Monday 22 August 2011

PS3 and iPad media server

If you'd like to stream videos and tv shows from a harddrive to your PS3 and iPad, and have different fims stream simultaneosly, follow the following instructions;

Install the PS3 Media Server which you can download here; http://code.google.com/p/ps3mediaserver/ . Plug your harddrive with your movies into this PC, run the media server and add the harddrive as a shared folder.

When you load the media server, make sure your PS3 is turned on, and on the same network. The media server will then detect the PS3 and give a suitable indication that it has recognised your PS3.

A common error occurs if the PS3 is on a separate network to the PS3. An initial error with the Apple Time Capsule meant the media server wouldn't see the PS3. Some pinging of IP addresses showed they cannot see each over, and some research showed that its because the PS3 was on the guest wifi network, and the airport extreme wired attached devices cannot see things attached to the guest wifi network. Swapping the PS3 to the primary wifi network resolved the issue.

You can do it wirelessly, but wifi might not be fast enough so You can use this; http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00297IPY0/ref=oss_product which gives a highspeed connection via the electric wiring of your house (sounds impossible but it works!). Once you use this to connect the router with your PS3, the media server will be able to see the PS3 and stream movies over a fast wired connection.

Two errors I had was first when I went into the movies it gave a subdirectory called transcoder, and then within that it said "no tracks", what was happening was I was going on the music/audio menu on the PS3, when I changed to the video menu item it then worked.

Another issue was that initially it recognised the PS3 but said media renderer not recognised. I resolved this by editing the ps3.conf file under /renderers, and changing the UserAgentSearch text to PLAY* with a wildcard - this will broad match any playstation 3 string with regexp http://code.google.com/p/ps3mediaserver/issues/detail?id=730 . After that it correctly recognised the PS3 media renderer.

Note you should also ensure you have the most up to date version of the media server, and you should have the latest version of Java installed.

Additionally if you install Air Playit media server http://www.airplayit.com on this PC and Air Playit (HD) app on your iPad or iPhone, you can stream all your videos to your iPad or iPhone whilst streaming to your PS3. This is a really convenient solution, rather than adding the videos to your iOS device via iTunes - plus it doesn't take up space on your iPhone or iPad, or iPod Touch.



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