A comparison of PS3 and 360 as media players

[DrJay24]

I have a Buffalo TeraStation Live. The default DLNA server is not something to write home about. I patched it with a Twonky.

You might want to determine which DLNA server is bundled in the SKU. e.g., TwonkyVision is embedded in this Buffalo SKU according to Engadget.
http://gizmodo.com/377311/buffalos-petite-linkstation-mini-nas-has-1tb-storage-a-dlna-server


EDIT: My TeraStation is old and used Mediabolic's DLNA server. I did a quick check; the latter was sold to Macrovision. Their Media Player webpage is here:
http://www.macrovision.com/products...tform/media_player_software/overview_9034.htm

Thanks for the info, you are saying I can install Twonky onto a TeraStation to add DLNA?

I found this:

http://www.ecost.com/Detail.aspx?edp=43315723&navid=155441519

Could I plug my existing 500GB into it (or install it internally, removing their drives)?

 

[patsu]

I tried Twonky (which is absolutely terrible)

The context is missing

Twonky is a robust DLNA server for embedded devices. You won't have enough resources to transcode or remux large videos fast enough here. So don't bother. It's main job is to serve out streams reliably in a NAS box.

If you want to run a DLNA server on a Mac or Windows, try PS3MediaServer.

EDIT: For me, I don't transcode. But if I did, I would use a Mac/Windows to convert the video and kept it on the NAS. That way I don't have to tie up a PC.

Thanks for the info, you are saying I can install Twonky onto a TeraStation to add DLNA?

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1144720&postcount=42

I found this:

http://www.ecost.com/Detail.aspx?edp=43315723&navid=155441519

Could I plug my existing 500GB into it (or install it internally, removing their drives)?

You might want to check here and its forum:
http://buffalo.nas-central.org/index.php/Terastationwiki

When I first patched my TeraStation, it worked initially but died when I rebooted the box a year later. I forgot what I did to bring it back. So you must be willing to take the risk. Otherwise, it might be a better idea to buy it with the box "as is" or use a Win/Mac-based solution.

EDIT 2:
The Terastation link I posted above also allows you to install other programs on it.

 

[Asher]

The context is missing

Twonky is a robust DLNA server for embedded devices. You won't have enough resources to transcode or remux large videos fast enough here. So don't bother. It's main job is to serve out streams reliably in a NAS box.

If you want to run a DLNA server on a Mac or Windows, try PS3MediaServer.

There was nothing robust about it, at least Twonky Media Manager 1.0.15.

It crashed constantly, the "auto scanning" didn't work and required I rebuild the DB for it to do anything each time -- and each time I rebuilt the DB it duplicated the server and also didn't save my settings properly (I'm told it's a Vista 64 bug). It has no concept of folder hierarchies (the "by folder" view flattens all folders into one list, and merges any folders who may've been distinct but were named the same in different contexts). It was useless...

 

[patsu]

Ha ha, like I said. We are talking about different things. The new Twonky Media Manager 1.0.x is a Windows-only product.

I am refering to their embedded system product (TwonkyMedia Server 4.x or 5.x) when DrJay brought up NAS. They are 2 different things obviously.

 

[joker454]

but I also just tried PS3 Media Server. It's amazing, I kept having videos that wouldn't work in Twonky or TVersity and PS3 Media Server works flawlessly...

Ok so I decided to try out PS3 Media Server. My PS3 is on, I installed the app, ran it, and it just gives a big red X saying that no PS3 can be found Any magic to the settings, or did it just work for you?

 

[patsu]

It may have detected the wrong IP. Set your PC/Mac IP manually. As usual, both need to be on the same subnet (if I remember it correctly).

EDIT: That's what happened to me when I tested it on a Mac.

 

[Asher]

Ok so I decided to try out PS3 Media Server. My PS3 is on, I installed the app, ran it, and it just gives a big red X saying that no PS3 can be found Any magic to the settings, or did it just work for you?

I actually had some difficulty with that. The first time it couldn't find the PS3, but halfway through it asked Windows Firewall to unblock. I closed it and re-opened it and it then found it. But I also was moving the menu around on the XMB, I'm not sure if that helps (when you select Videos it scans for media servers, which may trigger the discovery).

Edit: I also REALLY like how you can toggle some options like De-Interlacing from the XMB directly. Slick. And the fact that it'll default to natively streaming the video, then I can switch to the auto-generated "#Transcoded#" sub-dir which will then transcode it. I try to stream it directly, and if it fails I transcode...now I've got MKV with 5.1 surround and the like.

MEncoder seems to be remarkably efficient...I'm transcoding a standard-def DivX file that won't play on the PS3, it's using ~2% of the CPU to de-interlace and transcode to MPEG-2 on my 2.6GHz Core 2 Quad...

 

[joker454]

I actually had some difficulty with that. The first time it couldn't find the PS3, but halfway through it asked Windows Firewall to unblock.

Ok that was a good hint. We have a bunch of machines, the one I was running it on has Windows Server 2008. It never brought up that firewall block dialog. To make things easier I ran it on a different machine, a quad core Vista 64 box. That one did bring up the firewall dialog, so I unblocked it and presto it works. Eventually I'll have to get it working on the Server 2008 box since that's the only machine we keep running 24/7, but for now I'll just test it on this Vista box.

Toyed around with it some, so far it's running very nice! I'm not using the 'media library', I just added my raid drives network location for movies to the list and that's it. Response time is waaaaaay better than with tversity. I would say it's night and day but even that probably wouldn't adequately describe how much better PS3 Media Server runs. All my movies appear, with thumbnails setup to 120 seconds into the movie to get a more representative thumbnail instead of just opening credits.

It takes about 8 seconds to populate the movie thumbnails, sounds like a lot but the speed is reasonable in practice. I was able to hop in and out of multiple movies again at a reasonable speed. 120x FF works just fine now. It still stumbles a bit on RW if you try rewinding too much but it's not the end of the world. Overall this is definitely nicely usable with HD content. All the content I was playing was straight off the raid drive. I tried various file sizes and they all worked similarly, even a 6GB movie file. All my files are VC-1. I also tried the 'scene select' feature while in a movie. Previously, doing this on tversity would basically lock up the PS3, I would have to power it off. Now though it works ok, takes about 8 to 10 seconds to populate the thumbnails which is usable. More importantly the system stays responsive, so when I hit Square to call up the scene thumbnails, I can hold right to quickly skip forwards deep into a movie then stop and let it populate the thumbnails. No irritating stalls. Nice!

I need to try this some more, but so far this is working very nice. My main pet peeve is stalls, I hate it when a device feels like it's locked up or becomes unresponsive, and so far I'm not seeing that with PS3 Media Server. I'm gonna dump some blu-rays and keep them in their native m2ts format, and see how well it handles huge 20 to 30gb files of various codecs.

 

[patsu]

Cool ! So the multi-core mencoder build works. Let us know how your intended server hold up when you get to try it again.

 

[joker454]

Just dumped my Blade Runner blu-ray to a 21.5gb m2ts file. Apparently it's in VC-1 codec. Played it on the PC and it works just fine, but trying to play it through the PS3 doesn't seem to work, it just says it's a corrupt file. Has anyone been able to play m2ts files on a PS3 over a network?

 

[patsu]

Is the Profile Level of the m2ts video 4.1 ?

 

[-tkf-]

Is the Profile Level of the m2ts video 4.1 ?

The Video Server should transcode it anyway.

 

[patsu]

He may stream it untouched for experimenting purposes.

EDIT: http://www.videohelp.com/forum/archive/m2ts-vc-1-streaming-to-ps3-t362003.html

 

[-tkf-]

He may stream it untouched for experimenting purposes.

EDIT: http://www.videohelp.com/forum/archive/m2ts-vc-1-streaming-to-ps3-t362003.html

True of course

Joker, do you select the Transcode folder on the XMB interface and use TSMuxer?

That is afaik the only way to get a non transcoded stream

 

[Asher]

True of course

Joker, do you select the Transcode folder on the XMB interface and use TSMuxer?

That is afaik the only way to get a non transcoded stream

By default, mine doesn't transcode unless it specifically has the encoder next to the name (eg, [MEncoder]), and if you go to the #Transcoded# folder you can select different options (on mine, MEncoder, AviSynth/MEncoder (which works with subtitle/.srt files!), and TSMuxer). Whenever possible for MPEG-4/AVC files I do TSMuxer, and it works flawlessly -- it hits about 3-4% of CPU to remux in realtime but it doesn't transcode anything, but it'll stream the AVC video with AC3 audio to the PS3.

If AVIsynth/MEncoder isn't showing up for you, download and install the latest AVISynth and restart PS3 Media Server and it'll appear. FWIW, HD transcoding seems to be much more efficient CPU-wise on AVIsynth/MEncoder (~75% CPU usage for me on MEncoder, ~45% on AVISynth/MEncoder -- and this is with the "experimental multi-core H264 HD" support for MEncoder).

 

[joker454]

Ah ok I was not selecting the #-TRANSCODED-# directory, I was just playing them back from the main directory. I'm still not having much luck though. I dumped two of my blu-rays, Blade Runner which is VC-1 and Die Hard which is AVC. Moved them over to the raid and tried playing both through the transcoded directory, Both files will start up and play but both have issues.

In both cases FF doesn't work, it just locks up. Also in both cases the scene select feature doesn't work, it just displays an empty box. No thumbnails either when it lists all your movies in the XMB. For Die Hard, if I play it via the tsmuxer selection, then I get no audio. If I play the file itself in the transcoded folder then it plays with AC3 audio, but after a few seconds everything starts stuttering pretty bad. For Blade Runner, the tsmuxer option says "data corrupt". Playing back the file itself in the transcoded folder does playback, but with no audio. I suppose I could be doing something wrong, but it doesn't look like to me that m2ts playback support is working well. In any case, the lack of FF and no scene select totally kill it for me.

I did try one more thing. I re-encoded the Die Hard m2ts movie overnight this time to an AVC file instead of my usual VC-1 file. I used similar specs to what I use for my VC-1 re-encodes. Both files were similar size, about 3.8gb with 2 channel audio, so wireless friendly, portable friendly, etc. Anyways I played that back through the PS3 and compared it to the VC-1 re-encode version. Both play just fine with two main differences. Both file FF at 120x no problem, you can see the time counter moving nice and quick. However the VC-1 version displays many more images on screen as it FF's, the AVC version is more like a slide show, but both do indeed FF at the correct speed. More interesting though is the scene select feature, it seems to work much better with AVC files. With the VC-1 version it takes about 8 seconds to populate the scene select thumbnails, with the AVC version it takes about 2 seconds, very fast! Those were the two main differences.

I guess I'll stick with my re-encodes for now, they still look real good anyways. I'm not willing to give up FF or the ability to hop around scenes fast (either with scene select or the 360's bumper buttons), the loss of those is a definite deal breaker for me. I don't really want to transcode either since that means keeping a beefy computer on 24/7 which I don't really want to do, right now we keep a low power laptop on 24/7 to handle assorted things and I'd like to stick with that.

 

[joker454]

Two quick addendum's to my above post. I had mentioned that when rewinding in my VC-1 re-encodes that I would sometimes get some stuttering, this doesn't seem to happen with my AVC re-encode test. Also, I've started getting 'network errors', not sure what's changed though. All of a sudden every time I call up the "scene select" feature there would be a network error and I would have to exit out. One time it locked up and I had to power cycle it. Anyone else getting 'network errors' with PS3 Media Server? I don't recall getting these with tversity.

 

[patsu]

I suppose I could be doing something wrong, but it doesn't look like to me that m2ts playback support is working well.

I don't think m2ts playback is necessary the problem. It's a huge file. Something in the transcoder and/or DLNA chain may break due to the high sustained load. If you have smaller videos in m2ts, it should work just fine.

Another way is to try playing the 21Gb m2ts file via the HTTP path (i.e., the web view). This may by-pass some of the complexity in DLNA (I am assuming the file plays okay if copied locally. e.g., It conforms to profile 4.1).

The differences between VC-1 and AVC may also depend on the video content.



My ideal setup is to have the basic DLNA + web delivery platform as an independent transport. Then have PS3MediaServer (used to be Tversity) on top for one-off transcodes. Everyone points to the NAS (or another low-cost DLNA PC) for regular playback. Tversity was chosen on-demand to transcode/remux new videos (They will be kept in the same library for subsequent accesses). Now I have PS3MediaServer to replace Tversity but I have not mapped its path to the Twonky NAS yet.

Two quick addendum's to my above post. I had mentioned that when rewinding in my VC-1 re-encodes that I would sometimes get some stuttering, this doesn't seem to happen with my AVC re-encode test. Also, I've started getting 'network errors', not sure what's changed though. All of a sudden every time I call up the "scene select" feature there would be a network error and I would have to exit out. One time it locked up and I had to power cycle it. Anyone else getting 'network errors' with PS3 Media Server? I don't recall getting these with tversity.

You might want to check the application or system log on the PMS Windows server for hints. When I ran PMS 1.03 on the Mac, I saw some warnings and errors in the console log. Afterall, the multicore mencoder (for Windows only) is new/experimental.

 

[Asher]

joker: Rather than just using MEncoder and TSMuxer, did you try the AviSynth/MEncoder option as well? I'm getting better results with that -- better performance, ffw/rw, and supports subtitles very well.

 

[-tkf-]

joker: Rather than just using MEncoder and TSMuxer, did you try the AviSynth/MEncoder option as well? I'm getting better results with that -- better performance, ffw/rw, and supports subtitles very well.

Afaik the only way to avoid a Transcode is via TSMuxer. Anything else will transcode, in order to display Subtitles PS3 Media Server spells it out that it has to transcode.