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[feeutfo]

Staying firmly away from file types and downloads.


I'm hearing from the guys at work that the best way to play video to your tv is to stream them via wifi. To do this there is a piece of software available   http://www.ps3mediaserver.org/

It does away, I'm told, with the need to format drives and convert files to play on whatever device, as it does all that for you, then transmits via wifi to ps3, Xbox, iMac, or wii(by the looks?)

Handy, but does it work? Any experience here?


If off limits for discussion, appologies. I'm thinking it's more to do with streaming and wifi, which I know bog all about.

[aaronjb]

Do you care about HD quality? If you do, forget WiFi and forget convert-on-the-fly solutions.. If you don't and you're happy with quality somewhere between 720p and 480p then streaming solutions like that work pretty well.

Or, cable it (even the ethernet-over-power gizmos will give you a more steady throughput than wifi) and use something like a Boxee Box, Roku player or Raspberry Pi w/ Raspbmc (as long as you have an external audio decoder, the Rpi isn't man enough to decode surround sound down to 2.0 audio) etc etc

[edit] Feel free to come over and look at my setup some time if you like

[feeutfo]

Quality isn't a big issue.

[Kevin Wood]

I don't see a problem with this discussion as long as we're not talking about getting hold of copyrighted content.

Gixer will, of course, be using it to watch home movies of tyre tests, so that's OK.

I too would say hard-wire the network connection if possible, but with network cable. Homeplug is the work of the devil.

Not familiar with any of the devices mentioned, so not much more to add.

[feeutfo]

Well, when I said best, I meant easiest due to file types. the quality won't be there if compressed too much anyway.

And formatting/partitioning hard drives is a bloody nuisance.

Streaming music might be more suited though.

[Taxi_Driver]

Ive tried that about a year or so ago........it will also recognise certain Sony tv's and stream direct to the tv over wifi. However you need a decent spec pc, as it hammers the pc when streaming according to the settings you have it on.

If you want something 'free' then go for it.

If your pc isnt upto it.....then id go for a Western Digital Live TV box (circa £70) it will play many formats over wifi direct from your pc. A limitation of it is, it struggles to stream, 7GB iso files over wifi......but mpg's/etc it copes with fine if setup correctly. Altho you can plug in upto a 2GB usb drive into it...for large files. I also use it a sort of NAS server.....coz even tho its in standby.....if you map a network drive to it.....it 'wakes up' and spins uip the usb drive 
Oh another advantage.....its got HDMI output for upto 1080p and optical out for connection to a surround sound 

[TheBoy]

Don't break around. Buy a Media Center   (complete with its American spelling)

[Taxi_Driver]

Don't break around. Buy a Media Center   (complete with its American spelling)

Trouble with media server.....and ive tried....it doesnt have a f****** clue what to do with iso files 

Altho in this thread probably not a prob to the OP

[TheBoy]

Don't break around. Buy a Media Center   (complete with its American spelling)

Trouble with media server.....and ive tried....it doesnt have a f****** clue what to do with iso files 

Altho in this thread probably not a prob to the OP

Either extract, or Mount the ISO.  Thats the advantage of PC based over proprietry junk

[feeutfo]

Don't break around. Buy a Media Center   (complete with its American spelling)

Trouble with media server.....and ive tried....it doesnt have a f****** clue what to do with iso files 

Altho in this thread probably not a prob to the OP

Either extract, or Mount the ISO.  Thats the advantage of PC based over proprietry junk

I have no idea what you just said, but I do know, you don't have to bugger about with files. Ever.


....and remind me, does media centre have an hd capable player? And how much does it cost?

[TheBoy]

....and remind me, does media centre have an hd capable player? And how much does it cost?

I think its easier to explain over curry one night.

Curry wasn't on Guffer's no-no list, so you're OK

[feeutfo]

....and remind me, does media centre have an hd capable player? And how much does it cost?

I think its easier to explain over curry one night.

Curry wasn't on Guffer's no-no list, so you're OK

oh I bet it was.

[JesterRT]

I recently acquired Apple TV, but all in all I'm not that convinced by it.  The menu's are shocking and it's bloody slow.  The worst thing, and it's truly awful, is that you have to have iTunes running on your PC (permanently open as an application, not exiled into the system tray, or background service) for it to share the content with the Apple TV box.  Another annoyance is iTunes insistence on only interacting with MP4 format, which means I'm having to re-rip my library.
The only thing it's got going for it is the Airplay (so you can instantly get a slideshow from photos on your iPhone/iPad onto the telly).  I would say that I'm attempting to run the Apple TV through a WiFi connection - but I've already priced up getting a wired connection to it because I'm hopeful that it will speed things up a bit.

I'm glad someone mentioned RaspberryPi not decoding 5.1 as I'll make sure to rip to stereo.  At the moment I have an original Xbox 1 with XBMC running in one room and was looking at a Raspberry media centre to replace it - although I'm still quietly impressed the old xbox still runs!

If you've got a PS3 already (I wouldn't bother with Wii - I assume you're running an HD telly) and a PC, and both are connected to the same network (Wi-Fi or wired) then you should be able to simply enable sharing in Windows Media Player.  In Windows Media Player (WMP) look at the library section and select 'Stream'.    One of the options is to "Allow devices to play my media".  Enable that and your library should be visible to your PS3.  Assuming that you have some media in your library of a suitable file type you should be able to stream this directly to your PS3.
Typically, here's a youtube vid of a kid to tell you how to do it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psNFEyeRiL0

It is one of those things that everyone has a different opinion on though, and I wouldn't vouch for WMP being 'secure', but that's probably more down to Network security I'd imagine.

Good luck getting set up

[STMO123]

I don't know anything about any of this stuff. All I know is I've got my telly and my pc wired to my router and I can put anything from wmp on the telly just by selecting  'play to' .

[feeutfo]

Works very well actually. Except we can't seem to to navigate to the hard drive/videos using the ps3.

Later, its bed time. And no Esta, your not coming too, ffs