Movian

Croyd Crenson wrote:

Hi,

I finally purchased a plasma TV and would like to stream 1080p mkvs to my PS3 running Showtime to display on my new tv. I understand that I need to have a wired connection for this to work. Since showtime supports mkv, I assume I won't lose any quality when streaming? I'm using PS3MediaServer on my PC. Also, the mkvs have DTS audio. Can they also be passed through to the receiver or will it be transcoded? I assume showtime can support embedded subtitles in the mkv as well?

1080p should work fine yes. It does depend on h264 level and number of reference frames. There are some other thread in this forum about those things.

Audio will be trans coded (to DTS) if you output to SPDIF.
If you output via multichannel HDMI Showtime will do the DTS -> PCM decoding and there will be no transcoding.

mkv embedded subs are supported (the most common formats)

Dude PS3Mediaserver is for people with OFW, why would you wanna re-encode the stream, thats what PS3MediaServer does, it's also crap.

1. What you need to do is install a streaming software like Tversity and set it up.

2. Install this, anything newer wont work: https://github.com/downloads/andoma/showtime/showtime-3.1.228.gbd329.pkg

3: Make sure you're all ethernetted upp, and just start streaming from your PS3 within Showtime, without audio or video loss.

Enjoy (:

Andreas Öman wrote:

1080p should work fine yes. It does depend on h264 level and number of reference frames. There are some other thread in this forum about those things.

Audio will be trans coded (to DTS) if you output to SPDIF.
If you output via multichannel HDMI Showtime will do the DTS -> PCM decoding and there will be no transcoding.

mkv embedded subs are supported (the most common formats)

Thanks for the info. I just gave it a try yesterday and here are some things I noticed:
1) some mkvs work fine as in subtitles work, I can switch between the subs, and I can fastforward/rewind
2) other mkvs I cannot switch between subs since the UI in showtime doesn't show the subs, however, the english sub is always on and I can't turn it off. I also cannot seem to fastforward or rewind.
3) some I was able to play but if I stopped it and tried to play again, the showtime would show a blackscreen for a sec and then go back to the file list

I'm not sure what the difference is yet between the mkvs. Maybe that's what you were referring to when you said it depends on different h264 levels and reference frames.

Thanks
Croyd

Kal-El Junior wrote:

Dude PS3Mediaserver is for people with OFW, why would you wanna re-encode the stream, thats what PS3MediaServer does, it's also crap.

1. What you need to do is install a streaming software like Tversity and set it up.

2. Install this, anything newer wont work: https://github.com/downloads/andoma/showtime/showtime-3.1.228.gbd329.pkg

3: Make sure you're all ethernetted upp, and just start streaming from your PS3 within Showtime, without audio or video loss.

Enjoy (:

Interesting, I haven't tried TVersity before. Thanks for the tip.

I only suggested Tversity because it's the fastest and most polished streaming software, make sure to set all encoding options to off and speed to full wired 100mbps, any streaming software works, just make sure your computer isn't doing and re-encoding.

I just want to defend PS3MediaServer here for a minute.

1. You can disable transcoding in the settings (just turn all the encoders off).
2. PS3MediaServer gets right to the point and does what it is suppose to do, without any bloated features, and it runs much smoother.

I left TVersity for PS3MediaServer years ago and never looked back. PS3MediaServer done what I needed, without problems or the extra bloat I had with TVersity.

Also, you can have PS3MediaServer display a transcode folder in the video list, for when you may need to manually transcode a file without needing to go back to the PC, if one of them happens to be incompatible.

I'm not sure what all TVersity supports these days, but you can also select subtitle tracks (when transcoding).

I just wanted to point that out, as PS3MediaServer is certainly not crap.

Give both a try, but I still recommend PS3MediaServer from my past experience.

Also, you should know that streaming software probably has to support the subtitles on their end (burn them into the vieo). This is probably true for all videos that use external subtitles. Internal subs may still work. Otherwise you can try the samba method and see if showtime can detect the subs that way. I would give that a try first.

Rusty Unknown wrote:

I just want to defend PS3MediaServer here for a minute.

1. You can disable transcoding in the settings (just turn all the encoders off).
2. PS3MediaServer gets right to the point and does what it is suppose to do, without any bloated features, and it runs much smoother.

I left TVersity for PS3MediaServer years ago and never looked back. PS3MediaServer done what I needed, without problems or the extra bloat I had with TVersity.

Also, you can have PS3MediaServer display a transcode folder in the video list, for when you may need to manually transcode a file without needing to go back to the PC, if one of them happens to be incompatible.

I'm not sure what all TVersity supports these days, but you can also select subtitle tracks (when transcoding).

I just wanted to point that out, as PS3MediaServer is certainly not crap.

Give both a try, but I still recommend PS3MediaServer from my past experience.

Also, you should know that streaming software probably has to support the subtitles on their end (burn them into the vieo). This is probably true for all videos that use external subtitles. Internal subs may still work. Otherwise you can try the samba method and see if showtime can detect the subs that way. I would give that a try first.

Well I just tried TVersity and it seemed to work ok. I didn't have any issues with the enabling/disabling or seeing the subtitles included in the mkv file. Maybe when I used PS3Mediaserver, I didn't have it configured properly. To disable the transcoding, do I just disable all the options under "Video Files Engine" in the Transcoding Settings tab?

The other issue I have with PS3MediaServer is that it takes a long time to appear in Showtime. TVersity seems to show up immediately. Any idea what might be causing that? If I can get PS3Mediaserver to work the way I want then I'll continue using it. I also have a Mac and TVersity is not available on that but PS3MediaServer does have a Mac version.

Thanks,
Croyd

Take a look at "Common Transcode Settings" then at the bottom of that settings panel there is a box where you can input extentions for filetypes you want to skip transcoding.

You can enter for example: "avi,mkv" to skip transcoding of those file types.

There is also another box to force transcode, if there are certain problematic filetypes.

As far as the detection delay, you are the 2nd person I've heard ask about it now. I haven't really used PMS with Showtime before, but if I had to guess I would say it has something to do with PMS's broadcast frequency. I'll look into it and try to get back to you later on that. Just remind me if I don't post in a long time.

What version of PS3MediaServer are you using? v1.50? I noticed that version includes a configuration profile for Showtime, and the old one on my old XP machine didn't at v1.2.. hmm

Rusty Unknown wrote:

Take a look at "Common Transcode Settings" then at the bottom of that settings panel there is a box where you can input extentions for filetypes you want to skip transcoding.

You can enter for example: "avi,mkv" to skip transcoding of those file types.

There is also another box to force transcode, if there are certain problematic filetypes.

As far as the detection delay, you are the 2nd person I've heard ask about it now. I haven't really used PMS with Showtime before, but if I had to guess I would say it has something to do with PMS's broadcast frequency. I'll look into it and try to get back to you later on that. Just remind me if I don't post in a long time.

What version of PS3MediaServer are you using? v1.50? I noticed that version includes a configuration profile for Showtime, and the old one on my old XP machine didn't at v1.2.. hmm

Ok thanks. I'll give that a try.

Yes I'm using v1.50. As for showtime, I've tried the official build and all the unofficial builds by RedSquirrel. I've also tried showtime-3.1.228.gbd329.pkg, the one Kal-El Junior suggested but they all seem to have the issue of being slow at detecting PS3 Media Server. I recently read a thread about ps3 media server not showing up here: https://www.lonelycoder.com/redmine/boards/15/topics/2359 but I didn't see any resolution.

Thanks,
Croyd

Ok thanks. I'll give that a try.

Yes I'm using v1.50. As for showtime, I've tried the official build and all the unofficial builds by RedSquirrel. I've also tried showtime-3.1.228.gbd329.pkg, the one Kal-El Junior suggested but they all seem to have the issue of being slow at detecting PS3 Media Server. I recently read a thread about ps3 media server not showing up here: https://www.lonelycoder.com/redmine/boards/15/topics/2359 but I didn't see any resolution.

Thanks,
Croyd

Oh just an FYI, I disabled transcoding in PS3MediaServer and now all my issues in my 2nd post are gone. It works quite well. The only thing I noticed when switching between all my movies was that memory started to run low. I guess there may be a memory leak somewhere.

Also, if I have showtime running and a close and restart ps3mediaserver, it will show up in showtime immediately. The slow detection only occurs when my media server is already running and then I start showtime.

Cheers!
Croyd

Rusty Unknown wrote:

As far as the detection delay, you are the 2nd person I've heard ask about it now. I haven't really used PMS with Showtime before, but if I had to guess I would say it has something to do with PMS's broadcast frequency. I'll look into it and try to get back to you later on that. Just remind me if I don't post in a long time.

Hey Rusty,

I'm wondering if you ever had a chance to look into the issue of why PS3 media server takes so long to show up in Showtime? When I start showtime, I see all my media servers except PS3mediaserver. It takes about a minute before it shows. I'm using PS3 Media Sever 1.52.1 on Windows 7 and showtime 3.6.4.

Thanks,
-Croyd

I have an idea, but I'm not sure if it will work.

Try going into the PS3's Network settings area, and disable the "Media Server" option. This should disable the PS3's native media server features. Then, restart PS3MediaServer.

Next, open Showtime and see if it detects the server faster.

If that doesn't help, test alternatives that allow you to disable transcoding and see if any of them detect faster. If you find one that does, then I'd say just go with that instead of wasting more time with this issue, as it sounds rather inconvenient and annoying.

I have no idea why it takes a while to show up, but if other media servers don't have that issue, I would have to say it's a problem with PMS and if they haven't fixed the issue by now they probably never will. I haven't asked about this on PMS's forums, but I expect I'd get some type of generic response related to detection issues in general.

EDIT: I've posted a topic about the issue here: http://www.ps3mediaserver.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=14529
I read something earlier about the HTTP v2 Engine being experimental.
Go to the "General Configuration" tab in PMS and try turning the HTTP v2 Engine off (or turn it on if it was off already) and see if this improves the detection rate.