Anyone using PS3 DLNA?

[joker454]

I decided to goof around with the PS3's dlna support since a new firmware for my raid box seems to support it. I'm using a dlink dns-323 as the upnp media server. The dlink unit is connected via cable to a gigabit router, and the ps3 is connected via cable to a gigabit switch which is then connected to the router. I'm having some issues with the PS3 talking to it and I'm wondering if it's an issue with the PS3, or with the dlink's upnp support being weak. Some of the issues are:

1) I occasionally get "protocol errors" when accessing certain directories. I tracked this down to any directory names having an apostrophe in it. So when I had a directory called "80's", I would get protocol errors when accessing it. Renaming that directory to "80s" fixed that error. Is limited character set support a general issue with dlna?

2) There are certain directories I just can't go into. I've tracked this down most likey due to how deeply they are nested. In other words, it seems like I can only go a few directories deep, and thats it, it just won't go anymore beyond a certain point. Again, is this normal? It seems very limiting as I don't want to flatten our entire media directory structure!

3) Access is very sloooooooooow. For example, thumbnails for photos is basically worthless since you'll grow old waiting for them to appear. Also, I get lots of stuttering playing back wmv's as small as 50mb. I can't imagine it being the raid units fault since pc access to it is very fast, and this is from a pc on the same switch as the ps3. Maybe it's the upnp server on the raid box thats at fault?

I'm curious if other people using the ps3 to access a upnp media server are experiencing some of the same issues. In particular, it would be interesting to hear from people using raid boxes as their server, and those using a dedicated pc as the server. I get the feeling that most of the issues I'm seeing are due to the dlink raid box being underpowered. If you do have a raid box that runs very fast and doesn't have the above issues, I'd be interested in knowing which one you're using!

 

[Nesh]

What kind of program are you using as a media server?

If you are using Windows Media Player I suggest switching to TVersity.

Windows Media Player is indeed very slow, some directories may not appear or might take ages to appear and does not allow some files to play even if my PS3 supports them when I copy them directly in it

 

[Red Herring]

joker454 it sounds to me like the UPnP/DLNA server on the dlink dns-323 is at fault.

I have a Synology DS-207+ and it supports the PS3 and Xbox 360 and there are no problems at all with directory structure, access times etc. It supports almost all the formats the PS3/X360 do as well. M2TS missing on PS3 and M4V missing on X360 though you can rename M4V to MP4 and it will work, I'm going to bug the Synology guys to hopefully add support for those. It also has no problems with folders or videos that have - or ' in them as I have a few of those and they all show up & play just fine on the PS3.

I've also used WMP11 in the past and it has rarely ever given me any trouble (there were one or two rare moments with the PS3 but with Xbox it was rock solid) and I found it personally to be more reliable than TVersity which seemed to have a mind of it's own as to when it would work.

Plus WMP is modular so it is very easy to add support for custom formats if you know how I was streaming M2TS, MP4, M4V, M4A, AVI, WMV, MPG all from WMP to the PS3. Never had any problems with directory support with WMP either though it is slower initially on the first access, it seems to cache the listings after that though and then you can fly through the menus. WMP also generates static thumbnails for some video media which slows down the access time or listing of the media in the folder. The Xbox 360 though has no such access delay and having looked over some stuff on WMP in MSDN it seems Sony would have to add support for WMP11 in order to make better use of it (the PS3 shows as an unknown device so there is very basic support for the WMP media server as it is)

The other software server I was impressed with was Fuppes, it's very rough round the edges and you have to enable PS3/X360 support through editing the config file but it worked a charm and never caused me any problems.

 

[StefanS]

UnPnP is always a bit problematic. My Linksys WRT54G kept being crashed by the PS3 until I switched of the UnPnP on the router. Now DNLA / media server works just fine.

 

[Rangers]

OT and i doubt anybody can help, but I recently built a new PC, and suddenly streaming video from PC to 360 struggles. It has to buffer so often it's essentially useless. It never used to buffer on the old PC.

I dont understand what's changed, the PC had a wireless G USB adapter's in both cases, plugged into the back. The old one was a Belkin and the new is a Linksys. Considering my router is a wrt54g, and that linksys is considered a better brand, you wouldn't think that would be the issue.

Other than that I guess now I'm running Vista and I'm not sure but possibly a new WMP (maybe 11 instead of 10 or something) but I really have to figure it's down to a reception issue, and that the linkysys adapter is either somehow getting screwed up because it's configured differently, or simply isn't getting as a good reception as the old Belkin. The pc and 360 remained in the same physical place. Really disappointing.

 

[StefanS]

I dont understand what's changed, the PC had a wireless G USB adapter's in both cases, plugged into the back. The old one was a Belkin and the new is a Linksys. Considering my router is a wrt54g, and that linksys is considered a better brand, you wouldn't think that would be the issue.

See above. The LinkSys WRT54G is -well let's say- not so good. Depending on the model you can either upload a custom firmware (works with v1-v3) or you're stuck with the usual LinkSys FW (v4+), which has been known to have issues with DNLA devices.
So it's very likely that the router might be the issue. Try switching off UnPnP for a change. See if that changes anything.

 

[scificube]

One should also be aware that the services:

Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service
TversityMediaServer

Do not like to coexist with one another.

Run:

services.msc

Disable the windows service if you wish to use Tversity without problems. It has not been my experience that the windows service doesn't care so much if the Tversity service is running if you elect to use WMP11. However, I couldn't see it as a bad idea to disable it if you are not using Tversity.

-----------

I prefer to use Tversity because along with ffdshow/AviSynth and a quad-core CPU if can pre-filter any media I serve to my FlatScreen to my hearts content in real-time.

You can do the same with WMP11 ( I didn't try very hard to be honest...I use other players. ) but it tends to prefer its own codecs at times where as I can always force Tversity to abide by my ffdshow settings.

 

[Red Herring]

Rangers try pulling the power from your Linksys router too, I have noticed on odd occasion a problem similar to yours with a Linksys WAG325N and a reboot cleared it.

 

[Mize]

I use Media Tomb to serve from my Linux box to my PS3 just fine. Haven't messed with the newly added transcoding yet, but most stuff streams fine.

 

[archie4oz]

I'm using MediaLink on my G5, works like a charm... (although it does help my apt's running GigE too).

 

[patsu]

joker454, have you tried this ?
http://boardsus.playstation.com/playstation/board/message?board.id=ps3media&thread.id=47398

 

[joker454]

Thanks for the replies guys. To clarify, in my case I'm not using wmp 11 or any pc at all in the mix, its the raid unit doing it all. I just enabled upnp in its firmware, picked a root directory on the raid drive and presto, it all worked. I'm not doing any transcoding, not really interested in that. I didn't try twonky either, it was extra cost at the time, and I haven't been able to find out if it resolves the issues I'm seeing with the built in media server software.

I'll google that Synology raid unit, see what the reviews say. One question for you using the Synology and for the people using pc's as their media servers....when playing back high res HD movies with high bitrates, can you fast forward smoothly? I just noticed that I can play a high bandwidth HD AVC movie with around 8mpbs bandwidth and it plays it just fine. If I try fast forwarding though the results are mixed. 1.5x works on, 10 and 30x though are mostly unusable. This same file though fast forwards just fine if I copy it to the ps3's local hdd and play it from there, which points to a raid/bandwidth issue, but you'd think gigabit would be enough.

It is odd though that I get stuttering playing back a 320x200 50mb wmv file, but it can play a 5gb+ high definition 8mpbs mpg file no problem. I'd think that points to a problem with the ps3's support of wmv. Are you guys having any issues with wmv playback? I assume the linux and mac guys wouldn't touch wmv with a 10 foot pole, but for the others, can you playback large wmv movie files ok?

 

[patsu]

Hmm... if you could play the same local WMV or MP4 file smoothly, your problem may be DLNA server related too (on top of any network issues you may have).

I only tried fast forwarding in an earlier firmware with TVersity (All my DLNA videos are short home videos anyway). It worked at 1.5x, but 10x were indeed too slow. Not sure about later versions.

I had some brief encounters with atom-based media. I think the DLNA server will need to do some computation based on several sample table related atoms embedded in the container. Then jump to the right frame and move forward from there. If it's slow, it may not be able to keep up. Don't take my word for it though.

I have always wanted to check out libDLNA to understand the DLNA protocol better ( http://freshmeat.net/projects/libdlna/ ). Do you want to give it a try ?

 

[Mize]

Thanks for the replies guys. To clarify, in my case I'm not using wmp 11 or any pc at all in the mix, its the raid unit doing it all.

And the raid unit is a little computer with an OS and all. Is it possible it IS transcoding wmv?

If the wmv plays smoothly locally I'd bet on this. Most of the recoders for wmv to mp4 are pretty hefty in the cpu department and trancoding botches fast-forward most of the time in my experience. I would wager a wimpy cpu in the server ("raid unit") that can't hang with wmv transcoding than an issue with the PS3 since it plays it nicely locally.

 

[hey69]

You have a point about playing or better said, going into directorys if they are nested too deep.
I bumped into the same problem. copy pasting to a dir above solved it .
(ps3 with tversity and wmp11 )
I also have nero media share running , they work all 3 great, until i sold my old pc, got me a new one, but now i cant get wmp11 working anymore

 

[Asher]

I tried to, it's just not as good as the 360's implementation so it's too unreliable. I stream a LOT of video to the PS3/360, from .avi XViD to .mp4s I encode myself with Handbrake and the PS3 (even with 2.20) is very picky. More often than not the videos will play, but for many of them, over the time of playing the video the sound will become out of sync with the video. I'll play the same video on the 360 (both using WMP sharing), and it'll be flawless.

Similarly, my PS3 can't play any of my .mp4 (x264-encoded, AAC 2-channel audio) right now while the 360 can. Why? I've no idea.

 

[joker454]

And the raid unit is a little computer with an OS and all. Is it possible it IS transcoding wmv?

Hmm, didn't think about that. I think I've misunderstood what dlna is supposed to be doing all along. My understanding was that it was just a standard way for devices to talk to each other, so in this case the PS3 can talk to my Dlink raid box without the help of an intermediary pc. From there, one device merely requests 'streaming bits' from the other, in this case the PS3 asking the Dlink to stream the data from say testfile.wmv. Then the box that receives the query (Dlink) complies and sends the raw data along its merry way, and the requesting device (PS3) gets them and it decides what to do with it, be it decode, or whatever.

It what your saying is true, then it both breaks my understanding of dlna, and explains exactly what I'm seeing, since the 500mhz Arm cpu in the dlink raid will get easily overwhelmed. I guess this means that if a file is in a format that the dlna device supports, it will just send out the raw data, otherwise if its not in a format it supports then it will try to convert it on the fly before sending it out?

You have a point about playing or better said, going into directorys if they are nested too deep. I bumped into the same problem. copy pasting to a dir above solved it .

Dangit, I was hoping that wasn't the case We're got years of photos neatly arranged in an easily to follow directory structure, so changing that is simply not an option. Are you using a PC as your media server or a raid box? I sure hope this directory limit is not a dlna limitation, that would sink its usefulness to me.

I have always wanted to check out libDLNA to understand the DLNA protocol better ( http://freshmeat.net/projects/libdlna/ ). Do you want to give it a try ?

Back when I was 16 I would have, now though probably not. I have much less inclination to tinker nowadays

 

[Nesh]

joker454 it sounds to me like the UPnP/DLNA server on the dlink dns-323 is at fault.

I have a Synology DS-207+ and it supports the PS3 and Xbox 360 and there are no problems at all with directory structure, access times etc. It supports almost all the formats the PS3/X360 do as well. M2TS missing on PS3 and M4V missing on X360 though you can rename M4V to MP4 and it will work, I'm going to bug the Synology guys to hopefully add support for those. It also has no problems with folders or videos that have - or ' in them as I have a few of those and they all show up & play just fine on the PS3.

I've also used WMP11 in the past and it has rarely ever given me any trouble (there were one or two rare moments with the PS3 but with Xbox it was rock solid) and I found it personally to be more reliable than TVersity which seemed to have a mind of it's own as to when it would work.

Plus WMP is modular so it is very easy to add support for custom formats if you know how I was streaming M2TS, MP4, M4V, M4A, AVI, WMV, MPG all from WMP to the PS3. Never had any problems with directory support with WMP either though it is slower initially on the first access, it seems to cache the listings after that though and then you can fly through the menus. WMP also generates static thumbnails for some video media which slows down the access time or listing of the media in the folder. The Xbox 360 though has no such access delay and having looked over some stuff on WMP in MSDN it seems Sony would have to add support for WMP11 in order to make better use of it (the PS3 shows as an unknown device so there is very basic support for the WMP media server as it is)

The other software server I was impressed with was Fuppes, it's very rough round the edges and you have to enable PS3/X360 support through editing the config file but it worked a charm and never caused me any problems.

For some stupid reason my PS3 doesnt play MP4 that are streamed from WMP11 and it many times takes ages to find the files in my folder

 

[patsu]

And the raid unit is a little computer with an OS and all. Is it possible it IS transcoding wmv?

If the wmv plays smoothly locally I'd bet on this. Most of the recoders for wmv to mp4 are pretty hefty in the cpu department and trancoding botches fast-forward most of the time in my experience. I would wager a wimpy cpu in the server ("raid unit") that can't hang with wmv transcoding than an issue with the PS3 since it plays it nicely locally.

I don't think the raid box has enough software to try WMV transcoding. But for fast forwarding, it will need to read into the container and jump to the right frame. It may not have the necessary logic to do so. I'd use a PC-based DLNA server instead (like TVersity), or TwonkyMedia for embedded devices. I have not tried MediaTomb or Connect PS3 personally.

Hmm, didn't think about that. I think I've misunderstood what dlna is supposed to be doing all along. My understanding was that it was just a standard way for devices to talk to each other, so in this case the PS3 can talk to my Dlink raid box without the help of an intermediary pc. From there, one device merely requests 'streaming bits' from the other, in this case the PS3 asking the Dlink to stream the data from say testfile.wmv. Then the box that receives the query (Dlink) complies and sends the raw data along its merry way, and the requesting device (PS3) gets them and it decides what to do with it, be it decode, or whatever.

It what your saying is true, then it both breaks my understanding of dlna, and explains exactly what I'm seeing, since the 500mhz Arm cpu in the dlink raid will get easily overwhelmed. I guess this means that if a file is in a format that the dlna device supports, it will just send out the raw data, otherwise if its not in a format it supports then it will try to convert it on the fly before sending it out?

I think that's pretty much it for regular playback. Except that for fast forwarding, the DLNA server may need to understand WMV to extract the right frames out for delivery. Transcoding is an even more advance option (Available on TVersity).

EDIT: The other possible explanation (and fix) is this: http://www.tutorials-win.com/MediaPlayer/Cannot-fast-254794/

In general, there're a lot of problems in the media world. I'll try to upgrade to TwonkyMedia 4.4.x this coming weekend. Will report success/failure here. Here's the release note:
http://www.twonkymedia.com/Products/TwonkyMedia/ReleaseNotes.txt

Dangit, I was hoping that wasn't the case We're got years of photos neatly arranged in an easily to follow directory structure, so changing that is simply not an option. Are you using a PC as your media server or a raid box? I sure hope this directory limit is not a dlna limitation, that would sink its usefulness to me.

I don't think so. The directory limit, if present, is probably a DLNA server or client limitation.

Back when I was 16 I would have, now though probably not. I have much less inclination to tinker nowadays

Ah yes, I was like that... and then I went back again once I found enough time and strategic reasons to do so. ;-)

I tried to, it's just not as good as the 360's implementation so it's too unreliable. I stream a LOT of video to the PS3/360, from .avi XViD to .mp4s I encode myself with Handbrake and the PS3 (even with 2.20) is very picky. More often than not the videos will play, but for many of them, over the time of playing the video the sound will become out of sync with the video. I'll play the same video on the 360 (both using WMP sharing), and it'll be flawless.

Similarly, my PS3 can't play any of my .mp4 (x264-encoded, AAC 2-channel audio) right now while the 360 can. Why? I've no idea.

I think the experience will be more consistent if they use SMB (file sharing) instead of DLNA (app level streaming). If they implemented the former, we only have one variable -- the PS3 codecs -- to deal with. The same file will be playable (or unplayable) locally and remotely. OTOH, the DLNA approach allows the server do provide value added services.

As for audio and video going out of sync, I have not experienced it yet for short videos. Does switching to a gigabit network help ? Or is the DLNA server too weak ?

 

[Mize]

Hmm, didn't think about that. I think I've misunderstood what dlna is supposed to be doing all along. My understanding was that it was just a standard way for devices to talk to each other, so in this case the PS3 can talk to my Dlink raid box without the help of an intermediary pc. From there, one device merely requests 'streaming bits' from the other, in this case the PS3 asking the Dlink to stream the data from say testfile.wmv. Then the box that receives the query (Dlink) complies and sends the raw data along its merry way, and the requesting device (PS3) gets them and it decides what to do with it, be it decode, or whatever.

As Patsu pointed out, what you thought DLNA was is what SMB is, but the PS3 doesn't support SMB. DLNA is more of an interpreter than a file-sharing tool (i.e. a bit more) and SMB is just straight file access. That said, patsu is probably right again in saying the FF parsing is where the overhead swamps the embedded processor in your d-link, not transcoding.

I stream over wifi to my ps3 and high bitrate files (I use Handbrake CLI to encode to mp4 with -b 2500) are too much. For these I either copy over wifi first or to USB drives. I need to run a gigabit cable to the PS3 soon