A comparison of PS3 and 360 as media players

I'm thinking about buying either another 360 or a PS3 for media streaming but need some help with PS3 codec support. Currently I use a 360 for streaming HD movies ripped to a media server and as a media center extender on my main movie watching TV. I am buying another tv for the family room and would like to stream all the content I already have encoded on the server but am not sure if a PS3 is able to play the content. The vast majority of it is encoded using VC1 with WMA10 Pro for the multi channel audio with file sizes ranging from 2GB to 15GB and bitrates up to 40mbps. Would the PS3 have any problems with these files? What about the programs recorded with media center, DVR-MS files?
 
Checked the net quickly since I am not familiar with DVR-MS. It is a MS proprietary container according to Wikipedia. Fortunately it uses standard codecs like MPEG 2 and AC3. So it should be easy to remux them via the media server. e.g., You can try PS3 Media Server with this add-on: http://code.google.com/p/ps3mediaserver/wiki/HowToWatchDVRMS

The harder one is Microsoft's WMA Pro audio channels. PS3 does not support WMA Pro. It supports AC3 for multi-channel audio. You'll need to re-transcode the audio stream using something like Nero Recode.
 
My roommate purchased a PS3 slim a week ago and I just got my PC configured to stream movies to it over ethernet, both using wired connections through a Linksys WRT54GSv2. Was playing back a Divx flick and everything was going fine for the first few minutes, then the audio would start cutting out and the video would pause. Both would go in and out for awhile and produce error messages referring to network connection issues. I found a fix that seemed to work and that was to get on my PC and go to a command prompt and type "route delete 0.0.0.0" and then reset the network adapter. This worked for the rest of the film, but then when I went in to play another movie within a similar amount of time as when viewing the first film it started happening again. Performing the same steps once again resolved the issue but I'd rather not have to keep doing this.

Anyone else experience this problem and know of a more permanent fix? The router is pretty new and there was zero other network activity at the time, the PC is not lacking for horsepower by any means either being a 4GHz Q9550 w/4GB RAM on Vista 64, dedicated 1TB Hitachi 7200 RPM drive for media serving.

Also one other question about playing Divx video. I have a few movies in my library in Divx format (codec 5.0) that are not recognized by the PS3. Do I need to recode these to a different version to make them play, or is there something I can do with the PS3? K-lite codec pack and WMP 11 installed on the host machine.
 
holsty101 said:
Have you tried ps3mediaserver? It might help with your issues, at the very least I think it should be able to transcode your divx5 files.

I'm just guessing ... never used it
Click to expand...

Never have, perhaps I'll give it a shot.

patsu said:
I think you'll need more than PS3 Media Server to transcode WMV-HD (VC1 + WMA Pro) to VC1 + AC3. May want to check out the following threads:
* http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=995046
* http://www.networkedmediatank.com/showthread.php?tid=3786
* http://www.networkedmediatank.com/showthread.php?tid=1691
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info Patsu.
 
After some messing around with my router and setting up a static IP for the PS3, port forwarding, disabling UPNP and having no positive impact on the stability of the PS3's connection to the media server, I decided to stop using the built-in functionality in WMP and move to Tversity. All problems solved.

Thanks again everyone!
 
BDA had a press conference in IFA 2009 (last week). Execs from all the studios and amazon.com presented. Lot's of interesting information and charts on Blu-ray adoption:
http://www.avforums.com/forums/home...live-blu-ray-disc-assoc-press-conference.html

Stats: one in 10 homes will be enabled, and Futuresource think that 20% (1 in 5) by the end of 2011. They believe 50% of the sales will be realised in the final part of the year. BD is moving from early adopter phase well into the mainstream market.
...
By the 3rd year of introduction, BD is outperforming the growth of DVD. Yes, BD is growing faster than DVD, Color TV, VHS, etc. DVD is often seen as the fastest growing CE product - not any more.
Click to expand...

2012: packaged media will play a huge role in terms of video content delivery and revenue for the video industry. 80% of revenues will come from packaged media.

Digital will be important, he says, but it will remain a minority. DVD peaked in revenue terms in 2006 - unit sales continued to grow, but profits were down. BD is starting to emerge as the key part of the home video mix in Eurpe. Forecasted 2012:
Click to expand...

Up until now, the prime driver for BD was the Playstation3. In 2009, it is still the largest part of the install base. They forecast that next year, BD players will be achieving parity. In 2011, they estimate that standalones will dominate. Right now, PS3 owners, while they're buying video titles, they're split between games and BDs.
Click to expand...

Pricing. Up until now, consumers make a value judgment. People look at titles and decide if it's worth the premium for BD, sometimes not. Example: CASINO ROYALE BD price, 10.48. DVD 2.98. But Disney's BOLT is much smaller: 16.68 on BD vs 13.58. New release titles have a smaller "BD Premium", Catalog titles have a much larger one.

...

Another issue is that BD has been driven by new releases. Lower demand for catalogue titles. People are not rushing out to replace their DVDs with BDs: much of the reason is in the price premium.
Click to expand...

Conception is that physical media is dying, but this is "absolutely not the case".

"The consumer wants to access video content across a variety of platofrms in a variety of formats." For instant access, a mobile phone screen will do. If it's "Dark Knight", you want to watch it on a big screen HDTV. The gist is that it is ignorant to assume that downloaded videos will do for all applications. Research shows that the same people who are buying a lot of BD are also likely to be online video buyers and also TV pay-per-view users. "It's not either or, it's a multiplatform world, and BD has a very important part to play in it".

Two other elements important for BD's future: BD-Live. The studios are tracking consumers' usage of BD-Live, "here in Europe, the German and Scandinavian consumer is above average in terms of online access". 3D is another important development in driving BD forward. One reason why HD and BD have been so successful: the TV set makers have done a great job selling HDTVs. Almost half of European homes have an HDTV. Broadcast, content and home video industries are doing their bit in driving HDTV. Together, these sectors have created a very successful HD market. One element feeds the other.
Click to expand...

... more about 3D and BD-Live in the link. Too much info to summarize. :)
 
Since we spoke about Managed Copy previously. Here's an update and a demo trailer from Pioneer in CEDIA 2009:
http://www.engadgethd.com/2009/09/10/video-frist-working-blu-ray-managed-copy-demo/

So part of the new do-it-all Entertainment Tap concept Pioneer was displaying today included a demo of storing Managed Copies of Blu-ray Discs on a hard drive. The copy itself was done in about 4x real time (dependent on the drive's speed) and looked great thanks to some hardware transcoding. We also appreciated the Pioneer interface that made copying the disc easy. Of course at this point this is just a demo, with no word on availability or price, but it is a start to what will one day hopefully be a better way to enjoy HD movies.
Click to expand...
 
Why does it look great because of transcoding? Why do they even need to transcode it? Why can't they rip the same BRD video data as is?
 
Shifty Geezer said:
Why does it look great because of transcoding? Why do they even need to transcode it? Why can't they rip the same BRD video data as is?
Click to expand...

Quality and size.

I can't imagine the studios are eager to allow full quality BD video to escape the platter and get onto a hard drive, even if it is encrypted.

I also can't imagine many people who would find it practical today to spend up to 50 gigabytes per movie on their hard drives.
 
Ah, right. So the 'looks great' comment means 'and despite being more compressed, it still manages to look great' instead of 'gosh, they look even better than the source thanks to transcoding!'
 
I think besides the "looked great" comment, that writer was also referring to 4 x real time "thanks to hardware transcoding".
 
Argh, you are right. I am an idiot. The 4x is a drive attribute. Managed Copy should only involve copying. The transcoding happened in the studio >_<
 
Bored to check this whole thread for any answers but I am curious which one is the easiest to play .mkv files on?
 
PS3 does not play mkv files directly.

PS3 Media Server supports mkv remux out of the box, so you should be able to play one up to 720p. I heard 1080p playback over DLNA to PS3 is not reliable.

Playing mkv files on 360 should be easy via a DLNA server too. I have no experience there, so may be someone else can chime in.
 
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