PS3 Media Server

by **otmanix** » Sat Aug 29, 2009 7:16 pm

PS3 Media Server (PMS) for Dummies / Tutorial, HOWTO and Documentation

Hello out there. I think there's a lack of summarized info regarding PMS for newbs. So here's an attempt to fix that...

Best regards, Otmanix.

Project Members

Project lead: shagrath
Moderator: meskibob
Project committers:
- Redlum
- tcox
- taconaut
- tomeko
- lightglitch
- chocolateboy
- ditlew
- Raptor399
- renszarv
- happy.neko

Links

Google Code (Downloads & Issue Tracker)
GitHub (Source Code)
PMS on Twitter
RSS news feed
PMS Issues
Download current version
Download latest development snapshot
Download old versions (before 1.90.0)
PMS Plugins
Changelog

Forum

PMS forum
PMS latest version
PMS translation: how to translate PMS
Request new features here
Audio and video streams: well tested streams for usage in WEB.conf
Alternate streaming clients / DLNA media renderers
Before reporting a problem in the PMS forum read this

PMS HOWTOs

Video Guides/Tutorials

YouTube

English

Extensive help can be found under the "Help" button in PMS
PS3 Media Server Configuration
PS3 Media Server 1.60 – installation on Windows 7
PS3 Media Server 1.60 – startup and basic settings
PS3 Media Server access with XBMC
Compile PMS on MS Windows
PS3 Media Server on Ubuntu
PS3 Media Server on Ubuntu 8.10 SVN PMS & Multithread
PS3 Media Server on headless Ubuntu 9.04 server
PS3 Media Server on (headless) OpenSolaris
PS3 Media Server on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala
PS3 Media Server on Fedora 11

German

PS3 Media Server 1.60 – Installation unter Windows 7
PS3 Media Server 1.60 – Start und Grundkonfiguration
Zugriff mit XBMC auf PS3 Media Server
PMS und Mac Os X

Italian

Italian HOWTO

French

Introduction
Réseaux et techniques de base
Installation et configuration de base
Configuration générale – Paramètres de navigation et de partage (I)
Configuration générale – Paramètres de navigation et de partage (II)
VLC, Avisynth et CoreAVC

Russian

Russian HOWTO for PMS on Ubuntu 11.10

Portuguese

Portuguese Video tutorial

Additional Software

Plugins
A/V Sync
PS3 Radio (discussion)
PS3 Mediathek (German TV streams of ZDF Mediathek)
PMS Rendr edition for BD live player
PS3 Media Server Cover Generator Application
PS3 Media Server SVN builder tool

Media Files

Here you can find free media files of different types and resolutions for testing your setup, e.g. to see how streaming/muxing/transcoding works...

Big Buck Bunny video
Test files from the MPlayer project
Matroska Test Suite
Jellyfish Video Bitrate Test Files

PMS Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Most-frequently asked questions:

Full list:

General

Connection problems

Playback problems

Installation and configuration

If you find errors or have some additional info, feel free to add a message to the discussion thread. Comments are welcome!

Otmanix

by **otmanix** » Sun Aug 30, 2009 12:23 pm

For an overview of the configuration options, see the "Help" tab in the PMS GUI. For a complete listing, see the sample PMS.conf.

---

Hello again,
here's a list of all configuration options in PMS GUI. If you think something is missing, wrong or could be explained much better just write a comment...
These options are available in PMS rev358.
Best regards, Otmanix

General configuration

* language: choose your native language if available
* start minimized (checkbox): apply if you want PMS start to tray (window minimized)
* install as a windows service: press if you want to install pms as a service, further configuration may be needed to run successfully as a service...
* force network on interface (dropdown): Perhaps PMS sends network broadcasts on the wrong network card. If PMS doesn’t detect your PS3 choose your correct network card.
* force port of server: if TCP/IP port 5001 already is in use set a free alernate port number like 6001
* Use IP filter (whitelist): set IP address of allowed streaming client (e.g. PS3), all other will fail to connect. See here for details.
* HTTP Engine v2: brand new feature which is very experimental – a new code to communicate for PMS which should be deactivated when communcation problems appear (new engine should improve network performance and better support for alternate streaming clients)
* prevents OS from sleeping when streaming: you can make sure that your computer won’t go to standby while streaming

Plugin system
* change your settings for PMS plugins like last.fm and movie info

Navigation/Share settings

* thumbnails generation: activate for automatic creation of thumbnail pictures of your media files
* thumbnail seeking position (in seconds): Most video files begin with some seconds of a black background before the movie starts. You can set the time in seconds for the video thumbnail position.
* Use mplayer for video thumbnails: the tool mplayer sometimes gets better results for thumbnail creation then default way, so just try it…
* DVD ISO thumbnails: create thumbnails for DVD ISO-images
* audio thumbnails display (dropdown): You can chose default behaviour (search for thumbnail pictures in filesystem) for audio thumbnails or let PMS download album art from Amazon or Discogs.
* alterate video cover arts folder: chose your folder in filesystem which contains cover art
* browse .rar/.zip/.cbr archives: If activated PMS is able to show content of archives. If a media file in archive is chosen for playback it will be decompressed before streaming starts
* hide # video settings # folder: There is a virtual folder available called # video settings #. You can navigate to this folder on your PS3 and change some values for PMS online. You can hide this folder if you don’t want to confuse your girlfriend.
* hide # Transcode # Folder: don't show this virtual folder on XMB
* hide file extensions: some people might get confused if they see file extensions like jpg or avi, so you can hide them
* hide transcoding engine names: PMS can stream your media file with different technologies. You can chose the technology (transcoding engine) in virtual folder # transcoded #. The default transcoding engine for playback is displayed after the name of each media file. You can hide that of course.
* hide empty/non media folders: only display folders which contain media files
* show iTunes library: only available when iTunes is installed
* show iPhoto library: only available when iPhoto is installed
* enable the media library / cache: When you browse folders on your PS3 PMS scans each folder in real time and displays the results on your PS3. Additionaly there is an builtin media database which can be activated. If you scan your hard drive for media files additional infos for each file will be collected, e.g. MP3-tags (title, album name, …) for MP3 audio files. You can browse the media library in a virtual folder on your PS3 after scanning.
* reset media library: If the media database is corrupt you can use this feature to reset the content of the database.
* hide media library folder: don't show this virtual folder on XMB
* sort file method (dropdown): chose if you want your file list on PS3 sorted by name or date
* shared folders: All local drives are made available to PS3 by PMS. In a more secure environment you might want to chose the folders which are presented to your PS3. Press green + icon to add folders for access by PMS/PS3. Select folder and press red – icon to remove access to a folder. Press up and down arrows to change order of these folders.
* magnifying glass: Start first scan on your hard drive for media files to collect infos about them in a media library.

transcoding settings

common transcoding settings

* transcode buffer maximum size: This value is about how much temporary space should be used for buffering a video before sending it to PS3. Default is o.k..
* Number of cores used for transcoding (dropdown): This value is bout how many cpu cores should be used for transcoding. The maximum value depends on the physical available count of “real prpocessor cores”. That means hyperthreading virtual cpu cores don’t count! If you’re not sure analyze your cpu with free tool cpu-z on windows systems. On linux have a look at the virtual proc-filesystem. In file /proc/cpuinfo you will find more details about your cpu. You also get much infos about CPUs from AMD and Intel at the wikipedia-articles. Nevertheless PMS should be able to detect and set the correct amount of cores.
* Chapters # Transcode # folder support / interval in minutes: enable automatically creation of chapters every x minutes in virtual folder
* number of audio channels (dropdown): If you have a surround A/V-receiver or amplifier connected to your PS3 select 5.1, otherwise 2 channels stereo.
* AC3 audio bitrate: Here one can set the quality of digital audio sound. Your AV-receiver or amplifier has to be capable of playing this quality. Default is o.k..
* Keep DTS audio in stream: This enables playback of DTS digital surround sound via optical digital audio output (toslink) of your PS3. Keep in mind that this increases network traffic. Your AV-receiver or amplifier needs an integrated DTS-decoder for playback.
* DTS/FLAC – LPCM-remux: This enables playback of DTS digital surround sound via HDMI output of your PS3. Keep in mind that this increases network traffic. Your HDMI connected device (TV or AV-receiver or amplifier) needs an integrated DTS-decoder for playback.
* remux when audio track is AC3: Transcoding of audio will be avoided when it is AC3 (Dolby Digital). AC3 digital audio track will muxed into PS3 compatible container if necessary. This should be activated if your PS3 is connected to a TV or AV-receiver or amplifier which has an integrated Dolby Digital Decoder. This feature is not supported when using Avisynth based transcoding engines.
* maximum bandwith: This is some kind of network throttle. One may think it’s a brilliant idea to reduce network bandwith in order to get HD videos streaming via WLAN. My experience is that it won’t work as expected. You need lots of CPU power for transcoding. If that’s not a problem you will get really poor video quality when stream HD videos on low network bandwith. So better leave the default value 0. You should also note that this etting won’t affect muxed videos. You may have to enforce transcoding by choosing another transcoding engine.
* MPEG2 video quality settings (dropdown): If PMS isn’t able to stream directly or mux the audio/video to a PS3 compatible container it will transcode to MPG2, which is PS3 compatible. This costs lots of CPU power. This also will increase the network traffic because MPG2 compression isn’t very good for HD videos. You will need a 100MBit/s LAN or DLAN for playback of transcoded HD videos – WLAN won’t work (mabye some 720p videos will do). You are able to control the quality settings of MPEG2 encoding which corresponds to needed network bandwidth. So there are some parameters available to control MPG2 quality. Keyint means keyframes, keyint=3 means that every third frame is a keyframe which is a complete picture. In between there are two pictures which only contain differences to the predecessing picture. A high value for keyint will result in a lower network bandwith but will also cause bad quality in fast action scenes in movies. There are also so called quantizer values (vqmqx, vqmin, vqscale). High values result in low quality. I suggest to try out some of the Values available in dropdown.
* Definitly disable subtitles: Displaying subtitles will automatically enforce transcoding. If you won’t to avoid transcoding and definitly don’t need subtitles enable this feature.
* skip transcode for following extensions: enforce direct playback for certain filetypes
* force transcode for following extensions: enforce transcoding for certain filetypes

video files engines: MEncoder

* enhanced multicore support for h.264 HD content: Enable usage of special multicore version of mencoder tool. This will improve performance on multicore systems.
* skip loop filter deblocking for h.264: disable deblocking filter for h.264 HD videos
* A/V sync alternative method: If video and audio get out of sync disabling this might help.
* use video scaler / width / height: Usually the TV or PS3 is used to upscale the video to optimal video resolution. MEncoder is also able to do that for you which will cost additional cpu power.
* force framerate parsed from ffmpeg: If framerate isn’t recognized correctly (video is running too fast/slow) change this setting.
* deinterlace-filter: Enable deinterlace filter which will usually is done by your PS3 or TV.
* switch to tsmuxer when video when h.264 video is PS3 compatible: Enable this! When MEncoder transcoding engine is used and PMS recognizes a PS3 compatible video it will switch to transcoding engine tsmuxer. The video will then be streamed directly or muxed but not transcoded! This setting will dramatically reduce the need of transcoding. Matroska video (mkv) for example aren’t supported on PS3. Mostly the contained audio and video stream is PS3 compatible. So tsmuxer creates a PS3 compatible m2ts container which contains the original audio and video stream and the PS3 is able to playback. This feature reduces both network traffic (because of better compression as MPG2) and CPU power needed for playback.
* Expert settings: press button to change MEncoder parameters for certain codecs
* Custom options: add MEncoder options
* audio language prority: Fill in the abbreviation of your native language so that PMS will automatically select the right audio track.
* subtitles language priority: Fill in the abbreviation of your native language so that PMS will automatically select the right subtitle.
* audio/subtitles language priority: I think this language selection is special for DVD playback.
* subtitles codepage: The codepage should match the codepage setting on your PS3. cp1252 should be default.
* FriBiDi mode: enable FriBiDi GNU implementation of Unicode algorhithm
* ASS/SSA subtitles: support for ASS/SSA subtitle format
* autoload *.srt/*.sub subtitles: support for SRT subtitle format

video files engines: tsmuxer

* force fps parsed from ffmpeg: If framerate isn’t recognized correctly (video is running too fast/slow) change this setting.
* mux all audio tracks: Enable it in order to get all audio tracks muxed

FFMPEG DVR-MS remux

* alternative ffmpeg path: This feature is for users of Microsoft Windows Mediacenter Edition. If you have recorded some tv shows and want to watch the DVR-MS files with PMS/PS3 you need a special version of ffmpeg. Download and unzip this file in your PMS installation directory and restart PMS.

by **meskibob** » Wed Sep 02, 2009 9:22 pm

Troubleshooting - PS3
Error: When trying to view a folder that contains valid media, you receive the error message "No images", "No tracks", or "No titles" or you only see sub-folders (and can't enter them).

Solution 1: You're in the wrong section of the XMB (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XrossMediaBar). You have to be in Photos to view pictures, Music to listen to music, and Videos to watch videos.
Solution 2: You have hit the folder-depth limit (8 folders) and cannot browse any further in the folder tree. You have to share a different folder that is within the folder limit to the media you're trying to access (includes virtual folders like the #Transcode# folder). Note: this is a PS3 limitation.

by **otmanix** » Fri Sep 04, 2009 10:06 am

Troubleshooting - PS3
Error: Playback of video file stops at end of file and doesn't continue with next video file.

Solution: Playstation 3 XMB: Settings - Video Settings - Sequential Playback
Set the PS3™ system to sequentially play multiple videos that are saved on the hard disk or storage media.
http://manuals.playstation.net/document/en/ps3/current/settings/bdsettings.html#3616

Edit: Note - this only applies to files within the same folder. You will need a playlist to sequentially play media across different folders.

by **Dan** » Sun Sep 06, 2009 11:04 pm

Troubleshooting - PMS - Media Library (listed with PS3 errors)
Error: You receive two "Media Server Error: A DLNA protocol error (2006) has occurred" followed by "There are no titles" on the PS3 when trying to view the video folder that does contain valid video media.

Cause: There is a timing bug with PMS (as of the latest PMS beta 356 version) where the Media Library data isn't being sent in a timely matter (ideally within the first 30 seconds, up to 1 minute) to the PS3. The results is the above error and the PS3 timing out. If you restart PMS or the PS3, the process will start all over again. This error can not be avoided by using the Magnifying Glass in the Shared folders tab and section. Previous Media Library processed data is always checked and re-checked, making it impossible to be avoided.

Solution 1: For unattended results; reduce the amount of files contained in the shared directory. You'll need to find your own balance between your processor speed, the amount of files contained in the shared directory and the timeout of the PS3.

Solution 2: For attended results; after entering the Video PMS directory on the PS3, exit up one level. On the PMS installed machine, watch and wait for the JavaW.exe process to finish (measure the length of time between entering the directory and JavaW.exe finishing, you will need this information for later). Re-enter the Video PMS directory and shortly the names will now begin to be displayed regardless of the amount of files. Later, when this happens again, like before go up one level, but you'll now know how long to wait before re-entering the PS3's Video PMS directory.

Source: Discussion and more information click here.

Thanks Otmanix

by **ExSport** » Fri Sep 11, 2009 6:36 pm

Code: Select all: Music Settings --> Output Frequency 44.1/88.2/176.4kHz Bitmapping --> Off or Type2 Dynamic Normalizer --> Off

Code: Select all: Sound Settings --> Audio Output Settings --> untick Linear PCM 2 Ch. 88.2 and 176.4 kHz Audio Multi-Output --> Off

Code: Select all: Audio volume on PS3 have to be in the middle = Normal

Good luck

Edit: post moved as it fits nicely with this thread

by **otmanix** » Fri Sep 11, 2009 8:02 pm

Troubleshooting - PMS - Service (Windows)
Problem: How to change settings when PMS is running as a service
Solution: First of all stop PMS service. After that start PMS manually. Change desired settings in PMS GUI, press save-button. At the end stop PMS and start PMS service. Make sure that service is running with the same user account you are currently logged in.

by **meskibob** » Sun Sep 20, 2009 1:59 pm

Troubleshooting - PS3
Error: You receive errors or asynchronous/frozen/stuttering playback when trying to Fast Forward, Rewind, or "Scene Search" through a video.

Solution: This is to be expected on slower LAN connections or for any media that is being transcoded or remuxed. Use the PS3's "Go To" feature instead: http://manuals.playstation.net/document ... nel.html#9

by **meskibob** » Thu Sep 24, 2009 3:22 am

Troubleshooting - PS3 - Network Errors (OSX)
Error: When directly streaming videos (usually AVI or MP4) to the PS3, you receive "constant" network errors like

"A network error has occurred" (80710736)

while the actual playback is fine.

Solution: This is a known "incompatibility" between OSX and the PS3 FW (starting at 2.40) for videos that are directly streamed to the PS3. Transcoding the videos seems to work consistently for all users, while some have been able to bypass it by upgrading their network to gigabit.
Edit: it appears re-syncing your Trophies after getting a new trophy fixes the error (as indicated in the second thread linked below)

For more info see:
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2420
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=3245

by **meskibob** » Thu Sep 24, 2009 12:10 pm

Troubleshooting - PMS - Subtitles
Error: Native subtitles are missing for the non-native parts of a native audio movie (eg English subs for a non-English part of a mostly English movie, like the Russian spoken in "Hunt for the Red October")

Solution: Play the movie with the UND language (http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/php/code_list.php) subtitles, either directly from the #Transcode# folder or add UND to the "subtitle priority" setting under the MEncoder settings.

If there is no UND language subtitle track, you'll have to either:
a) manually select the proper language subtitle track from the #Transcode# folder
b) edit the subtitle tracks in the file (change language code, remove other tracks, reorder, etc....) - this is not available through PMS

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