Another 15 minutes

Today I tested “PS3 Media Server“, a software that allows you to stream and view media from a PC to a Playstation 3, like HD movies. This is pretty much the same functionality as TVersity, which I have written a guide to on this blog, but PS3 Media Server is supposed to be able to handle 1080p videos with ease and also to include subtitle files and many other things.

PS3 Media Server is a free software that was released in version 1.00 just a few days ago, it requires no installation and no setup, for me it was pretty much working right out of the box (probably because I had all codecs already installed from my TVersity installation). I could share my movie-folder and it came up on the PS3 in seconds and I could play DVD ISO-files with no configuration at all. The only problem I had was with video and sound sync, they were several seconds out of sync, but I managed to solve that by disabling the “auto A/V sync” option in the transcoding configuration. The program has a large buffer that is visualized on the main screen and it works very well, there were no stuttering at all throughout the movie.

I liked this program alot, I will probably use this instead of TVersity now because TVersity is slow on updates, takes alot of memory and CPU usage and stutters sometimes in videos. This program seems much faster and more efficient. I’m looking forward to try it out with full HD videos and subtitles and see how everything works.

Since movie streaming lags sometimes when streaming HD videos to my Playstation 3 from my fileserver, maximizing CPU usage when transcoding the stream with TVersity, I decided to upgrade the CPU of the fileserver from an Intel Core2Duo 1.8 Ghz (1066 FSB) to a 3.0 Ghz (1333 FSB). I just had to upgrade the BIOS to get support for the new CPU and then replace the CPU. It proved to be pretty hard to get the cooling unit fastened though, it just wouldn’t stick on all four plugs, son of a bitch, my thumbs are sore now, but after alot of screaming and swearing it finally stuck.

I tested some HD video streaming with TVersity again, and the CPU still peaks with regular intervals, but there are no lags at all in video or sound. I guess this new CPU can handle it. Very nice :). Hopefully they RAID will also operate abit faster now too since it utilizes the CPU for some calculations.

I previously installed TVersity on my Windows server at home to use as a media server where the Playstation 3 could read data such as photos, music and movies, and it worked fine with ordinary formats such as Windows Media Video and AVI/Xvid etc, but now I wanted to try out HD videos (720p). I read some forums about it and many talk about issues with either video or sound not being able to keep up when using transcoding. Transcoding is basically when TVersity is recoding the stream to a format and resolution that is supported on the viewing device, in this case the PS3.

I decided to give it a go and start out with the basic setup and then take it from there…

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