Using a PS3 as a Media Player

[koogs]

Instead of buying a Western Digital HD TV Live for media playback off an external HDD, can I use my PS3 instead? Does the PS3 need any additional software and how does it handle the different audio formats?

I have my PS3 connected to my Denon AVR by HDMI for both audio and video.

[dotVIBE]

You certainly can.

You will however need to have a PC or laptop connected to the PS3 to do this. You the run a media server program on the PC, and stream your files from the pc to the PS3. via a cabled network preferably. it's a pretty simple solution.

Nowhere near as simple as the WDTV though.

No, you cannot just hook your external straight to the PS3 and play the files from there. The PS3 just won't recognize most of the file formats.

[kay]

It will work as long as you format the hard drive as FAT32 and not NTFS.

If you have a recent Windows Media Player, just turn on media sharing and the PS3 will pick it up. This way you don't even need to connect a hard drive to the PS3. Ironically my PS3 is better at talking to my Windows 7 machine than my Xbox 360 ever was - it would sometimes lose connection and not be able to see the service.

The PS3 doesn't handle very many formats - regrettably FLAC is among those not supported. However you can get media sharing software which does on-the-fly decoding into a supported format. This can get quite heavy on the computer where you run the software but it's transparent to the PS3.

One last thing - the wireless bandwidth is often not enough to stream TV/video, at least if your WiFi signal is less than perfect.

[Enigma_2k4]

I've heard (I don't actually know as I use my PC as my media centre) that you can get different codecs from the playstation network that will let you play other files. That way you could just use an external HDD. However, I've not seen this done myself so I would do some conclusive googling first.....

[ynotamil]

................................................. However you can get media sharing software which does on-the-fly decoding into a supported format. This can get quite heavy on the computer where you run the software but it's transparent to the PS3.

Hi kay,
I have some videos that I can not play on my PS3 (using my PC as a media server). One of those formats is in .flv format. Do you know any player that can help me play those videos on the PS3? As you know VLC can play .flv but it does not work as a media sharing software with the PS3.
I am using WMP 11 and MS does not seam to support that format. At least I could not find any codec to download into WMP 11.

Thanks,
Tony

[Homer]

An external HDD can be used to play files on PS3. Check the PS3 support site for the type of files supported. "Handbrake" is a 5MB download from the net which will convert most anything you can throw at it into a format the PS3 will play.

A Google search will tell you how to format the external HDD so the PS3 recognizes it.

[ynotamil]

An external HDD can be used to play files on PS3. Check the PS3 support site for the type of files supported. "Handbrake" is a 5MB download from the net which will convert most anything you can throw at it into a format the PS3 will play.

A Google search will tell you how to format the external HDD so the PS3 recognizes it.

Thanks Homer,
I will download that and try it out. My PS3 is up and running well, reading all files on my PC (pic. videos, music) and playing them all very well. Just videos encoded in .flv format are not accepted. As I mentioned before I could not find a Windows codec to install in WMPlayer to be able to pay those files on my PS3. What I read on Handbrake's web page, it does not look like that they translate .flv files; but I wil try it nevertheless.

Tony

[dotVIBE]

Try to use something like PS3 Mediaserver or Tversity. They are a bit better than WMPlayer.

[ynotamil]

Try to use something like PS3 Mediaserver or Tversity. They are a bit better than WMPlayer.

Thank you, I will do that.

Tony