Previously, I discussed my experiences in fidgeting with my new ps3. You can read about them here.
For those not wanting to read the whole thing, a quick rundown: I'm a mac user with both a ps3 and an xb360 interested in using either console as a media hub for my living room. *I want to stress here that due to limitations of my own setup and preferences, I was unable to get everything working just as I'd hoped.* Quite a few helpful users offered advice along the lines of formatting my external HD for fat32, which would most certainly address the issue. Problem is, I'm using the external hard drive for HD content, all of which exceeds the 4 gig file size limit which exists on fat32. The other issue is that the ps3 doesn't natively play .mkv's. I'd need to transcode everything, or find something to transcode/stream to the ps3 or xbox to make it work.
As far as my setup goes presently, I'm running quad core 2.66 ghz mac pro with 4 gig of ram. Both consoles hooked up via ethernet but the mac pro is actually connected via Draft-N wireless - more on this in a moment.
The Problem:
Long before I had my ps3, I was using the xb360 and an external HD stuffed with hd-wmv's to watch HD content. This was easy and quick, but it was also very loud. Furthermore, my selection of movies was rather scarce, as hd-wmv's with 5.1 dolby digital (ala WMA pro) are not that easy to get my hands on, or make. AAC 5.1 channel audio using the h.264 MKV's are quite popular these days, and I wanted something that could play those.
It's worth noting that if I did not want to go with a console, the Popcorn Hour A-110 is really slick. In fact, I'm still considering one, or perhaps even the c-200. Either of which can be had for under 350. Both of which do nearly everything I like (sans play games or physical media - dvd's and bluray etc). Nothing would need to be streamed as far as hd content went, you could just install an internal hard drive and use the ftp server and bittorrent client to slurp/view files right off that unit itself. Pretty neat. This is where I'd like to see the ps3 and xbox360 go actually. With the inclusion of playon, you could watch Hulu or whatever, in addition to all of your content stored locally on that box and just ftp whatever else you wanted to on the fly.
If I were using a PC, I'd just drop Tversity on it and call it a day. In theory, I could run Tversity within Parallels, but I don't have much faith in that working. I did however decide that playon was easy enough to get running and took very few resources to run in parallels. When I feel like watching Hulu on the ps3 I can just fire up the xp install I have and viola. Not exactly easy, but not hard at all either.
Enter PS3 Media Server: Free Mac/PC/Linux Solution
A coworker clued me in to his experiences messing with ps3 media server in Linux. He indicated that not only was it free, but it worked as advertised and was pretty easy to setup. Basically, ps3 media server allows you to share/stream all of your movies/music/photos from your mac/ps/linux box to your ps3. In cases where you are streaming a file unrecogizned by the ps3, the content is transcoded and streamed to the ps3 on the fly in a recognizeable format. The ps3 media server website can be found here.
After installing ps3 media server I fired up the ps3 and sure enough, the ps3 saw my local media server as though it would any other upnp content sharing service on the network. SWEET!
The Headaches:
Once I saw the the ps3 media server in the XMB, I immediately tried to stream one of my hd-wmv's to the ps3. The picture looked great, but no audio. This relates back to why I wanted to move away from hd-wmv's in the first place. If you want 6 channel audio while watching digital content on your 360, IT MUST be encoded in WMA pro. Guess what audio codec isn't compatible with the PS3: yup - wma pro.
Although in the end, it was *kind of* easy to get setup, it took a fair deal of time for a novice like me to get it all figured out. It mostly involved finding the most up-to-date beta of the ps3 media server, and network config stuff. It's likely anyone with a little technical know-how could do it, but it's not something you could walk your mother through over the telephone.
After getting everything setup, I wanted to see if there were any problems streaming 1080p content as opposed to 720p. I found that generally speaking, during high detail scenes the 1080p content would really start to jitter. This never occurred while streaming 720 content. In my experience, 1080p content is not streamable via wireless to the ps3, not even when the pc you are using to stream the content from is 801.11N. Go ethernet. As an alternative, you can change some of the encoding/transcoding values to a lower quality so its not so bandwidth intensive, but this wasn't an ideal option for me.
Where I am at Now
With ps3 media server I am able to stream all of my content to the ps3 from my mac. This is something I believe a lot of mac users have been looking for, and I'm comfortable with the solution.
I believe I've come a long way in not only better understanding the functionality of the ps3/360, but also how I, as a mac user, can get the most out of either. I can't stress enough the value of programs like connect360, playon, and ps3 media server. I also can't express how much fun it can be to tinker with this stuff. Next up, I believe I'll be doing a feature by feature breakdown of both the xb360, as well the ps3 within the context of using it as a media hub. Thanks for reading!
Square Enix will release the PC versions of Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 + 2.5 ReMIX, Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue, and Kingdom Hearts III + Re Mind via Steam on June 13, the company announced.
Awesome though i hope the collection is around 30/40 dollars as any higher would be unfair for those of us waiting for the anti gamer EGS exclusive deal to expire.
IGN Entertainment has acquired the Gamer Network family of digital brands for an undisclosed sum. As a result of the acquisition, some redundancies have been made across the UK-based organisation.
Well this can only mean one thing... more job layoffs even in the publication industry.
“Layoffs occuring“
Yep. IGN now has a monopoly in the gaming media.
“As a result of the acquisition, some redundancies have been made across the UK-based organisation.”
“Gamer Network's publications are GamesIndustry.biz, Eurogamer (including six local language editions), Rock Paper Shotgun, VG247 and Dicebreaker. The business also holds shares in Outside Xbox, Digital Foundry and Hookshot (which operates Nintendolife, PushSquare, PureXbox and Time Extension).”
“IGN Entertainment is the division of Ziff Davis that includes IGN, MapGenie, HowLongToBeat, and Humble Bundle. It has acquired the websites from PAX and New York Comic-Con organiser ReedPop, which initially bought the Gamer Network business in 2018.“
Probably Microsoft's fault!
They surely gave IGN the idea.
What's next IGN Pass?
But joke aside let's hope that this makes the news better compared to some of IGN branches
Microsoft and IGN work quite closely so it isn't a stretch to say this is a move to control the gaming press to get everyone singing from the Microsoft hymn sheet. Not a good look at all. It is transparent stuff like this which is backfiring in Microsoft's face. First they want control of all the games now the media.
Oh boy! If we've learned one thing about recent news, corporate shrinkage of an industry via buyouts from those at top only leads to good things for employees and consumers!
Ummmm not sure that’s a good thing that all these review sites are under the same umbrella. There’s no guarantee that they will maintain a non-bias opinion not paid for by the highest bidder.
Ouch, that does not sounds good for Eurogamer.
With so much of the industry media that will more or less follow the same editorial line, it will be harder and harder to distinguish PR from actual journalism in a couple of years.
Thinking about it, may it explain their review score for Hellblade 2?
***harder and harder to distinguish PR from actual journalism in a couple of years. ***
The age of gaming advertorials.
Dark Envoy Director's Cut is an update of 2023's magic and steampunk sci-fi action RPG with elements of CRPG tactical combat mechanics.
You r on my list of people on N4G that make this place great to visit.
use tversity works like a charm
Your problem, your main problem is that you're using a mac. You said something like your Pc "recently crapped out on you and you haven't bothered to fix it yet". Why not? What's broken? Simply Re-installing the OS or a new HDD is hardly a reason to leave the thing dead when that would make many of your troubles vanish so what's wrong with your, currently broken, pc?
I use my PS3 as a media center, but I use windows. You want to watch MKVs then you can stream them with the PS3 Media sever but if you had a working windows pc you could use MKVtoVob (not sure if they support mac yet) to (QUICKLY, like 2mins to 1hr if it has to convert the audio) convert those mkvs to playable HD vids, that will work on the PS3 and can be cut into parts to fit on a Fat32 file system using drive.
I do both, I have a 1Tb external HDD and I also use the Java PS3 Media Sever because it makes navigating my Pcs contents nice and easy.
Most of my HD vids are saved to the external, MkvtoVob splits them for me, if needed.
As for the PS3s internal HDD
There are PLENTY of sites that you can download directly from, example
http://d01.megashares.com/?...
They have a search button btw ;)
With the internal option you could simply convert the video (there are lots of programs but MkvtoVob was made specifically for the PS3 and is the fastest, most user friendly and easy) and transfer it to the ps3s hdd through the media sever, it takes a long time to transfer though.
Or you could burn the file to a dvd and either watch it from that dvd or copy it to the Ps3s internal HDD from that dvd. Dual layer, rewritable and standard dvds all work so you could get a dual-layer rewritable disc and copy a few that way, depending on how many times it allows for a rewrite.
http://www.mkv2vob.com/
BTW, and a HUGE BTW
Sometimes, when you play a file and the audio seems to not be presents (sometimes) it's actually your audio output settings. If you get a file with no audio playing go through the audio output setting and manually try out the different options rather than just choosing to automatically configure.
I found this out when I was moving my PS3 between a couple hdtvs in my house and one of my movie files stopped playing audio all of a sudden on the different tv. The system had decided that tv was incompatible with the audio so when i chose to do everything automatic after hooking it up to it the audio for some files was missing.
Here are some things to consider during our tweakage.
Try turning down the AC3 bitrate to about 576. Close to 640, but lower overhead for your CPU to take it.
Also, where it says "Video quality settings" you will see something like
Maximum bandwidth in Mbits/s. Keep that at 0. (0 = no limit)
You will also see something of this sort.
"keyint=1:vqscale=1:vqmi n=2"
They have different presets available.
1,1,1 is "lossless" heavy overhead/bit rates
1,1,2 is "best"
3,2,3 is "good"
etc
etc
If you are wired directly to the network with a powerful computer, try one of higher settings, like "best" or "good". I have my settings set to 2,2,3. Lower overhead, but it works good for my 3g dual 2.0ghz cores. If your computer is faster, something around 2,2,3 to 1,1,2 will be fine.
Though if you have a wi-fi connection and you plan on doing wifi, you need to try one of the settings using the "keyint=25" it will allow you to fit the bit rates over wifi without your movie stuttering.
Keep in mind, these are fully customizable, so mess around with them to find something you want.
Don't use TVserity. Instead download and use PS3 Media Server.
You won't be disappointed!
I too I'm trying to stream an HD movie wireless.
Windows Media Player is good and basic for media hub but it's just for beginners or getting started.
PS3 Media Server is really good, it read Rar files, subtitles/srt. You can do a lot.
Although I'm trying to tweak the program right to stream HD movies, because it keeps jumping. Audio and picture quality are great though.