on. Also make sure that you have 0 as your maximum bandwith. Some times if your router is UPNP enabled it can limit bitrate to PS3. In transcoding settings make sure your buffer is maxxed out and you are using all available cores. I set my auto to 2 channels and also reduced audio bitrate to 384. You can also try playing with your video quality settings. With all the above settings I can use keyint=5:vqscale=1:vqmin=1 and have no issues. Hope this helps. |
09:51pm 25/05/12 Permalink
One PS3. Every time I tried to play anything above 720p it would skip/freeze/have no audio. I tried mkv2vob and it then worked fine, but the annoyance of always converting got to me so tried other ones. Mezzmo worked perfectly as I said, and even played mkv files naturally, however I just wanted to see if there were free services out there.
I'll give your suggestions a try kg, might as well see if it works. |
10:10pm 25/05/12 Permalink
While I know this isn't what you want to hear, I eventually (after a few years) got sick of the bulls*** that went with streaming to my PS3. It mostly worked, but fast-forwarding/skipping forward was s***, subtitles were a pain, it hogged network bandwidth, and sometimes, for no apparent reason, some files would just refuse to play properly or even at all.
I dropped $300 on a Acer Revo 3700 (little Windows PC about the size of a Wii), installed XBMC and Sick Beard, and haven't looked back. Perfect performance on every 720p and 1080p file I throw at it, instantaneous skipping through files, automatic episode downloading from Usenet, and everything else you can do with a Windows PC. HDMI and Optical out, Wifi, Gigabit LAN, plenty of USB ports and super-low power consumption. You can probably grab one even cheaper now. I've also heard that the Apple TV is good if you don't want to spend as much, but you have to hack it and you don't get as much functionality as a full blown PC (obviously). I know it's not what you asked, but it was my solution to the problems you're experiencing, and when I got it set up, I wished I had of done it earlier. |
10:22pm 25/05/12 Permalink
I'm using mezzmo. When my trial ran out I bought it. Aussie devs, good product, fast on support, happy to give them $30 since I found the other two products were not quiet right for me.
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10:28pm 25/05/12 Permalink
That sound pretty good midda, might look into it.
Been using ps3 media server for years also. Are you streaming wirelessly Eorl? I found I simply had to hard wire both my PC and PS3 to get 720p and 1080p files to stream properly. Skipping/fast-forwarding is still dodgey tbh. |
10:32pm 25/05/12 Permalink
I'm using mezzmo. When my trial ran out I bought it. Aussie devs, good product, fast on support, happy to give them $30 since I found the other two products were not quiet right for me. Mmm I'm contemplating it if I can't find anything else, it just worked perfectly right out of the box. Midda I was actually looking at making a media centre before I purchased the PS3, but ended up going this way due to wanting to play some games and the added benefit of streaming. Currently it has been a bit of nightmare getting things sorted, but hopefully I can or else it will be the way of media centre. If I ever do get one, I might actually try XBMC, though would you be able to integrate Sick Beard/CouchPotato? |
10:33pm 25/05/12 Permalink
I use Sick Beard on mine. It grabs the shows, all of the relevant meta data (specifically in the format for XBMC), and organises it all into nice folders that XBMC reads. It was all pretty simple to set up, and requires pretty much no intervention on my behalf.
If you manage to get a good experience with your PS3, then go for it, I mean you've already bought it. This Mezzmo program didn't exist when I last tried, so I don't know, it might be all you need. I've grown accustomed to the convenience of having a proper PC in the lounge room now though, and I can hardly complain about what I paid for it. |
10:44pm 25/05/12 Permalink
Skipping/fast-forwarding is still dodgey tbh. fast-forwarding is dodgy for me too. if i use go to it skips to the time i want fine. |
10:57pm 25/05/12 Permalink
Who transcodes to stream?
http://www.videolan.org/doc/streaming-howto/en/ vlc streams, pretty sure it can stream to things like xboxes and ps3's although I've only ever used it to stream from one vlc client to another as a remote webcam viewer type of deal. It's pretty damn complicated so if you're not into things you have to mess about with forget it, it's not a "drag media files here to stream" kind of deal. It's free and bloody powerful though in terms of what it can output to. |
11:20pm 25/05/12 Permalink
I'm with Midda, I used to stream stuff to the PS3 using PS3 Media Server, which worked fairly well, but if something had subs you would have to set them up with aviaddsubx or some such program. Plus skipping through things was near impossible. I now have my HP Microserver sitting in the lounge room and it does sickbeard/sab/xbmc and everything since I just stuck Windows 7 on it. Love it and haven't streamed a thing since setting it up (actually hardly use the PS3 now...lol).
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11:53pm 25/05/12 Permalink
make sure you use the latest beta build of ps3 media server. no issues here, although some files won't play. i just wait 20 minutes and download a new version (try and stick to eztv or other well known guys)
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07:42am 26/05/12 Permalink
Seconding Midda and Linker. I played around with it a lot in the past and it's really just not worth it. Every time there's a file that is slightly different, you'll just waste more time trying to get it to work. And even when it is working at it's best, it still sucks for seeking and fastforwarding etc, and you're still wasting energy by having to have your PC running and doing all that heavy lifting for a machine that has far more than enough processing power to be doing it by itself.
This might have been reasonable even only a few years ago, but today there's just so many other better solutions that it's really not worth messing around with. If you don't want to completely invest the dollars and time and energy into a media PC build with XBMC, Plex or Myth or whatever else, there are plenty of cheap and easy options that still blow the s*** out of the PS3 as a media player. You can get a WDTV Live for under $100. Probably pick one up for next to nothing secondhand. There's a bunch of other similar devices out there also. Then there's the modded AppleTV route. Using the PS3 (or the X360 for that matter) as a media player is still just some "square peg in a round hole" s*** and it doesn't look like that will change any time soon. |
08:26am 26/05/12 Permalink
Yeah it has been quite frustrating trying to get everything to work each time something new comes out or something breaks. I've got Serviio working for now, but if that ends up not working in a week or two I'm just going to go ahead and make an actual media centre. Thanks all for the advice, heaps appreciated!
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08:50am 26/05/12 Permalink
Eorl are you using wifi or cat5 to the ps3??
I had the same problem with mkv files over ps3 media server. fixed it by using an ethernet cable to the ps3 instead of the wifi. guessing it had something to do with bandwidth for the HD video |
10:20am 26/05/12 Permalink
If you do end up going down the HTPC route, but don't want to have to build a PC (or spend that much money), this is what I bought.
http://www.ebay.com.au/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p3907.m570.l1313&_nkw=acer+revo They still seem to be about the same price, which is surprising. Must be popular. Though I've also seen videos of the Raspberry Pi running full-blown XBMC, running 1080p video. They only cost like $40, and they're probably smaller than your computer mouse. Might be worth looking into as well: |
11:51am 26/05/12 Permalink
Eorl are you using wifi or cat5 to the ps3?? Yeah moved to cat5 after realising it was probably wifi that was bogging the playback down but still had a few problems with the media server. However now everything seems to be working okay, so hopefully things stick through. |
11:52am 26/05/12 Permalink
