SOT - individual mts not playable in PS3 ??

Christian de Godzinsky wrote on 11/19/2008, 8:36 AM

Hi,

Need urgently advice:

I have copied a bunch of files from my Sony SR12 HDCAM to an external USB hard drive. They do not show up in PS3! Is there a way to use the PS3 as a mts player, without first arranging the files as they are burned onto a BluRay? And must that structure be followed exaclty.

I was looking for a way to browse along mts files on an external USB drive, as you can do with the PS3 with pictures and videoclips residing on a media server...

Is there a way to do this with PS3? Should be since I am able to COPY files from a BD or DVD onto the PS3 own hard drive, and play them from there... Please help :)

As it is now, the drive does not show up at all. Its a LaCie 500GB external formatted as NTFS. The formatting might be one cuplprit? Can Windows Vista 64 format the disk as FAT32 as ONE partition, XP had some problems doing it?

Thankful for any comments and/or advice.

Cheers

Christian

Comments

blink3times wrote on 11/19/2008, 8:59 AM

I don't know how the sr12 is formatted and I'm not even sure if the ps3 plays back MTS (I know it does m2t... but that's the extent of my knowledge in that department) What I do know is that the ps3 doesn't understand ANYTHING outside of FAT32. Any drive or stick that you plug in must be a fat32 format.

Vista will give you the option of formatting a stick as FAT32 or quick formatting a HDD as fat32 provided it's already fat32, but it will not give you the option of formatting a NTFS HDD as fat32. For this you will need a third party program. This should not be a problem though.... there are lots of free 3rd party programs out there that will format as fat32. Go to download.com and have a look.

Christian de Godzinsky wrote on 11/19/2008, 9:12 AM

Hi Blink,

PS3 (your love/hate object :) plays MTS files (AVCDH) just perfectly, and the quality is just great on my 55 inch screen !!!

The hierarchy for the actual streaming vide files on the SR12 hard disk is:

ROOT/AVCDH/BDMV/STREAM/xxxxx.mts

I will try this same hierachy first, after I have reformatted the drive.

Hard to understand how some bright minds at MS have decided not to allow us to format NTFS disks as FAT32 disks. WHY ON EARTH?

Thank's a zillion for the info and hints :) Appreciated!!!

Christian

Christian de Godzinsky wrote on 11/20/2008, 11:41 AM

Hi,

Now the external USB drive is formatted as FAT32. Fine, all *.mts files transferred (again) and this time PS3 sees the files and can play them.

However, I was disappointed to find out that PS3 can only play one file at a time, just the opposite what my SR12 cam can do. It streams all files (clips) in order, forward, from the clip you started to play. This does not happend in PS3

IS this a serious PS3 omission or what? There is a lot of clicking on the PS3 remote if I want to watch a longer recodring consisting of lets say 800 clips. AAARGHHH.

Ok, I could just "burn" the files into a Blueray compatible format and write that out to the HD, but that woudl be totally insande just for the sake of watching raw material.

I hope the people at PS3 software headquartes will recognize this and include a fix in the future. OK, this is NOt a BUG, but a SERIOUS omission.

Or has anyone been able to play more than one mts file at a time on the PS3?

Christian

michaelshive wrote on 11/20/2008, 12:00 PM

Christian,

I'm not in front of my PS3 right now but there is an option that you need to enable to do this. Look in the video settings for an option that is something like "play continuous files" or something like that. It will then go to the next file and play it until it plays the last file in the folder. I found it incredibly annoying to watch movies until I found that option.

There definitely are some things I'd like to add to the wish list for PS3 AVCHD playback, but at least is supports it unlike just about any other option. I wish it gave you a video preview when it was on the external drive like it does when it is copied to the internal drive. I also wish it could read the structure of the files like it does when you plug your SDHC card into the front. Anyways, it's not perfect but it's the best option going right now.

Christian de Godzinsky wrote on 12/1/2008, 11:03 AM

Hi Michael,

Thx for your comments. Will try that option. Meanwhile I have fond the following.

If I copy from my SR12 HD cam the file structure as it is (ROOT:AVCHD/BDMV/******) to my external HD - then PS3 is able to play all the files as one blueray movie, without any disruptions between adjacent takes (clips). Still I'm then also able to play individual files as well...

This leads to another problem. PS3 recognizes the media files only if the the folder name in the root is exactly AVCHD.

Each time I dump the files from my SR12 cam I would like to generate a new AVCDH folder with the assosiate and required file structure for the PS3 to be able to play them as a single movie. I would like to name the folders like AVCHD 01 2008-05-15, the next one AVCDH 02 2009-01-12 and so forth.

The structure that the cam produces should not be edited in any way, othervice the movie function does not work. Every time I reformat the cam it produces a new structure that cannot and should not be appended to the old(er) one on my external HD. The new material must go into a new folder (structure).

BUT PS3 does not recoginze anything that is exactly named "AVCHD". I would like to select in the PS3 menu wich folder to view???

Any ideas? COmments? Wich would be the right Sony forum to discuss this on?

Christian

John_Cline wrote on 12/1/2008, 3:54 PM

I'm running the latest v2.52 firmware for the PS3, perhaps starting with v2.50, they added a sequential video file playback option.

Christian de Godzinsky wrote on 12/2/2008, 11:58 AM

Thx John for the hint. I will try that.

The SR12 cam just has the stupid "feature" that if you delete one clip, the CAM reuses the same clip file name for a later shot. Many programs that are able to play such "sequential" numbered files, just look at the number part of the file name, not when it was recorded or modified. I witness this very often on the PC. And there you sit and watch your recording, cronologically yes, but not timevise...

The question remains, will PS3 do this correctly? And WITHOUT GAPS between the clips? Additionally, can you fast forward and rewind as when playing the files via the AVCDH hiearchy when played like a single movie on the PS3.

Will do some tests tomorrow... It seems that there is always room for improvement in this world. I sincerely hope that Sony would change the playback system so, that it is enoght that the folders name (containing the copier file hierarch from the HD cam) starts with "AVCD" and additional symbols would be allowed for the file name. This way you could organize each dump (before reformat) from the HD cam in a separate folder, still viewable with all features as a singel movie...

Still wonder wich forum would be the right one for such discussion/feedback to Sony???

Christian