PMS 1.10.5 works including Transcode on G5 with leopard

[phrend]

First off - thanks for your work ctene!

So, I downloaded your zip file that included the PPC pre-compiled binaries and installed it... then I downloaded/compiled/installed lame and faac from http://stephenjungels.com/jungels.net/a ... wto.html... and tried playing an mkv on my PS3... no dice. It does get further than it did before - I can see it trying to transcode rather than just erroring out in the debug log, but it still fails.

I thought that my problem might stem from the multiple versions of lame and faac I have on my system. The (new/just compiled) ones I want this to be using are located:
/usr/local/bin/faac
/usr/local/lib/libfaac*
/usr/local/bin/lame
/usr/local/lib/libmp3lame*

...but I've also got:
/opt/local/bin/lame
/opt/local/lib/libmp3lame*
/sw/bin/lame
/sw/lib/libmp3lame*
/sw/bin/faac
/sw/lib/libfaac*

however, a bit of poking around with opensnoop while trying to play an mkv seems to indicate that it's using the proper version of each:
501 16615 3 /usr/local/lib/libfaac.0.dylib mencoder\0
501 16615 3 /usr/local/lib/libmp3lame.0.dylib mencoder\0

I've attached the portion of my debug.log that is output when trying to play an mkv in hopes that it'll help someone that understands it better than I do!

Thanks in advance!

For the record - it did actually start to play the file once while I was mucking around... I don't have any idea what I did to make it work, but it appears that it just wants to tease me!

EDIT: I'm going to try to compile ffmpeg and mplayer myself to see if that has any effect... (I've got dual 1.8's, so I figured your binaries would work.) I had XCode 3.1.3 and got the same error reported by another use, "WARNING: GNU assembler not found, install gas-preprocessor" when compiling ffmpeg - downloading 3.1.4 now to see if that resolves it.

EDIT2: To clarify, the error comes up when trying to run the configure script. XCode 3.1.4 did not resolve the problem. I found the following:
http://ffmpeg.org/general.html#SEC19 that states:
MacOS X on PowerPC or ARM (iPhone) requires a preprocessor from http://github.com/yuvi/gas-preprocessor to build the optimized assembler functions. Just download the Perl script and put it somewhere in your PATH, FFmpeg's configure will pick it up automatically.

I tried putting gas-preprocessor.pl in my path, hardcoding it's path in the configure script, and setting its' permissions to 777 - none of that helped. I also added --arch=ppc to the configure arguments with no luck. I don't know if the configure script has changed since ctene compiled his version or what?

I was able to compile mplayer without any trouble, so I replaced ctene's versions of mplayer and mencoder with my own. I don't know where mencoder_mt comes from, but ctene's was the exact same file as his mencoder, so I just linked mencoder_mt to my new mencoder.

I still don't even know if compiling my own ffmpeg is going to help anyway...?

EDIT3: So, it turned out that the gas-preprocessor.pl script I downloaded was corrupt - downloaded a new copy and got past the configure error... it's compiling now - and my fingers are crossed that magic will happen for me!

EDIT4: The make resulted in an error:
"make: *** [libavcodec/ppc/fft_altivec_s.o] Error 1" (after lots of other libavcodec/ppc/dsputil_altivec.c warnings: http://ffmpeg.pastebin.com/QPpZaeF6)

After working with some folks in the ffmpeg irc channel, the only way I could get it to compile was by removing the '--enable-shared' arg - but using it with PS3 Media Server gave me the same (not working) results...

[ctene]

Now thats truly strange ... ok why did I not have to install the gas preprocessor ... i think maybe I got different sources with which I did the compiling .... grrrr ... let me see if I can find them ... Yes I have the original folder with the very sources I compiled but it's like 200MB ... anyone have a recommendation as to where I should upload them to?

P.S. I know that the compiled binaries I made work just perfectly ... even today (and it's been a while) ... but I will gladly make the sources available if anyone wants them

EDIT: I do not see you mentioning FAAD2 anywhere on your install/compile list .... u need that also if you look at my original post ... FAAC is the encoder ... but u need FAAD2 also installed to decode on the fly, that very well may be your problem.

EDIT2: Shit ... I just noticed I do make no mention of the FAAD2 codec ... my bad I guess I screwed up, sorry guys ... it is indeed required thou

[amoore06]

Could you post your re-compiled binaries for download? I tried using the PS3 media server binary another user posted, the app opens and plays AVI's and such but will crash on loading an MKV.

[amoore06]

I think I may have found what was causing the crashing to still happen. When I used your Binaries that you provided, Mencoder and mplayer would crash still. I opened the binaries in terminal and it would give me an error that libpng.3 needed version 45.0.0 and I had 39.0.0 in my X11 library. I tried finding a way to update that file still no work. So I simply compiled my own mplayer following the instructions and it worked.
Edit:
I was running into errors when using ffmpeg. After a lot of wasted time. I simply downloaded the most recent FFmpeg source from below and cofigured as is ./configure > make > sudo make install and replaced the output in my PS3 Media Server folder and now it is working great on my Dual Core G5

http://www.ffmpeg.org/download.html

[phrend]

I have had faad v2 on my system at /sw/bin/faad the whole time. I tried linking it to /Applications/PS3\ Media\ Server.app/Contents/Resources/Java/osx/faad to see if it was a path issue, but that didn't make any difference. I still can't play mkv's. My cpu goes to near 100% while it's trying to transcode, but it doesn't actually play on my PS3. I guess it just wasn't meant to be.

[amoore06]

@ctene, could you possible link to wear you got the mencoder_mt download? I've spend hours on Google. and Apperently im having problems with stuttering on MKV files not being multithreaded. Any help would be awesome.

[blppt]

Yeah, I would like the mencoder_mt download too....I got everything else working on my Quad, much thanks to those who put together this howto, only thing left is multicore transcode. Thanks in advance!

[blppt]

Nevermind, after installing ffmpeg, mencoder and the other codecs, I re-installed your modded ps3 package, and multicore now works great. Thanks!

[albabe]

I have virtually the same machine as ctene... but I am not anywhere near tech-savvy enough to follow all these instructions. I'm not all that proficient with the Terminal ap.

I'm in San Francisco Ca... and if there's anyone local that might be able to help(?)

I Write and Draw Comic Books for a living and maybe I could trade Original Art for some assistance. Here's my stats:

http://www.facebook.com/albabe.Al.Gordon
http://www.flickr.com/photos/albabe-algordon/
http://www.comicon.com/gordon/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gordon

[muppetwonder]

I have virtually the same machine as ctene... but I am not anywhere near tech-savvy enough to follow all these instructions. I'm not all that proficient with the Terminal ap.

I'm in San Francisco Ca... and if there's anyone local that might be able to help(?)

I Write and Draw Comic Books for a living and maybe I could trade Original Art for some assistance. Here's my stats:

I would *love* to get some of your original art.

I have recompiled ffmpeg, mencoder and mplayer using the latest revisions to the source code as of Jan. 20, 2011, and I've been able to get PMS working pretty well, with transcoding. I use PMS primarily to serve foreign TV shows with the separate subtitle files integrated into the transcoded video stream, and have been able to get satisfactory video quality using some of the Wi-Fi quality presets that come with PMS.

Let me know if you're still interested in this, and I'll find a way to make the binaries available to you. I have a G5 Dual 2GHz PPC, which is only slightly different from ctene's configuration it seems.