Anyone using PS3 DLNA?

[Asher]

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 ?

I watch mostly 1hour long videos (well, 45 minutes). It's on a 100Mbit network, I don't think I need to switch to gigabit because the bandwidth is definitely there, and the 360 has no issues with it. I think it's software related.

I normally notice the sync issues after ~25 minutes, and it gets worse the longer a video plays.

The DLNA "server" I have is just my desktop PC...quad-core 2.6GHz, windows vista 64, running on the same LAN as the PS3 (and just 10 feet away).

 

[patsu]

Hmm... it may be a combination of reasons. The 360 may be using proprietary extension to talk to the Windows PC. Are you using WMP11 Media Connect or TVersity ?

EDIT:
Asher, if you play the file locally on a PS3, will the audio still go out of sync ? I am working on a media project now. You can PM me your encoding parameters (Essentially, as much info as possible so that I can reproduce it over here). If I get some spare cycles, I may be able to look into this.

Sony, I accept checks, credit card and cash payment for community support.

 

[joker454]

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.

Cool, I got it. Incidentally, I decided to copy that 50mb wmv file right to the ps3 and play it locally to see if it would work ok. Turns out it still stutters during playback even without fast forwarding. So whatever flavor of wmv I had used when I made those clips way back in the day clearly is not a format the PS3 likes. So, from the sound of things:

- fast forwarding larger files from wimpy raid boxes will not really be feasible via dlna (even over a gigabit connection), and in that case a pc media server is more the way to go
- that directory nesting limit may very well be a limitation of my dlink box, hence there is nothing really I can do about it
- certain flavors of wmv files are just not playable on ps3

I guess that about sums it up. Looks like it won't be usable for videos, although it's almost usable for photos and mp3's, if dlink would just fix that directory nesting issue.

 

[patsu]

- fast forwarding larger files from wimpy raid boxes will not really be feasible via dlna (even over a gigabit connection), and in that case a pc media server is more the way to go

It varies depending on the software and hardware used. I will post my experience with TwonkyMedia 4.4.x and TeraStation next week, or week after.

Since you're using a RAID box, the other way is to stream using TVersity/WMP 11 instead (i.e., only use the RAID box as a storage array).
I have TVersity on a Windows VM reading off a TeraStation. I also had an expired TwonkyMedia on the TeraStation for direct streaming to PS3.

Note that it is also possible to access the media via the PS3 web browser (A "smart" RAID box usually supports a web interface to its DLNA server).

- that directory nesting limit may very well be a limitation of my dlink box, hence there is nothing really I can do about it

It may also be a PS3 issue. Use the web interface in the mean time to access the media directory, or find some uniform way to shorten the depth.
The web interface would allow the DLNA server to implement a media search service.

- certain flavors of wmv files are just not playable on ps3

This is probably true for all media files. There will be some that cannot be played properly. QuickTime and WMP are more mature in this area. For Sony, there is no easy way out other than to fix them one at a time. Not every movie conforms 100% to the specs.


For the most part, I am happy with the PS3 DLNA support. The biggest hole, IMHO, is its inability to write to a remote file server (e.g., Let EyeCreate store its output to my RAID box directly). The second biggest item is probably the robust playback of supported media files.

 

[Asher]

Hmm... it may be a combination of reasons. The 360 may be using proprietary extension to talk to the Windows PC. Are you using WMP11 Media Connect or TVersity ?

EDIT:
Asher, if you play the file locally on a PS3, will the audio still go out of sync ? I am working on a media project now. You can PM me your encoding parameters (Essentially, as much info as possible so that I can reproduce it over here). If I get some spare cycles, I may be able to look into this.

Sony, I accept checks, credit card and cash payment for community support.

I haven't tried playing the file locally, mainly because I can never remember the directory structure things need to be in for the PS3 to see it (another thing that really annoys me about the PS3).

I use WMP11 Media Connect. The 360 is also WAY faster at enumerating directories/files than the PS3, the PS3 is many times slower.

The ones that go out of sync are never ones I encode, they're always .avi (XVid/DivX w/ MP3). The ones I encode that no longer work are encoded with Handbrake 0.9.2 on Windows. I choose x264 as the encoder, average bitrate of 1500 kbps video, I choose the 2ch audio track (everything else default), the container is .mp4, and two-pass encoding (with turbo first pass) is enabled, and sometimes with fast de-interlacing enabled. Everything else is default.

 

[patsu]

I haven't tried playing the file locally, mainly because I can never remember the directory structure things need to be in for the PS3 to see it (another thing that really annoys me about the PS3).

Press '^'.
You should be able to access any file and folder on the USB drive.
No need to follow the "Video" folder convention.

I use WMP11 Media Connect. The 360 is also WAY faster at enumerating directories/files than the PS3, the PS3 is many times slower.

Does the 360 show thumbnail of individual items ?
I have read somewhere (in a release note, I think) that the PS3 will try to scale an image down as thumbnail, if it can't find an embedded thumbnail.

Haven't played around with a 360. Does it support SMB ?

The ones that go out of sync are never ones I encode, they're always .avi (XVid/DivX w/ MP3).

Do these AVI files play properly on Windows ? It is not uncommon to convert a DVD and find that it goes out of sync on Windows too. Just want to make sure we are solving the right problem.

EDIT: Asher and joker454, are the out-of-sync videos anime (23.976fps or 29.97fps) ?

 

[Daozang]

Shouldn't the PS3 be able to play anything that is on my wmp library regardless of the location of the files?
I can't get it to play videos that are stored on another pc or on an ethernet HDD...

 

[Red Herring]

Does the 360 show thumbnail of individual items ?
I have read somewhere (in a release note, I think) that the PS3 will try to scale an image down as thumbnail, if it can't find an embedded thumbnail.

On the Xbox 360 WMP11 will generate thumbnails [taken from the thumb of the video in the WMP video library] for AVI/WMV files which it appears to cache but MP4 files are ignored. Only with the Zune software acting as the media server will it generate thumbnails for MP4/M4V/MOV files as MS in a fashion tied the X360 H.264 decoder/streaming to this player. If a thumbnail shows for any of those without using the Zune software then it is probably transcoding the video.

On the PS3 it will generate a static thumbnail for AVI/WMV [only WMV9/VC-1 is supported on the PS3 no WMV7/8] & MPG plus MP4/M4V* if patched in from WMP11 *depending on what codec setup you have as ffdshow or haali [not sure which one is at fault] does not correctly read into the MP4 for the thumbnail. If you use mainconcepts H.264 decoder/splitter then it will display MP4 thumbnails in the PS3 XMB when streaming from WMP11.

Without thumbnails on the PS3 enumerating directories/files is bit faster with WMP11, it could probably be made to work better with WMP11 but that depends on Sony as WMP it seems requires some extra handling.

Shouldn't the PS3 be able to play anything that is on my wmp library regardless of the location of the files?
I can't get it to play videos that are stored on another pc or on an ethernet HDD...

I've seen this before the bad news is my memory totally fails me it was on windows media player newsgroup I think the person found a solution of sorts, sorry can't be of any more help.

 

[Daozang]

Thanx! If I find a solution I'll llet you know.

 

[patsu]

Do these AVI files play properly on Windows ? It is not uncommon to convert a DVD and find that it goes out of sync on Windows too. Just want to make sure we are solving the right problem.

EDIT: Asher and joker454, are the out-of-sync videos anime (23.976fps or 29.97fps) ?

Asher and joker454, these may be informative to you:
http://forum.doom9.org/archive/index.php/t-95054.html
http://forums.animesuki.com/archive/index.php/t-1943.html
... since you seem to have out of sync/jerky playback issues in general.

At this point, I should invite more experienced gurus on this forum to chime in. This is not my main line of work, but related

The original fast forward problem is likely a separate issue (related to your RAID CPU performance). At this point, I suspect PS3's playback problems are mostly "PS3 can't play this. Period.". Jerky video, out of sync audio may have other complications (errors during conversion).

I also found the PS3 thumbnail note (in the TwonkyMedia release note above). It seems that it will also try to generate thumbnail dynamically if necessary. This may be different from the "poster image" embedded in the video or embedded thumbnails in a picture.

The DLNA server may also try to generate static thumbnails. So it can be hard to distinguish when the PS3 is doing it or not.

Known issues:
- When picture rescaler is disabled and images do not have an embedded thumbnails
the Playstation 3 needs a long time to show thumbnails. In such a case the PS3
retrieves the whole image and downscales it by itself. On large images or when system
resources are low the PS3 is not able to show more thumbnails.

Finally, Daozang I don't understand your questions

 

[habbe]

Does anyone else have problems after the latest firmware update ?.

It looks like all my movies with 48khz audio stutters ?,,, It worked like a charm before the update and i was able to fastforward at 120x without any problems with mediatomb and a 1ghz celeron running linux.

 

[Silent]

I use WMP11 Media Connect. The 360 is also WAY faster at enumerating directories/files than the PS3, the PS3 is many times slower.

Isn't that because Microsoft interpretation of the DLNA specs is kinda flacky ?

The reason that I recently switched from Mediatomb to Twonky was the fact that it was incompatible with my 360. Accordant to a developer on the mailinglist, the root of the problems is that Microsoft has a "different" interpretation of the DLNA specifications.

Also when you use uShare you need to give the flag -x or --xbox to have the media server running in "360 compliant" mode. While for the PS3 you need to enable DLNA mode.

I don't think that within Microsoft there exist different interpretations of a specification. Have you tried other mediaservers as well ?

I've have tried mediatomb, ushare and twonky which works well also with regards the speed of displaying content that is available on my (linux) server.

 

[Daozang]

Finally, Daozang I don't understand your questions

:smile: It's in this forum that I realised how bad my english are!!! :smile:

I'm using windows media player 11 on vista as a server for my ps3. In the media player library I have files that are stored in the pc HDD and in a remote location and more specifically on a Western Digital my book world edition ethernet HDD.
I can see and play from my PS3 everything that is stored localy in my PC but the PS3 cannot detect the files stored on the WD HDD...

I hope that was more comprehensible!!!

 

[Nesh]

Well PS3 can recognize a USB WD HDD connected on your PC.

Never heard of Ethernet HDD though

 

[patsu]

:smile: It's in this forum that I realised how bad my english are!!! :smile:

I'm using windows media player 11 on vista as a server for my ps3. In the media player library I have files that are stored in the pc HDD and in a remote location and more specifically on a Western Digital my book world edition ethernet HDD.
I can see and play from my PS3 everything that is stored localy in my PC but the PS3 cannot detect the files stored on the WD HDD...

I hope that was more comprehensible!!!

Some NAS box is DLNA compliant. Your PS3 should be able to detect them.

If you're refering to a network file server, then the answer is no. PS3 doesn't work with them.

 

[Red Herring]

I don't know if anyone else has noticed it but with the 2.20 firmware WMV files have begun to stutter when streamed to the PS3 (they play fine from local storage) I have a few HD samples in a video test folder and they played just fine on prior firmware versions. WMP11 is also affected too along with my Synology server and Twonky from looking at their forums.

Isn't that because Microsoft interpretation of the DLNA specs is kinda flacky ?

Sort of, I was looking for more information on WMP & found info (here & here) on it's media server for developers where it stated it does support most of the UPnP/DLNA but not 100% of the specification and the Xbox 360 requires a little extra handshaking to work with other media servers. It does give info on how developers can better tie their product into WMP11 so the PS3 could be made to work better with it if Sony were inclined.

 

[Daozang]

Well PS3 can recognize a USB WD HDD connected on your PC.

Never heard of Ethernet HDD though

Yeah, I know, but there is the fat32 limitation with files larger than 4 GB that is my problem with that setup...

I was thinking that since wmp11 is the server distributing the files to the ps3 it could be possible to allow it to access files that are stored on a remote location (an other pc or an ethernet HDD) provided the files are listed in the WMP library, but I guess this is not the case.

There are many ethernet storage HDD by many companies.
I have one of these.
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=347

Thanks Patsu and Red Herring, I guess I'll have to copy my files on both locations...

 

[Daozang]

I don't know if anyone else has noticed it but with the 2.20 firmware WMV files have begun to stutter when streamed to the PS3 (they play fine from local storage) I have a few HD samples in a video test folder and they played just fine on prior firmware versions. WMP11 is also affected too along with my Synology server and Twonky from looking at their forums.

:smile: And I thought that there was something wrong with my network last night!

 

[patsu]

I don't know if anyone else has noticed it but with the 2.20 firmware WMV files have begun to stutter when streamed to the PS3 (they play fine from local storage) I have a few HD samples in a video test folder and they played just fine on prior firmware versions. WMP11 is also affected too along with my Synology server and Twonky from looking at their forums.

That would explain a lot of things. I'm still reading up. Based on some old AVS posts, PS3 stuttered when people used too many reference B-frames when converting videos (It seems to be a common problem amongst hardware accelerated devices, even some GPU-assisted ones). As someone said above, recoding the video (instead of remuxing) usually solve the problem but it's time consuming.

Now, Sony may have introduced a new bug when they updated the Blu-ray stack in 2.20. We will have to wait for 2.30 then (in about 2 weeks since it will be released in time for the new PS Store).

Sort of, I was looking for more information on WMP & found info (here & here) on it's media server for developers where it stated it does support most of the UPnP/DLNA but not 100% of the specification and the Xbox 360 requires a little extra handshaking to work with other media servers. It does give info on how developers can better tie their product into WMP11 so the PS3 could be made to work better with it if Sony were inclined.

It sounds like MS made more changes than just a little extra handshaking. According to Jin's post (See Silent's uShare link), the semantics of well defined DLNA actions were changed.

Both PS3 and 360 have enough power to enumerate a directory over a 100Mb network very quickly. Does extra handshake help in this area ?

 

[habbe]

Both PS3 and 360 have enough power to enumerate a directory over a 100Mb network very quickly. Does extra handshake help in this area ?

I believe that is an task for the server, i don't think the media renderer or client does any kind o sorting or examining the files.