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Member
(05-24-2007, 04:13 PM)
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PC to PS3 Media Streaming (DLNA) Thread
#1
OK, since bits of info get burried in a huge FW1.80 thread, I decided to make a new thread where I will update the first post regularly with new info.
So, short notes first. DLNA is an industry standard for media (audio,video, photo) sharing within concept of a digital home and is supported by many hardware and software manufacturers. As of FW1.80, DLNA is supported by Playstation 3 entertainment system. PS3 takes a role of DLNA Player, not DLNA server, so it can play a content of any DLNA server (source) in you digital home, but can not stream the content to other players within DLNA protocols. (Remote connect to PSP is using proprietary protocols) What it means is that you have to have a DLNA server installed, either hardware (like some HDD storages, DVRs or set-top boxes) or as a software on your PC. The latter is most interesting for majority of us, since DLNA certified CE equipment is not that widespread yet. Your options for the software naturally depends on your operating system. DLNA is an open protocol based on UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) and therefore can work on any operating system. So far we found a reasonably good solution only for Windows OSes, so I'll start with it. Windows Windows Media Player 11 If you are running Windows Vista you have a very simple way to enable the sharing through Windows Media Player 11. If you search in Media Sharing Tab ![]() you can spot a new unknown device you can share media to: [IMG]http://i5.************/6ujlx1c.png[/IMG] If you don't see the device, the chances are that a)you have a firewall blocking WMP11 media sharing b) there is some port conflicts between ps3 and your home network. Disable firewall to check if its a), or restart your PS3 (or disable and enable back media sharing in XMB under Network Settings). After each reboot PS3 will use different set of ports for media sharing, so eventually you should be able to get PC and PS3 see each other. The same also applies to a similar problem with other software. But most users should see the unknown device in media sharing right away. Allow sharing to it and go to your PS3. Now, after 1.80 the new icon appeared in Music/Video and Photo bars, called Search for Media Servers. Click it and if you are lucky :p, a Vista media server icon will appear just under it. Now you can click on it and navigate through you WMP11 library direct in XMB! [IMG]http://i6.************/6tmt3i9.jpg[/IMG] Moreover, hit triangle on your video file and you can copy it over to PS3 without hassle! According to Microsoft, it should also work for WMP11 under XP: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/win...haremedia.aspx If you have a problem with it under XP, try to manually enable UPnP service. For this do the following: Click Start Click Programs Click Administrative Tools Click Services Scroll down to Universal Plug and Play Device Host Double click Universal Plug and Play Device Host Set the Startup type to Automatic and click the Start button in that window to start the service If you don't see the Administrative Tools in the Programs you will need to right mouse click down in your taskbar and go to Properties, from there click the Start Menu tab and click the Customize... button, just check Display Administrative Tools and then click OK. So, WMP11 sounds good, right? Its not that perfect however, since you will be only play video and music files that are supported by PS3, and in some cases not even all of them. And that limits you to MP2, MP4, and since 2.10, most of DivX encoded files (and some Xvids without some advanced features). The only solution here is transcoding, which is basically on-fly recoding of source video/audio to target video/audio. One of the best transcoding programs for Windows is Nero MediaHome, which is a part of Nero Digital Pro package: http://www.nero.com/eng/Upgrade_to_N...gital_Pro.html Thanks to mingeeta@PS3forums we have a quick tutorial for setting it up. Turn your PS3 on and login, and leave it on your XMB Run a file in Nero Showtime to unblock the firewall that pops up and ALLOW. Run Nero MediaHome On the left are a set of Icons. Heres a quick setup: SHARED DIRECTORIES > Click ADD SHARE and browse to a single shared directory for now, as it takes time to add the details, so dont go adding gazillions of media files for now. OPTIONS: I left them at default for now, but they are self explanatory. Automatically start media home when pc is switched on is a good one to tick up, but leave it off for now till you get it going. NETWORK: Click the box for your ethernet card on your PC. Leave port number and network name at default for now DEVICES: Click UPnP/1.0 line and click ALLOW ACCESS box TRANSCODING: Leave on auto detect as it will talk to the ps3 and see what it can and cant play and come up with a solution after a few seconds. [IMG]http://i15.************/814mb2g.gif[/IMG] TV: Set up your tv card here STATUS: Click this ICON and you will be able to see whats going on then click START SERVER at the bottom, and you wait a few moments. Go back to PS3 and it should show the Nero Media Home Icon. Browse as normal for your video files. At first if you have loads of files in your shared directories it can cause the ps3 playback to come back out to the XMB. Just give Media Home some time to update the directory listings, then it will be silky smooth. It was tested at a decent PC for SD avi files only so far, and they work fine. You might have issues if you have an old pc, as the transcoding can take up resources. If you cant see any media on your PS3 after doing all this, try following: Turn off the server and go to TOOLS - NERO SCOUT - INDEXING - FOLDERS and select the folders you want there. Then go back to the INDEXING tab and click INDEX NOW - this may take a while to do, if you have huge amounts of files, so as before just to get it working. When its done go to SHARED DIRECTORIES ICON in nero media home and select SHARE ALL CONTENT INDEXED BY NERO SCOUT As it seems now it works quite fine for SD content, but stutters/fails at HD files, which is not surprising, giving the needed processor power for on-fly HD conversion. If you have a problem with full version of Nero MediaHome within Nero 7 or Nero Digital Pro packages, you can try Nero MediaHome CE, which is using code optimized for consumer electronics devices: http://www.nero.com/nerodigital/eng/download.php Its smaller, faster and seems to produce good streaming results. It also smart enough to stream HD mp4 files without transcoding to PS3. Drawback is that you don't get automatic thumbnails with it, as far as I can see. Twonky Vision Media Center For native HD MPEG2 files people are getting good streaming results with twonky vision media center http://www.twonkyvision.com/. Also it supports album art and they are consistently ironing out PS3-related issues. For best result get latest beta version (4.4.4): http://www.twonkyvision.com/Download...ndex-beta.html Reported to work: - MP3 playback and album art - AVC playback - AVI playback - MP4 playback - MPG playback - WMV playback Downside of both Nero and Twonky Vision MC is that they cost money (Twonky has 30days trial). There is however, good free alternative for PC users: TVersity This software support both native streaming of divx, mp4, mp2 files and on-the-fly conversion of basically all others. Constant updates and bugfixing made it very popular among PS3 community, you can get the latest version ( 0.9.11.4 as of 8-01-08) here: http://tversity.com/download/ with 2.10 firmware support and unique features like Transcode settings at the file/folder/url level and optional menu hierarchy for folders. Installation now suggest you to install a codec pack and I strongly recommend you to do so, unless you are really understand what you need to install for both transcoding and streaming to work flawlessly.
Originally Posted by Tversity Tips:
There are also a bunch of freeware UPnP software that should allow streaming to PS3 as well, such as: http://www.gnu.org/software/gmediaserver/ http://ushare.geexbox.org/ Mediatomb http://www.cybergarage.org/net/cmgate/cc/index.html You can look at them if you have enough free time and some skills. Most of them can also be compiled to Mac or Linux, but I wouldnt try to do it without massive amount of free time. :) Mac OS X Mac users also have a number of options. Firstly, mentioned above Twonky Vision Media Center has OS X version available, and you can give it a try. Exclusive :) to Mac systems is EyeConnect software http://www.elgato.com/index.php?file...cts_eyeconnect both have 30days free trials, so its plenty of time to try. Medialink (ConnectPS3) Finally, people behind hugely popular Connect360 released PS3 DLNA software called Medialink. Get it here http://www.nullriver.com/index/products/medialink, first users reports are quite positive. Promised are itunes and iPhoto integration, HD streaming and album art. Costs 20$. According to this thread, best free option Mac users have is Mediat0mb software. Also Fuppes reported to work but both require some fiddling with files and installation.
Originally Posted by FUPPES Installation Tips:
Linux users normally advanced enough to know more about it than me, I will not elaborate here. Freeware programs posted about + twonky media server should be usable. Mediatomb again seems to be program of choice, they released patch in July 2007 that made streaming to PS3 possible under Unix and OS X. Read more on the matter here: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost...&postcount=440. Fuppes (see above) also works fine. Embedded devices Many modern NAS devices with DLNA support have a possibility to upgrade DLNA streaming software. If you have one of them and you are having problem with DLNA streaming to PS3, check if you can install latest version of Twonky Vision Media Server (supported devices)or Mediatomb(supported devices) on it. General tips At the end, as a general note, most common mistakes so far: 1) firewall (either PC firewall or in router) blocking a media server program (thats when you cant find a media server after search on your PS3) 2)you are looking for video files in Music tab of XMB. :) Though sometimes they may be there, but its a bug. DLNA normally should take care that you see videos only under video tab and pics under Photo. .) 3) you are trying to run more than one media server on your PC. Some of them are using same ports on default, so you should either have only one active at a time, or configure them to different ports manually. 4) If you are getting "unsupported type" error when you try to stream a file, chances are that it is a file that is not supported by PS3 ;). This most often can happen with xvid encoded files. To check it this is the case, just copy the file over to PS3 and try to play directly on it.
Last edited by Kinan; 01-08-2008 at 09:33 AM.
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Banned
(05-24-2007, 04:54 PM)
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#6
Thank U so much for this Kinan! I really needed it. Its actually quite easy using Vista. I already set up my PS3 with my VAIO laptop. YAY!
I can also see my neighbors network with my PS3. If only I was granted access I could see all their stuff. Oh the stories I could tell!! :lol |
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I am full of shit.
Rich, smooth, creamy shit. (05-24-2007, 05:02 PM)
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#11
I think I'm gonna just stick to the 360 for streaming. :(
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Member
(05-24-2007, 05:09 PM)
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#14
Okay so while the MediaHome transcoding is cool and all for most things, I've found it only really works at a lowish 2.7Mbps MPEG-2. What I'm currently doing is converting my xvid files with PS3Video9 using the "MPEG2 1080p 6Mbps Stereo/192kbps" profile (despite the name, it won't resize your video).
It's the solution I am most liking currently because it gets around two issues, the first is that it gives much better bitrates than the default transcode profile (I've had no luck with the high bitrate option in MediaHome), the second is that PS3Video9 converts the 5.1 audio in my xvid files to a proper downmixed stereo. MediaHome doesn't do this correctly or well, so in my case when the files to be transcoded have ac3 audio, I get out of sync and very low volume audio. |
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One crazy mofo
Saved by a Harley dude (05-24-2007, 05:10 PM)
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#15
WMP11 works great for me (I need to re-encode some video) but photos and mp3s no problems.
I think I might try nero tonight so I don't have to recode all my movies. I wish there was a way to have it just display the relevent media type under each XMB icon instead of everything... is that controlled by the server or the PS3? Also: the search for media server icon is fugly... bury that sucker in settings plz :D |
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Member
(05-24-2007, 05:11 PM)
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#16
Originally Posted by Mmmkay:
How fast is the conversion? What size does a xvid/divx turn into after a conversion? |
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Member
(05-24-2007, 05:14 PM)
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#17
great thread, thanks for the info. I was hoping that the PS3 would be a lot less strict on formats supported and thus Sony and Microsoft would get in a war trying to support as many formats as possible but sadly this doesn't look to be the case..yet...
I'm still holding out though, with all the horsepower of the next-gen systems it is silly that they support so few formats. |
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Member
(05-24-2007, 05:16 PM)
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#18
Originally Posted by rc213:
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Member
(05-24-2007, 05:56 PM)
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#19
Little report. Setup is wired iMac and wireless PS3. EyeConnect shows everything as it should but I get permission errors when trying to actually view it. TwonyMedia works fine as long as I specify the network address of the iMac in the Twony settings (maybe because I have Parallels and 3 network addresses?).
Holding out for Connect360 (well, ConnectPS3 :p). When playing MP3s via TwonkMedia it will pick up the structure of my iTunes library without problems but it won't display album art. Of course there's no transcoding with either of these either. Edit, I also seem to have lost all access to the Twonky settings page in my browser now, seems to have happened when I added the IP address of the server. Oh well :/ Edit again, if you change you network server IP in Twonky then you have to access it via that, e.g. my settings page is now 192.168.0.100:9000
Last edited by Dazzla; 05-24-2007 at 06:05 PM.
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Birdie in the hand for life's rich demand. . .
(05-24-2007, 06:00 PM)
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#20
I was playing around with this last night. I was using Vista, I had my folders properly shared, and on the PS3, I'd be able to navigate my directories, but every time I tried to play something, I'd get a pop up saying that it couldn't connect. My PS3 (and Vista PC) are both wired.
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GAF's Bob Woodward
(05-24-2007, 06:07 PM)
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#23
I can see my whole iTunes collection now, with nice little thumbnail album art, such a shame I can't play it :( The sooner iTunes gets rid of DRM the better, I almost feel like backpedalling and going back to CDs only.
Also, should there be a lag between selecting a mp3 and it playing, with nero? It takes a few seconds to get going, not sure why this would be the case...some videos are faster than that.
Last edited by gofreak; 05-24-2007 at 06:11 PM.
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Member
(05-24-2007, 06:11 PM)
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#25
Okay, the 2 pass encode took just under 50 minutes for a 40 minute video. File size in was 700MB, file size out was 1.17GB. Playback on PS3 is fine, quality is great compared to the original, no noticeable desync so far, and this is all running over wireless. Wireless from my PC to the router and wireless from the router to my PS3.
Originally Posted by gofreak:
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Member
(05-24-2007, 06:15 PM)
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#26
Originally Posted by Mmmkay:
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Member
(05-24-2007, 06:18 PM)
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#28
Originally Posted by garrickk:
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Banned
(05-24-2007, 06:20 PM)
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#29
Originally Posted by burnfout:
Seriously, there is an incredible lack of uPNP support on MacOS platform, mainly due to the fact that Apple doesn't support it at all. It wouls be so perfect if both iTunes and iPhoto were able to share their content via uPNP. |
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time to take my meds
(05-24-2007, 06:22 PM)
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#30
I'm using nero7 w/ mediahome (windows xp). I can get it to see the ps3, plays images fine, music fine, but I have problems with video.
mp4 videos work fine (like the playsyde videos), wmv and avi/xvid files show up (even with icons) but it says access denied or something when I try to play them. I followed the tutorial word for word. Same settings. Maybe it's the speed of my laptop (old 2.2ghz Mobile Pentium). |
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Insane For Sony
(05-24-2007, 06:24 PM)
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#31
Originally Posted by gofreak:
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GAF's Bob Woodward
(05-24-2007, 06:28 PM)
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#33
Originally Posted by Marconelly:
I did notice one unrelated thing, though..if I go into the "by artist" folder, it only shows me those mp3s I can play on my PS3, which is kind of handy. If I got to look at all music, it shows me all my itunes stuff which I can't access. I'll look around to see if there's any other settings that might improve the startup time..it's not a BIG deal, but I don't see why it couldn't be instantaneous. |
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Member
(05-24-2007, 06:31 PM)
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#34
Originally Posted by Bad_Boy:
You'll get access denied messages when the transcode application tries to convert a file format it doesn't recognise or can't handle. I had that problem with some High Profile 5.1 AVC media in my directory. It would generate the thumbnail but crash the transcode app and then it would prevent the server from sending any more media. |
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Member
(05-24-2007, 06:49 PM)
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#35
Okay, the PS3 DLNA client definitely does accept and stream properly encoded H.264 content. I tried with the Heavenly Sword Gamer's Day trailer from Playsyde. The only problem is that the streaming was really poor, it was buffering like crazy. That may be because there is a huge bitrate variance in the video, but also the PS3 client registered the file bitrate as being 160Mbps! Something odd there.
I should point out my settings for MediaHome are to keep the original format, so it wasn't transcoding the file on my PC to any other format while sending it. [edit] In case it's the encode profile which is being the issue, here's what the Heavenly Sword video was set at: AVC/H264 Video - Visual Size 1280 x 720 - Profile Main @ Level 3.2
Last edited by Mmmkay; 05-24-2007 at 06:54 PM.
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Member
(05-24-2007, 07:26 PM)
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#36
Originally Posted by Mmmkay:
BUT you have to encode with main profile and level 4.1 (and AAC audio) or naturally the PS3 won't support it, as PS3 doesn't support AVC encodes on high profile and any level higher than 4.1 and even some of the lower levels give it problems (that's why most of the MP4s wont play on it). |
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Member
(05-24-2007, 07:32 PM)
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#37
Cool, I'm slowly getting up to speed on it all. There have been a lot of incorrect things said about the PS3's DLNA client today, seems most of it came from server issues. I'm currently re-encoding that Heavenly Sword trailer to see if I can get it streaming better. Whatever it was originally encoded to is probably confusing the DLNA streaming buffer.
[edit]The re-encode was fine. Done in PS3Video9 with an ABR of 6Mbps, it streamed much better. Well except for the part where the bitrate went up to 18Mbps... but I'm on wireless so it was destined to crap out there. Still, all went pretty well and it seems the problem was with the initial encode. Only problem now is that it took pretty much the same amount of time to encode 1 minute of AVC footage as it did 40 minutes of MPEG-2.
Last edited by Mmmkay; 05-24-2007 at 07:56 PM.
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(05-24-2007, 07:58 PM)
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#38
Any Vista users change the default workgroup name and still seeing ps3? For some odd reason in vista premium I can see the 360 but the ps3 doesnt show up in media player 11 like in this shot.
![]() All are wired to same router and ps3 sees no media servers but 360 works fine. The name of my workgroup wouldnt have any effect on this, right? I mean it shouldnt. Also, those with vista and things working fine, what routers are you all using? Thanks. |
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#upliftingtherace
(05-24-2007, 08:31 PM)
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#40
Originally Posted by SpokkX:
the playsyde vids work fine |
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Member
(05-24-2007, 08:44 PM)
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#41
Well I played a little bit (about 5 hours ) this morning to make it work and here are the results for me:
WMP11 on windows XP, works fine and very fast for MP3 and pictures, as soon I downloaded the upgrade and allowed the sharing on my PC, it worked right away. Downside, can only play MPEG2 videos. No luck with any other video format. Mediahome: Had to play a little bit with it, works but slower access to the files for music and picture (I should remove the autoconvert option, should be fine) On the video side, I'm able to view WMV and AVI/DIVX files as long they are NTSC encoded. When I try to play AVI Pal files (24fps) the connection or conversion does not work and the PS3 state a media not allowed type of error. I also think my PC is just at the limit for transcoding on the fly(some stutters,...) It's a 4 year old Athlon xp2600+, too bad Mediahome does not (i think ) use my NVIDIA 7600gs to help for the encoding. Does anyone succeeded to play PAL AVI/DIVX (23-24 FPS) files on an NTSC PS3. I think that is also maybe the case for some of your errors maybe PAL from NTSC does not work either. Mediahome states that it can reencode in ntsc but even checking this option does not make it work. The other possibility is it cannot recocnize my AVI pal files . So it seems I will have to keep my DVD player a little bit longer (plays PAL Divx files without any problem once burned on a dvd) I have to say I much prefer the XMB/DNLA options than the X360 user interface options. I fact I prefer much more the XMB than the 360 menus, much more clean. I will use the PS3 to display my pictures and MP3 in my living room from now on(was using the 360 since I bought it) |
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(05-24-2007, 08:45 PM)
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#42
Holy crap, I've just launched Windows Media Connect on my PC and it popped in my PS3's XMB D:
Too like 30 secs to allow it under WMC, and my firewall, and works like a charm. Streaming MP3's to the PS3 and playing on my dolby setup is teh nice ! THe various folders (artist, genre etc) are really nice. That's just awesome :D Works for images too. Haven't tried for videos yet. Only mpeg2 and mpeg4 work ? So I don't know if WMC comes automatically with WinXP, it was preinstalled on my comp. So if you guys have it, it works perfectly =) |
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Worships the porcelain goddess
(05-24-2007, 08:50 PM)
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#43
Everything went ok (using WMP11 on WinXP though), but PS3 gives me this msg: "Access to Media Server is not allowed. It is possible that the system name for this PS3 has not been registered."
Any tips? Wireless connection through a router of course. |
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(05-24-2007, 08:53 PM)
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#44
I got the same thing using windows media connect. Resolved it by going in the WMC interface, click on the new "unknown peripheral", and allowed it. I also rebooted the search for media server function on the PS3 and it worked. Dunno if it's necessary but it wouldn't hurt.
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Worships the porcelain goddess
(05-24-2007, 09:11 PM)
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#45
Originally Posted by Raist:
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(05-24-2007, 09:16 PM)
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#46
Ok, I've just tried with nero mediahome. Photos and music works perfectly (although it's a bit slower to go through the files than with WMC) but I can't get video transcoding working. I've let the sets on autodetect, the videos appear on my PS3 as mpeg2 videos. If I try to run one on my PS3, the server status in Nero gets updated (showing the device, % done etc) it freezes like 20secs, and then my PS3 says it can't read the video, with some error code 8000smething. :(
Note that I don't have a "Devices" menu above transcoding in Nero, so I don't know how to allow UPnP. Any idea ? :/ |
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Member
(05-24-2007, 09:21 PM)
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#47
Originally Posted by Raist:
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(05-24-2007, 09:25 PM)
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#48
Originally Posted by Kintaro:
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