Playstation 3 as media server?

gregch

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Seems most people are agreed the PS3 makes a decent budget Blu-ray player, so was thinking about that as an HD source for my new HDTV. I was also thinking about using a currently unused Mac mini as a 'media server' i.e. to play digital movie content from its hard drive, connecting the Mac with a DVI>HDMI cable. However, I'm aware the PS3 has its own hard drive. Is it possible to add movie content to its hard drive, and play the content directly from the PS3? If it is, it would be much simpler - as I only have one free audio input on the surround amp, and only one free HDMI input on the TV. So it would be great not to worry about the Mac mini, and to just have a PS3 acting as both Blu-ray player and media server. I guess I would want to have the PS3 join my existing wireless network, and copy the files from my G5 Mac. Anyone know if the PS3 can be used in this way?
 

professorhat

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Yup, you can do this, but you can't copy files directly from the Mac Mini over the network (for some reason, don't know why). There's a few ways round it though:

1. Burn the files to DVD and then copy them from this.
2. If you've got a USB hard drive, put them on this, plug into PS3 and you can copy from there.
3. You can get some software (like Twonkyvision) which will allow you to connect to your Mini Mac as it's acting as a Media Server. This way, you can leave the files on your Mac and play them from there, or copy them to your PS3.
4. It's a bit complicated but you can set the Mac up as a web server, then share the files. You can then connect to the Mac using the Internet Browser and download the files.

I have a hard drive with an ethernet socket on it and run Twonkyvision on the hard drive. This means I can keep all my videos on the hard drive and then connect to this via the network as a Media Server and play them through the PS3. This has the advantage of upscaling the content and, due to the PS3's remote, makes everything a lot easier than playing through a laptop or a Mac Mini or something.

Just a word of warning though, some things won't play on the PS3 (though the video format support seems to increase with each firmware update). However, I find I still have to convert a few files into MP4, but I've found some software which runs on the Mac and does this automatically for me, you just have to leave it running. If you need this, let me know and I'll post a link to it.

Hope this helps!
 
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Anonymous

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You cant copy them over your wireless network, but it should stream most material. Thats how I use mine, as my PC has all my music archived on it nicely.
 
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Anonymous

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Apologies for possibly hi-jacking tis thread, but I'm looking to do something similar.

I currently have a PS3 connected to my Onkyo 875 and I was looking for some advice on ways to store all of my CD's and DVD's electronically so that I can effectively use my PS3 as a media jukebox.

I understand that I could store everything on a nice big external drive and stream these from a PC, but I was hoping to find a solution which doesn't rely on the PC being fired up everytime I wanted to play something.

Another option would be to simply use an external hard drive, connected to the PS3. However, I was wondering how to connect them. Would the USB interface be okay, or is there a better way?

Any suggestions/advice would be greatly appeciated.
 
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Anonymous

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If you've already got a network in place, I'd highly recommend getting a NAS device with a media server installed on it. This way you can store all your media centrally and access it via the PS3 without having to having to turn your computer on.

I've noticed that when I'm streaming media to the PS3 in this manner (and via windows media player), I'm given the option copy the file to the PS3's drive (over the wireless network). This works, but my PS3 drive is tiny compared to the capacity of the NAS. I would've assumed this was the same if using Twonky or TVersity on a computer, but haven't tried.

I also have a XBOX360 and although the media streaming capabilities of this are also very good, two problems remain - one is that the 360 is not fully DLNA compliant (if there is such a thing!) which can be a pain in some situations (though not with the media servers mentioned above) and the second problem is that it sounds like a Dyson.

Buffalo's LinkStation Live worked for me straight out the box, although Maxtor's Shared Stored II with Twonkey installed maybe worth the extra effort.
 
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Anonymous

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[quote user="Clare Newsome"]
And for any of you coming to the Bristol Show this weekend, we're doing a streaming demo that could answer a lot of your questions.

[/quote]

Excellent! That couldn't be anymore ideal for me.

Assuming you are all there for the whole weekend............. I'll see you in the morning for a demo. :)
 

Clare Newsome

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Yes, we'll be there Friday, Saturday and Sunday - demos from 11am (or maybe even 10.30am if we've already got a queue!) tomorrow and then regularly until Sunday afternoon.
 

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