PlayStation®3 Media

[toontotalwar]

Hi All

Thought i would let everyone know how i got my Blu Ray/.MKV Video files playing on my PS3!, Here goes:

1. Purchase an External Hard drive from any good retailer 160gb/320gb/500gb, plenty out there for a good price, i purchased a 160gb Maxtor from PC World.

2. Make sure you format the drive to FAT32 on your PC!!! otherwise you will not be able to playback or store on the drive. this is due to PS3 not recognising NTFS. you can download free 'FAT32Formatter' of google to do the above.

3. If you have files above 4GB (most HD files are above this size anyway!!) you will then need to divide the files into sub sections of 4GB as the drive in FAT32 will only accept files up to this size. i use a program called 'mkv2vob' (again do a google for this file) to convert the files accordingly and will place them into your external hard drive, it is really easy and simple to do an all in one program!.

4. Once the above is all done, connect your hard drive to the front USB connectors on your PS3 and voila!! your PS3 will now play Blu Ray/MKV Video !!!! (if you have formatted your drive correctly your PS3 will automatically place an icon on your Video XMB)

It took me a week to work this out as i was fed up of trying to stream my files via TVersity on a wireless network!

Oh by the way! mkv2vob program also converts to other formats (Mpeg/MP4/AVI etc..)

Hope this helps everyone and any questions drop me an email!

Message Edited by toontotalwar on 21-09-2008 01:14 PM

[GraphiteGB]

Yep most of us know. suppose your post will save the lazy new guys from hitting the search button, Blu-ray ( AVC in M2TS container ) loses all the extras when removed from the disc. If you were to use a hardwired connection from your computer ethernet to a 300Mb/s -1GB Routers/switch the M2TS would play with out being converted to MKV. The 4GB MP4 limit does seam strange, just enough to stop the MP4 file filling one DVD single Sided, but not a dual layer or 2 DVD5s, But as MKVs are still only limited to Mostly PCs they never probley expected the demand. may be sony think, If you can afford the internet speed to download 8GB - 20GB per movie file, they think you'll have your PC connected to the TV allready + m2ts does every thing MKV does and more as it is public version of Blu-ray...

[toontotalwar]

Your comments duly noted, reason for post was to help newbies as stated,

I did note your comments on on the 4GB limit, what i was trying to acheive was transfering MKV / M2TS files directly to my PS3 instead of burning to disc as blu ray data is 25GB and you need a Blu ray burner, i only have a wireless router hence the playback problems!! I hope that Sony do fix the NTFS problem as the FAT32 format is the only way you can view if you are viewing High Def videos on an external hard drive?

i have heard that you can burn Blue Ray to normal DVD discs but the quality of video and audio  is drastically decreased. (normal DVD's however MP4/AVI/MPEG will transfer to PS3 with no problems i imagine!, but i am hooked now on HD quality viewing only )

I am happy with the way i am transferring my data at present, it allows me to watch my high def movies that are not available here in the UK and still purchase my Blu Ray movies from the US as most are region free!!

[InfraRedPS]

The easiest way to do all this is to use mkv2vob as normal, but instead of using an external HDD, just use Windows Media Player to share the video, then it will appear on the PS3 XMB under the media server link. Once the video is visible you can stream it but I copy it to the PS3 HDD where there is no 4GB limit meaning you can run (and I have) a 15GB HD movie straight off the PS3 HDD without on the fly transcoding or the need to have a PC powered on etc.

The drawbacks are the amount of time it takes to copy the file accross the network and if you only have the standard 40/60GB HDD installed it can get filled up pretty fast with large HD video files.

Don't use the MP4 container in mkv2vob, use MPEG so that you end up with a .mpg that can contain 5.1 audio and 1080p video.

[InfraRedPS]

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toontotalwar wrote:
i have heard that you can burn Blue Ray to normal DVD discs but the quality of video and audio  is drastically decreased. (normal DVD's however MP4/AVI/MPEG will transfer to PS3 with no problems i imagine!, but i am hooked now on HD quality viewing only )

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You can burn an M2TS file straight to a DVD as just a file and it will retain it's full quality but of course you will just be limited to a few GB. I used to do this with TV shows that are only just over a GB, but since learning about the media server capabilities of WMP I don't need to faff around with external stuff like DVDs and HDDs.

[toontotalwar]

Thanks for comment,

I unfortunatley tried to play via Tversity and video and audio were distorted!, I then saved file to PS3 hard drive and video was fine but audio was out of synch badly!! My problem is that i am running a wireless connection and need to be hard wired for best results.

Your right as the PS3 hard drive will fill up quickly, thats why i have opted for an external HD for larger storage. 

[InfraRedPS]

I would highly recommend the method I have described, as long as you used mkv2vob then the result you get will work with the PS3 (no audio/video problems). TVersity will transcode the file as it's played which means the file on your PC is in a certain format, then TVersity will change the data on-the-fly so that it's compatable with the PS3.

Copying over the file would then be playing in it's original format without transcoding which will lead to incompatability. mkv2vob and WMP will work fine for any user of course taking the available HDD space into consideration.

As an avid PS3 media user you should really upgrade the internal HDD, although you have done the alternative which achieves the same result although with the additional limitations of FAT32.

[toontotalwar]

Ok, so what you are saying is convert the file using mkv2vob and place in Tversity to get 100% playback?

i will try and let you know the results. Cheers

[InfraRedPS]

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toontotalwar wrote:

Ok, so what you are saying is convert the file using mkv2vob and place in Tversity to get 100% playback?

i will try and let you know the results. Cheers

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No not TVersity, dump that, use Windows Media Player to share it, you need to go into the options and go to the Library tab, click 'Configure sharing...' and go from there. Make sure you have the folder containing the files set as part of the library then go to your PS3 and turn on media server support then you can see your videos from the XMB.

[toontotalwar]

Ok, will try this and will let you know how i get on!

Cheers