Playing movies from USB storage

[vramak]

I'm thinking about buying a USB hard disk.

Is it be possible to play BR rips of 8GB size directly from USB through PS3 ? Or will it play with hiccups ?

 

[svenkateshsmart]

I'm thinking about buying a USB hard disk.

Is it be possible to play BR rips of 8GB size directly from USB through PS3 ? Or will it play with hiccups ?

Hi,

I dont own a console, but AFAIK, PS3 will not recognize NTFS format and you can't have a single file more than 4gb in FAT32 format, which the PS3 can recognize.

So, that gives an answer to your question.

Cheers!

 

[alokbharti]

PS3 supports FAT file system only..which has limitation of maximum file size as 4GB..


BTW if you are looking for a USB HDD..ebay has a very tempting deal..

http://cgi.ebay.in/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180496158021

if you have icici debit/credit card you can get 20% cash back..

http://pages.ebay.in/offer/

I just bought one (WD 1 TB for 3720/-)..

 

[thevortex]

vramak - dont lose hope. The PS3 works very very well with external hard disks and all that. All you need is a PC or a laptop and the PS3 can be connected (even wirelessly) and the content can be streamed across.

I have watched Blu Ray Rips (over 5 GB in size) in this fashion with no stutter at all. However I will tell you the downside of this as well. Lets say if you want to watch this Blu Ray file from the halfway point. Then it is not really easy to search scenes over this streaming connection. I find the best performance is achieved when you copy the file over to your PS3 itself. But you can definitely watch Blu Ray rips straight off your PC or laptop or external hard disk if you are watching it in one go.

There is an open source application called PS3MediaServer which enables this connection. An outstanding piece of software.

 

[tellranga]

BTW if you are looking for a USB HDD..ebay has a very tempting deal..

eBay India: Western Digital 1TB External Hard disk 1 TB WD 3.5" 3YR (item 180496158021 end time 28-Apr-2010 09:00:00 IST)

if you have icici debit/credit card you can get 20% cash back..

ICICI Bank Credit & Debit Cards - eBay India

I just bought one (WD 1 TB for 3720/-)..

alokbharti,
Thanks for the info yaar,
Could not find in Terms & Conditions, so a quick question,
Can we make two transactions with two different ebay id's using the same card ?
(reason - planning to buy 2 unit of 1 TB)

 

[svenkateshsmart]

alokbharti,
Thanks for the info yaar,
Could not find in Terms & Conditions, so a quick question,
Can we make two transactions with two different ebay id's using the same card ?
(reason - planning to buy 2 unit of 1 TB)

Hi,

Yes, it is possible, but dont use the same email ID.

Cheers!

 

[vramak]

Dudes, I do know the PS3 doesn't support NTFS. I can split the 8GB file into two parts before copying to the USB drive. I mentioned 8GB to give you an idea of the video bitrate.

Now, USB 2.0 has a practical transfer rate of 40MBps (or 320 Mbps). I wanted to know if this transfer rate was good enough for hi-def video watching. Apparently, going by your experiences, it's good enough.

I have watched Blu Ray Rips (over 5 GB in size) in this fashion with no stutter at all. However I will tell you the downside of this as well. Lets say if you want to watch this Blu Ray file from the halfway point. Then it is not really easy to search scenes over this streaming connection. I find the best performance is achieved when you copy the file over to your PS3 itself. But you can definitely watch Blu Ray rips straight off your PC or laptop or external hard disk if you are watching it in one go.

I have tried TVersity and Windows Media server for wireless streaming of videos. Haven't tried PS3MediaServer yet. What kinda router do you have ? I have the Airtel Broadband router and I do get stutter quite often when playing 2.2Gb(50 mins length) files. And I actually am able to rewind and fast forward at 120x for these files.

Yesterday, I streamed a 2 hour, 2.5GB movie (with no stutter) from my desktop to my laptop, then played the movie on the TV through the laptop's HDMI out and used the AirMouse app on the Ipod touch as a wireless mouse to control the movie! ( All this because the PS3 said the dreaded 'Unsupported Data' when I tried to play the movie. ) I can do the same for all my movies if not for the stutter.

And btw, the PS3 has a proprietary HDD format, so files of ANY size can be copied to the PS3, through wifi. But copying via wifi takes about 25 mins for 2GB files, so it'll be quite a wait for 8GB files.

I'm starting to think that upgrading my PS3's harddrive is a better option than buying an external HDD.

 

[teky]

I've played movies up to 35 Mbps streams on my PS3 from external HDD (Not self-powered) and haven't noticed a stutter.

But I'll also echo thevortex's suggestion - Try using PS3MS, the wiki page of it has got enough information. Higher bit rate movies definitely stuttered on my "G" router so I had it hard wired. Since then I've upgraded mine to a "N" router and haven't had a chance to check it, If there is a option I would hard wire it. Also if the RIP's you're trying to stream have complex encoding make sure your processor powerful enough to crunch numbers faster.

If you have the time & budget I'll definitely recommend a NAS, You don't need to have PC switched on and running all the time. eTrayz is Gigabit enabled and so is PS3. That should bid goodbye for all your stuttering problems. But I do agree the expense is on a bit higher side, But the advantages a NAS brings far outweigh us running around with USB hard drives into different places.

 

[thevortex]

I have them hard-wired vramak. So no stuttering issues for me, unless I try to seek. That too with only the Blu Ray rips.

Of course the NAS is the best option to go for. I am still doing my background research on that front.

 

[notep]

Yesterday, I streamed a 2 hour, 2.5GB movie (with no stutter) from my desktop to my laptop,

Possible to provide more info on the software that you used to stream from one laptop/desktop to another laptop? Much appreciated.

 

[vramak]

Thanks for the suggestions everyone!

I just streamed Av*tar (8gb, 720p) from my desktop to the PS3 - Guess what! No stutter at all and I was able to seek (albeit a little slower than usual). And the quality of the picture was the best I've seen. It was better than my 'Inglourious Basterds' original blu ray but was on par with 'Up' blu ray.! Probably because IB has thick black bars (aspect ratio of 2.4:1) which shorten the picture considerably.

So, no USB disk for me - gonna just use up the loads of HDD space in all my PCs.

Possible to provide more info on the software that you used to stream from one laptop/desktop to another laptop? Much appreciated.

I use TVersity for all my media streaming. It's better than Windows Media Server for sure but don't know if it's better than PS3MediaServer. It's a very nice open-source app.