PS3 an alternative to all these media players?

[preet27]

how much will that cost, if i am to go buy what vortex says here and the prices that i am seeing on other website it won't cost me more than 10K to upgrade my PC to be more than compatible with playin full HD content via ps3 on my HDTV, which is the same what a media player costs at this point right 10K ? correct me if i am wrong,

So that benefits me with a faster PC for my regular use, ps3 being used more often than it is being right now, gives me more for the price i have paid for it, plus one less device to worry about.

Am I wrong ?

 

[reignofchaos]

Till date i've never seen it transcode any mkv or avi. The cpu usage on that dinosaur of a rig never exceeded 10pcnt. ps3 doesnt recognize mkvs but it does decode h.264, mpeg4 and xvid perfectly! So only a conversion to a readable container is all that is needed!

Beg to disagree. Here is information from the ps3mediaserver home page:

Current features

* Ready to launch and play. No codec packs to install. No folder configuration and pre-parsing or this kind of annoying thing. All your folders are directly browsed by the PS3, there's an automatic refresh also.
* Real-time video transcoding of MKV/FLV/OGM/AVI, etc.
* Direct streaming of DTS / DTS-HD core to the receiver
* Remux H264/MPEG2 video and all audio tracks to AC3/DTS/LPCM in real time with tsMuxer when H264 is PS3/Level4.1 compliant
* Full seeking support when transcoding
* DVD ISOs images / VIDEO_TS Folder transcoder
* OGG/FLAC/MPC/APE audio transcoding
* Thumbnail generation for Videos
* You can choose with a virtual folder system your audio/subtitle language on the PS3!
* Simple streaming of formats PS3 natively supports: MP3/JPG/PNG/GIF/TIFF, all kind of videos (AVI, MP4, TS, M2TS, MPEG)
* Display camera RAWs thumbnails (Canon / Nikon, etc.)
* ZIP/RAR files as browsable folders
* Support for pictures based feeds, such as Flickr and Picasaweb
* Internet TV / Web Radio support with VLC, MEncoder or MPlayer
* Podcasts audio/ Video feeds support
* Basic Xbox360 support
* FLAC 96kHz/24bits/5.1 support
* Windows Only: DVR-MS remuxer and AviSynth alternative transcoder support

 

[teky]

how much will that cost, if i am to go buy what vortex says here and the prices that i am seeing on other website it won't cost me more than 10K to upgrade my PC to be more than compatible with playin full HD content, which is the same what a media player costs at this point right ? correct me if i am wrong,

So that benefits me witha faster PC for my regular use, ps3 being used more often than it is being right now, gives me more for the price i have paid for it, plus one less device to worry about.

Am I wrong ?

I'm a noob when it comes to NMT. However with my limited knowledge I think it will cost you around 9k. However it will play anything you throw at, remember transcoding a file and buffering it over the network isn't a perfect solution, it's only near perfect to me. With PS3MS you wouldn't be able to FF or RW as you would do it on a NMT. Also compare the power consumption - You need to have both your PS3 and PC running at the same time. I own a PS3 and have gone through all this, finally gave up PS3MS and converted everything to a PS3 readable format aka m2ts and stored it on a external hard drive. The conversion process doesn't take ages - Used to take 10 - 20 minutes using my aged laptop (Specs - Intel core duo 1.6 Ghz, 1 GB of RAM & Windows XP).

if you have patience to play around with transcoding, bufferring, streaming etc please go ahead and upgrade your PC. But if you want something you switch on and watch a movie I would prefer a NMT.

 

[preet27]

okay first of all thanks for all that info, but now i am really in a fix, and although it might seem like a n00b question what does NMT stand for ? i will give it some more thought i guess, now i have to weigh both the pros and cons for both viable options, i might do some more reading on those media players, if they are stable than ps3 PC setup then i might go with media player. Also can these media players play downloaded content, i mean like blu ray rips and other content available for download at torrent sites like demonoid etc.

 

[teky]

NMT - Network Media Tank

There are some valuable threads within our forum about these one such is http://www.hifivision.com/media-streaming-players/6090-xtreamer-media-player-xmp-owners-thread.html

Yes they do play all that evil stuff , Although few of them have issues decoding DTS-HD streams. But can read most of the common stuff and I vaguely remember reading WDTV having a in-built torrent client so you wouldn't need to have your PC running all the time (Less power consumption).

You've plenty of options around - Xtreamer Pro, WDTV Live, Popcorn Hour etc. Search within Media Players sub-forums and you should be even more confused

 

[preet27]

Damn all this technology, it wasn't like this 2 years ago, but so much has changed within the past 2 years, i feel like i know nothing, one look at avsforum and it feel like i am an idiot. LoL, but hey i do know about HDTV's that's the only thing i kept up to date with in the past, got sidetracked from PC and other techy stuff, i will give all of the above some reading and then take an informed decision i guess, plus i have almost zeroed in on what i need to do to upgrade my PC, so now only have to read about media players, let's see which one i decide upon

 

[teky]

Till date i've never seen it transcode any mkv or avi. The cpu usage on that dinosaur of a rig never exceeded 10pcnt. ps3 doesnt recognize mkvs but it does decode h.264, mpeg4 and xvid perfectly! So only a conversion to a readable container is all that is needed!

Not all MKV's can be read by just changing the container. There are some complex RIP's which needs to be transcoded completely before it's readable on a PS3.

 

[preet27]

Which one would you recommend, can u give me any order of preference, i mean which one is a more stable device among all these, so that i can search and read about them in that order, and what all are available in india, is popcorn hour available in india ?

 

[preet27]

Okay after full day of a lot of searching and reading i have decided to upgrade my PC as that benefits me way more than buying an unstable media player, now if anyone can answer these queries i would be really grateful to him/them

1. I want to know whether graphic card plays any role in streaming of media because then i won't need to buy that and will reduce my cost.

2. how much RAM will be more than enough to stream downloaded fullHD movies from my pc via ps3 without any stutter

3. Will Athlon II X2 250 3GHz processor be enough for this or do i need a more powerful processor ?

4. Is there a need for me to buy a cooling unit ?

5. will my beetel wifi router that was installed by airtel be enough or do i need to upgrade that as well ?

6. will my old ATX cabinet do, or will i need to buy a new one ?

7. i have only one SATA connector with my power supply unit, do i need to change that also considering i am thinking of buying a 500GB SATA hard disk

Also my budget for this is ~ 10K, looking at the following link what do u think would be the best config for my needshttp://www.thinkdigit.com/forum/showthread.php?t=96218

Thanks !!

 

[teky]

1. I want to know whether graphic card plays any role in streaming of media because then i won't need to buy that and will reduce my cost.

Not required, You would need only a good processor.

2. how much RAM will be more than enough to stream movies without any stutter

I'll start of with 2 GB of RAM, But I would also buffer the movie before starting it.

3. Will Athlon II X2 250 3GHz processor be enough for this or do i need a more powerful processor ?

At least on paper it seems good

5. will my beetel wifi router that was installed by airtel be enough or do i need to upgrade that as well ?

The one's supplied from ISP's are always crappy. I would hard wire given a chance which can improve the stability a bit. People really seem to struggle with 1080p rips over 8-10 GB, If the file sizes are really going to be in this region I would avoid it unless you would want to play around with PS3MS settings and reducing the video quality settings etc.

Instead of going through all the pain, as I told earlier convert the videos on your Old PC and play them using a external HDD or buy a Standalone media player.

 

[preet27]

Which media player is the best ? i searched about popcorn hour, and they say the delivery takes time, WD has it's own set of problems, Xtreamer too is no way behind WD in terms of issues, which one do u think is the better out of these, i only want to watch Full HD blue ray rips without any stutter.

 

[teky]

Please ask resident guru's like sam9s within any of the media player thread and you should have a answer about the Media Players.

 

[thevortex]

Which media player is the best ? i searched about popcorn hour, and they say the delivery takes time, WD has it's own set of problems, Xtreamer too is no way behind WD in terms of issues, which one do u think is the better out of these, i only want to watch Full HD blue ray rips without any stutter.

You have to decide whether you want an NMT (Networked Media Tank) or a simple Media Player. The NMT is about half a computer. You can download torrents, do file transfer and in some case access a variety of web services. These things are not possible with many media players.

The PlayonHD is a good media player which does a bit of pretending that it is an NMT. It does download torrents, act as NAS (Network access storage) and provide UPnP services (Universal Plug and Play).

As for NMT's, apart from Popcorn Hour, there is the TVix. Astone and eGreat are also other choices. eGreat is available over ebay India.

There is also the Dune which is a hybrid device. It has a Blu Ray player as well as all the features of an NMT. However it is also quite a bit costly. Especially in India.

 

[vishwa]

Late into the discussions. My two cents though

I have been using following setup
PS3 -> Wired -> Gigabit switch -> PC, PS3 Media server.
PS3 HDMI output to TV and Optical output to receiver.

Nothing beats it

Never think of using PS3 with wireless (doesn't matter B or G or N). it sucks. Just get it wired

-Vishwa

 

[teky]

Vishwa - Could you please enlighten us with your PC Configuration & also PS3MS Media Streaming settings. Also have you been able to play rips over 10 GB stutter free? At which bit rate does the PS3 start to stutter?

 

[thevortex]

Vishwa - Could you please enlighten us with your PC Configuration & also PS3MS Media Streaming settings. Also have you been able to play rips over 10 GB stutter free? At which bit rate does the PS3 start to stutter?

Before Vishwa steps in - I have been able to stream a 9.5 GB file and 8 GB file without any stutters. Would not imagine it will be any different for sizes over 10 GB.

The only thing is PS3MediaServer does not like rewind or FF . But if the media is in a container that the PS3 understands, you can get lightning fast response by copying it over to the PS3 hard drive. I doubt if any BD player or even a media player has a better thought out and more responsive remote control than the PS3.

 

[vishwa]

Here is PC details

Intel Core2 Duo [email protected]
RAM - 4GB
Video - GeForce 8500GT 512MB
Vista Business 32Bit (I know it can't use all 4GB. I just filled all the slots

I have been able to stream files between 8 and 9 GB without issues. Forwarding you have to be little patient. Use the feature to jump from one scene to another (5 minutes). That works fine.

I have not tried anything more than 10GB though.

-Vishwa

 

[preet27]

What's this Gigabit switch ? what is it's function, and yes do share your PC settings, especially these three things motherboard processor and RAM, Vortex if you could tell does the PC graphic card play any role in this streaming, also is a cooling unit necessary, i have been trying to search for this but to no avail cos if these things don't matter then it could save me a lot of money

Thanks !!

 

[vishwa]

Typical switches (most used) are 100Mbps. (100 Mega bits per second). Gigabit switch is supposed to work up to 10 times that. They are bit expensive though. Also you have to have a network card on your PC that supports 1Gbps. Most of the recent ones do. If you have both your network speed is.. well 10 times faster (in theory at least

 

[preet27]

but if i want to play an already downloaded blu ray rip stored on my PC HDD using my ps3 to act as a media player, then where does the internet speed come into play, speed only matters when u r downlading and playing the file at the same time right ? so for my purposes that is playing an already downloaded file from my PC using ps3 as a media player internet speed will not have any role to play. So i wouldn't need this Gigabit switch. Correct me if i am wrong about this, cos i have no idea how all this works


Secondly please do answer my second query about cooling unit and role of a graphic card in all this ?