If you keep up with the gaming industry, even if just a little, you would know that its becoming one of the fastest growing market and money maker. Gaming is as big as the movie industry. One main reason for that accomplishment is due to the fact that these generation of gaming consoles can do so much more than simply allowing you to play games. No, no, my friends. It can do more. Much more!
Unless you have been living under a rock for the last couple of years, you would know that flat screen high definition televisions are making their way into households across the world. Owning a HDTV comes with many advantages. They are lighter, consume less space, are more energy efficient and mainly offering superb video quality compared to their CRT counterparts.
While many of you have been comfortably viewing media on your computer screen since you could remember, wouldn't it be better if you could watch them on your big screen television instead? If you have high definition content, it would be a shame to watch it on a tiny computer monitor or laptop.
Requirements
- PS3 console connected to your home network
- Computer/laptop connected to your home network
- Television
- Java PS3 Media Server
While the PS3 does have some movie playback capabilities, mainly with DiVx files, it is really limited in what it can do for you in terms of using it to play your downloaded movies. This mainly can be blamed by the myriad of different video codecs used by others to encode a video file. While I have recently written about how you can play any video file you have on your computer, doing the same on your PS3 is quite different.
First of all, there are a couple of ways to actually watch your downloaded movies on your big screen HDTV via your PS3. For example, you can use Format Factory or PS3 Video 9 to manually convert a video file to be compatible on your PS3. However, that method is not the most efficient as the conversion process takes a long time. That means you have to convert your video files ahead of time if you want to watch it on your movie nights.
The more efficient method is to actually stream/convert your movies from your computer directly to the PS3, on the fly. Basically, you install an application on your computer that will do all the work of converting your movie and then feed it to your PS3 which then will display it on your TV for your viewing. All of this happens on the fly so that means less waiting. There are a couple of applications on the market that will accomplish this but today I will be going over one of the best one.
I already assume that your PS3 and computer are joined to the same home network and are able to communicate with each other.
PS3 Media Server
Do not let the bland website fool you. This little application is extremely powerful. Once installed and turned on, it will recognize your PS3 on your home network and you will then be able to browse your entire computer on the PS3. You can think of the media server as a gateway or doorway to your computer. Once you select the media file (whether it be a movie, audio or picture file), it will quickly begin the conversion process and begin to stream the content to your TV.
# Preparations
There are only a couple of steps you need to perform to get going. The neat thing about PS3 Media Server is that you don't necessarily have to mess with a lot of settings. In plain terms, this program just works! The author of this application did all of the tweaking and dirty work for us.
If you are using Windows XP, you need to turn on the 'SSDP Network Discovery' service. It's most likely already turned on but to check, go to the Run box in your Start menu and type in 'Services.msc'. Scroll down till you see the service name and make sure that the Startup Type is set to Manual and that the service itself is Started. Next, you'll want to make sure that the PS3 Media application is enabled in your firewall.
If you are using Windows Vista or Windows 7, the steps are similar. The service name is called Network Discovery and it needs to be turned on. You do this by heading over to the Network and Sharing Center. Once completed, make the exception in the firewall.
# Running the application
You must run the PS3 Media Server with administrator privileges. If you are using Vista or Windows 7, right click on the application shortcut and select the appropriate option to run it as an administrator. Once done, you should be brought into the main Status page where it will show you if it has found your PS3 or not. If your PS3 is turned off, then you will see a big X button, like so.
However, once you turn on your PS3, within a quick few seconds, both your PS3 and the application should see and be able to communicate with each other. The symbol will immediately change to a PS3 picture icon.
# Browsing for media
Once you establish the connection, than you can start browsing for your media on the PS3. One feature that I love the most with this application is that it instantly shares out your entire C: drive. In other media servers, you have to explicitly share a folder and if your media files were not inside those shared folders, you would not be able to view it. With PS3 Media Server, you can freely browse your entire computer. Therefore, playing a video or other media file means just simply browsing to the directory location on your computer. The screen will go dark for a couple of seconds due to it buffering but once it has enough data, the video will begin.
Streaming to your PS3 from your computer can't get easier than this. Remember, there are no codecs to mess with and definitely no secret dark hack you must perform. This baby will play all your MKV, WMV, AVI, or RMVB files. One thing you must consider is that fast fowarding of your movies is difficult and you can only do it slowly. Otherwise, the video will hiccup. Also, if you are streaming high definition content, you'll want to pause the video every now and then to let it buffer. Remember, the conversion process is very CPU intensive so if you don't have a powerful computer, it might struggle to keep up. By letting it buffer, the playback should be more smooth.
The PS3 is such an advance piece of hardware and if you have one, you probably know the price for having that hardware! Obviously, you'll want to get the most out of it and streaming movies, pictures and music to your home theater system is one of the best ways to do that. Wondering why you should bother yourself with this? Well, what if you have family members over and you want to quickly show them your pictures and videos from your vacation? Instead of having everyone huddling around a small computer screen, they can now comfortably sit back on your couch and view the media instead. What about if you have an awesome surround sound system hooked up to your PS3? Wouldn't you want to take advantage of that as well?
The PS3 Media Server has many more features and options that you can configure and play with but if you're not a video/audio guru, you don't really want to be messing around too much. The application was built so that you don't need to mess with the configuration!
