Hey Mark,

I'm relatively new to my PS3 so I've not even attempted to save anything to the hard drive. I HAVE had my share of issues with using Media Player as a media server and am looking for an affordable replacement server. There are quite a few PS3 owners here who are doing some pretty cool stuff with their players. Hopefully this bump will catch someone's eye.

Thanks Goshep - yeah, I'm really happy with it otherwise. Pretty amazing what it can do. I've actually had great luck with the media sharing from both a PC and a Mac, using Elgato's EyeConnect. All works well. Frustrating with the WMV, though, as we're trying to preview scenes from our current feature on the media room projector in HD. Maybe there's another codec we should use...

Well, just to update: Still having problems with WMV playback, but rendered out to MP4/AVC in both the Sony and MainConcept profiles (which render to smaller file size anyway) with success. Will use these templates for preview in the future. The bitrates on both varied from 8 to 9 Mbps.

Hey,

I got a PS3 a month ago (*80 gb model, rock on!) and I made a netword media server with my other two computers so I share all my media with all my systems. I learned to just put .mp4 or divx encoded avi's (*mostly downloaded from stage 6 and just renamed the .divx extension to .avi so they play on the PS3*) on there because other videos been giving me flack and trouble, especially wmv's since the PS3 only plays one versional codek of wmv's. With all variations of codek selection in the rendering process, you could inevitably end up accidentally picking a setting of the codek that is uncompatible with the PS3. I've learned through the psp trial and error that sony makes these playbacks systems very, very picky on what they like to digest. So like everyones suggesting, just stick to the .mp4 or divx .aiv's since they are less problematic and deliver great performace/quality.

I wouldn't doubt in the future Sony's expand it's format and codek base for this awesome media device (*as it has for the psp in the past*).

Hope this helps.

-Notloc

You can search this forum on many posts on the PS3, how to encode, playback formats etc.
I think you should be aware that since the PS3 latest firmware update 2.01 or something like that playing back media from media servers seemed to get broken. The previous firemware release worked much better. Hopefully they will fix this in the next release.

But this makes sense, as soon as the PS3 was adapted to playback a windows codec (wmv), now it's screwed up on the media serving side.

With that aside if you use MovieMaker 6 under Vista the program already has a HD template (and other wmv templates) which can convert your high definition videos to HD-WMV @ 7.8MBS. These videos are displayed as V1 encoded by the PS3, they look descent.

I suggest when asking for help to post your source videos, the camcorder, their format at all. Otherwise it's next to impossible to reply to your post without having to ask you questions in return to your question. This may be why there are few reply's to your post.
So try to also post your source videos properties etc.