PS3 Firmware 3.40

Hmm... may be it is indexing your drive during PS+ time. It is common for a media server to look at your video's metadata to fish out the indexable content. The poster image of a video can be stored in one of these metadata items (If none is found, it may generate one for you ?).

This actually sounds very fishy... reminds me of
Google TV

Yeah, it appears to be doing that. A lot of videos we took with our video camera now have XMB clips, where they didn't before.
 
Yeah, to be clear, it creates thumbnails for you automatically. It is unclear if they do more than that (e.g., indexing media). I do hope they incorporate PSP's SenseMe technology into PS3. If so, they'd need to analyze the media too.
 
I have to say, I'm a bit critical over the unprofessionality regarding the XMB firmwares. I could understand (somewhat) why they would spread multiple PSN icons all over the media cross interface... but why would someone think it's a brilliant idea to have "Search for media server" in every category (given, it's something you'll only ever do once and it's not something you turn on/off constantly)?

Now, there's also the "upload video" icon - which in itself, is useless unless you also downloaded the app itself. If one has no interest in using it, why do I have to have the icon there in the first place? It's as useless as the "Picture App" which is sitting there since its first update and hasn't been used even once.

I can understand that some applications are features, like for example "home" which would be unwise to take away from the interface, but surely, at least the "search for media server" would be better placed somewhere within the settings? Actually, I'm not sure why it's required anyway, since when you have the media server activated, it automatically adds them all anyway, without having to search for them explicitly.
 
I have to say, I'm a bit critical over the unprofessionality regarding the XMB firmwares. I could understand (somewhat) why they would spread multiple PSN icons all over the media cross interface... but why would someone think it's a brilliant idea to have "Search for media server" in every category (given, it's something you'll only ever do once and it's not something you turn on/off constantly)?

Now, there's also the "upload video" icon - which in itself, is useless unless you also downloaded the app itself. If one has no interest in using it, why do I have to have the icon there in the first place? It's as useless as the "Picture App" which is sitting there since its first update and hasn't been used even once.

I can understand that some applications are features, like for example "home" which would be unwise to take away from the interface, but surely, at least the "search for media server" would be better placed somewhere within the settings? Actually, I'm not sure why it's required anyway, since when you have the media server activated, it automatically adds them all anyway, without having to search for them explicitly.

There are people out there who probably think the same thing about the Video icon, Music icon, Network icon, etc. While I can understand it bothers you, I'd rather they be there as options, than not be options at all.

If they move stuff around and start having you turn them on / off, then end users likely won't notice the features. I think having "Search for Media Server" in those sections is necessary and convenient. It's much easier to search and find multiple servers (say a friend brings over a computer) than it is to go through settings each time and find new servers. It's just fast I suppose.
 
Yeah, I don't mind 'Search for Media Server' under the different sections so much, since media servers should appear under the different sections when they are there.

What I mind is the Mediatomb server running on my Linux box not showing up on the XMB reliably, but that may be due to some bug in Mediatomb 0.12.1, as Mediatomb 0.11 was rock-solid about that. ;)
 
There are people out there who probably think the same thing about the Video icon, Music icon, Network icon, etc. While I can understand it bothers you, I'd rather they be there as options, than not be options at all.

If they move stuff around and start having you turn them on / off, then end users likely won't notice the features. I think having "Search for Media Server" in those sections is necessary and convenient. It's much easier to search and find multiple servers (say a friend brings over a computer) than it is to go through settings each time and find new servers. It's just fast I suppose.

Yeah, I guess you have a point. It's just that these things add up. It's not just the "search for mediaserver", but now it's also the video-upload icon, the photo editor icon (which is sitting there for ages, being usless)... it just doesn't seem all that efficient really.

And as for the "search for mediaserver" - you have to activate the mediaserver feature first in settings anyway, so why have a redundant option clutter up the sleek XMB in every single category? And it's not as if *I* ever had to search for the mediaserver, as it always finds it automatically anyway (if I stop the mediaserver and start it after a while, it pops up without having to explicitly search for it).

jonabbey said:
Yeah, I don't mind 'Search for Media Server' under the different sections so much, since media servers should appear under the different sections when they are there.

What I mind is the Mediatomb server running on my Linux box not showing up on the XMB reliably, but that may be due to some bug in Mediatomb 0.12.1, as Mediatomb 0.11 was rock-solid about that.

Interesting. I'm running mediatomb 0.11 on a gentoo system and it is as you say rocksolid. I'll definately look out for this before I upgrade (if I chose to do so)...
 
Interesting. I'm running mediatomb 0.11 on a gentoo system and it is as you say rocksolid. I'll definately look out for this before I upgrade (if I chose to do so)...

Mediatomb 0.12.1 uses ffmpegthumbnailer to create still frame icons for videos on my Linux box, but the PS3 sometimes seems to lose the server, and it can take several attempts at scanning for a media server before it comes back.

I'm not sure whether the bug is on the PS3 side or Mediatomb's side, as XBMC on my Mac Book Pro has no problem finding it at any time.

Still, it is true that 0.11 has no problems.. I just like the thumbnail icons. :LOL:
 
If you have time (like I used to :p), you can check the PS3 Media Server bug list and logs. They have more details on the protocol/expectation differences between PS3, Xbox 360 and the DLNA server.
 
If you have time (like I used to :p), you can check the PS3 Media Server bug list and logs. They have more details on the protocol/expectation differences between PS3, Xbox 360 and the DLNA server.

Yick. I'm a Java programmer and I respect Java a lot, but the thought of running a GUI app on my Linux box as a media server is nonsense to me. That's why Dennis and Ken invented daemons, after all. ;)
 
It is the most compatible DLNA server, and has extensive logging to help understand 3.40's DLNA client behavior.
 
jonabbey said:
Mediatomb 0.12.1 uses ffmpegthumbnailer to create still frame icons for videos on my Linux box, but the PS3 sometimes seems to lose the server, and it can take several attempts at scanning for a media server before it comes back.

I'm not sure whether the bug is on the PS3 side or Mediatomb's side, as XBMC on my Mac Book Pro has no problem finding it at any time.

Still, it is true that 0.11 has no problems.. I just like the thumbnail icons.

Thanks for the info. Does the problem go away if you disable the ffmpegthumbnailer unter 0.12.1? I kind of got used to not havin thumbnails for my videos on my ps3, so if this is the only factor causing it, it's not a big deal for me.

BTW: Since you're a fellow mediatomb user, I thought I'd share this odd problem I had a couple of weeks ago:

After adding a second IP address to my server, I suddenly started to have problems when playing content from the mediaserver on my PS3. It would run perfectly fine for a few minutes until completely freezing the picture. At that point, there's no way I would get the mediaserver to work on the PS3 again, until I restart the PS3 (I'm not sure anymore if a hard-reset was required or not) but after watching content again, the content would freeze again.
Deleting the second IP Address off my server and reverting it to it's initial state prior to the problems didn't solve it strangely. The only thing that completely solved it, was changing the IP address of the PS3. I did a few other tests, mainly giving that second IP address back to my server and then starting the Mediatomb daemon with the --bind paramter, but that didn't quite stop from having the same problem later. I eventually just gave up by giving my PS3 another new IP address after reverting back to a single IP address on my server...
Any idea what could have caused this?


Yick. I'm a Java programmer and I respect Java a lot, but the thought of running a GUI app on my Linux box as a media server is nonsense to me. That's why Dennis and Ken invented daemons, after all. ;)

Amen to that! :LOL:
 
BTW: Since you're a fellow mediatomb user, I thought I'd share this odd problem I had a couple of weeks ago:

After adding a second IP address to my server, I suddenly started to have problems when playing content from the mediaserver on my PS3. It would run perfectly fine for a few minutes until completely freezing the picture. At that point, there's no way I would get the mediaserver to work on the PS3 again, until I restart the PS3 (I'm not sure anymore if a hard-reset was required or not) but after watching content again, the content would freeze again.
Deleting the second IP Address off my server and reverting it to it's initial state prior to the problems didn't solve it strangely. The only thing that completely solved it, was changing the IP address of the PS3. I did a few other tests, mainly giving that second IP address back to my server and then starting the Mediatomb daemon with the --bind paramter, but that didn't quite stop from having the same problem later. I eventually just gave up by giving my PS3 another new IP address after reverting back to a single IP address on my server...
Any idea what could have caused this?

What happens if you use a PC web browser to connect to MediaTomb when it has multiple IPs ?

I heard the PS3 DLNA client caches a lot of data. Would you be able to sniff the network from the MediaTomb side to see what the PS3 sent ?
 
Yeah, I guess you have a point. It's just that these things add up. It's not just the "search for mediaserver", but now it's also the video-upload icon, the photo editor icon (which is sitting there for ages, being usless)... it just doesn't seem all that efficient really.

And as for the "search for mediaserver" - you have to activate the mediaserver feature first in settings anyway, so why have a redundant option clutter up the sleek XMB in every single category? And it's not as if *I* ever had to search for the mediaserver, as it always finds it automatically anyway (if I stop the mediaserver and start it after a while, it pops up without having to explicitly search for it).



Interesting. I'm running mediatomb 0.11 on a gentoo system and it is as you say rocksolid. I'll definately look out for this before I upgrade (if I chose to do so)...

Well, searching for the media server is actually far more responsive (well, it's faster) than waiting for it to find it through it's scheduled searches. Also, Media server is enabled by default, so the only reason anyone would need to go to network settings is to disable it.

I mean, it may add up, but in the big picture it really doesn't interfere with any of the actions I want to perform, even if they are on those sections. You're talking fractions of a second maybe? They really only obstruct those of us who are neat and orderly or slightly OCD.
 
Thanks for the info. Does the problem go away if you disable the ffmpegthumbnailer unter 0.12.1? I kind of got used to not havin thumbnails for my videos on my ps3, so if this is the only factor causing it, it's not a big deal for me.

I'm not sure I've tried that. Other than the thumbnails, the only thing 0.12.1 ads that I might care about would be YouTube transcoding, etc, which I have not been able to use reliably.

BTW: Since you're a fellow mediatomb user, I thought I'd share this odd problem I had a couple of weeks ago:

After adding a second IP address to my server, I suddenly started to have problems when playing content from the mediaserver on my PS3. It would run perfectly fine for a few minutes until completely freezing the picture. At that point, there's no way I would get the mediaserver to work on the PS3 again, until I restart the PS3 (I'm not sure anymore if a hard-reset was required or not) but after watching content again, the content would freeze again.
Deleting the second IP Address off my server and reverting it to it's initial state prior to the problems didn't solve it strangely. The only thing that completely solved it, was changing the IP address of the PS3. I did a few other tests, mainly giving that second IP address back to my server and then starting the Mediatomb daemon with the --bind paramter, but that didn't quite stop from having the same problem later. I eventually just gave up by giving my PS3 another new IP address after reverting back to a single IP address on my server...
Any idea what could have caused this?

Nope. I'm using two Ethernet interfaces on my Linux box, with Mediatomb bound to a local network and the other one going out to the Internet. Not had any problems of the kind you describe, ever. The only problems I ever see is when I try to use the YouTube feature or when the PS3 doesn't immediately find the Mediatomb server after exiting a game.

Never had it stop working while playing a video.
 
What happens if you use a PC web browser to connect to MediaTomb when it has multiple IPs ?

I heard the PS3 DLNA client caches a lot of data. Would you be able to sniff the network from the MediaTomb side to see what the PS3 sent ?

I didn't triy that at the time since my tools were limited and the whole thing started to frustrate me since I wasn't able to access my huge library of content. I put it down to a PS3 specific error, as when I connected to the mediaserver through my old PS3fat (that was lying around) after reverting to a single IP address on the server, I didn't have any problems what-so-ever. The problems on the PS3slim remained however, despite multiple resets, fiddling with enabling/disabling mediaserver feature etc, until I gave it a new unused IP address. Before trying different IPs, I even restarted my Linux server (I thought the server may have cached something) - without any effect. Changing the IP of the PS3 was the only thing that solved it.

After I realized this could be PS3 specific problem, I sort of gave up any analysis as I just didn't have the time or nerves for any tcpdumping...


tha_con said:
Well, searching for the media server is actually far more responsive (well, it's faster) than waiting for it to find it through it's scheduled searches. Also, Media server is enabled by default, so the only reason anyone would need to go to network settings is to disable it.

This is definately not accurate, as I can stop my mediaserver on linux and immediately after starting it again (irregardless how long I wait) - and without any interaction on the PS3 - it will re-apear within a second on the PS3s XMB. This makes it quite evident to me that there is no scheduled mechanism on the PS3 that searches for UPNP devices, but that it's more likely to be the other way around - that being, that if a UPNP device goes online, it sends out a broadcast signal informing nearby devices of its presence.


jonabbey said:
I'm not sure I've tried that. Other than the thumbnails, the only thing 0.12.1 ads that I might care about would be YouTube transcoding, etc, which I have not been able to use reliably.

Ah okay. I might try it at some later date when I decide to upgrade then. The only transcoding I've used is for old DivX versions in an AVI container that don't work over the PS3 (old Top Gear episodes). Unfortunately, the mechanism to identify the specific codec within a container to transcode or not to transcode never quite worked, so I simply renamed the ending of not-working avi files to ".avt" and only transcode those using ffmpeg. Easy fix.
 
Dlna or Upnp uses multicast or broadcast to announce server or mediarenderer (i belive there are different implementations) which are udp based. So they will be sensitive to packet drops so make sure you have fullduplex on the ps3 and the mediatomb server, and of course the switch.

If you are running halfduplex collisions happend (depending on how much traffic passing on hub/switchports), and packet will be dropped, this would definitely be a problem in a multicast/broadcast announcement done by mediatomb.
 
patsu said:
Is there a setting for fullduplex/halfduplex on PS3 ? I don't remember seeing it.

Can't rmember but i'm pretty sure it reports what autonegotiate did come up with.
 
Yeah. Since the PS3 supports uPnP2, you shouldn't normally need it I think (at least that's the setting I always use)
 
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