The Joys of PMS!

[rolf]

There is a LAN, here, over a Linksys WRT54GL running Tomato Version 1.28. Main desktop, IGEL server, a couple other occasional hobby/backup/spec boxes, DirecTV box, and PS3 all enjoy internet through this router and a TRENDnet TE100-S50g 5-port switch. The desktop video card, EVGA 9500GT, allows me to run a second HDMI cable to the 50" plasma Samsung and, with nvidia-settings, I can have a second display, there, play Columbo isos with Kaffeine. There is, also, UPnP, Universal Plug and Play, and DLNA, Digital Living Network Alliance for serving media files over the network. I have tried Mandriva's packages for uShare, MiniDLNA, MediaTomb, which serve files on the network via these protocols, but they have had drawbacks. Lately, I have come across the inspiration for this report. PS3 Media Server is a DLNA compliant Upnp Media Server for the PS3, written in Java, with the purpose of streaming or transcoding any kind of media files, with minimum configuration. It's backed up with the powerful Mplayer/FFmpeg packages. It is more full-featured than I know what to do with, having various transcoding/muxing capabilities that have been configured to make things happen on the PS3 over network. It will play my Columbo isos and has a very straightforward browsing of my desktop file system. One of my complaints with ushare was that I had to configure it to serve certain directories, start the server, and wait a long time as it consumed much cpu indexing the indicated files. With PMS, I just start the PS3, start the script, and the whole of my desktop filesystem is displayed on Sammy within a few seconds. Ah, PMS. The best yet!

[viking60]

Great stuff!
The PS3 Media server seems to work. But where exactly do you keep your Colombo isos? On the PS3? You might have mentioned it, but like Colombo I always forget that last minute thing.

[rolf]

isos, mp4, avi, all the media files, in this case, are in my desktop, served to the PS3 by PMS over the network. With PS3 and PMS running, there is a "ps3 media server" icon on the PS3 screen menu, under "Video", something like this:

and the desktop filesystem is browsable on the PS3, there, something like this, where music is being browsed:

It all is pretty seamless as this software and the various machines let it happen out of the box, lucky for me.

[viking60]

Yup pretty neat.
Works a bit like my Boxee Box then
I can also add USB HDD's to it like you can (I belive) with all the Colombo isos you can get a hand on.
I have a Samsung 48 or 49 LCD flat screen. I bought it in Germany and I had to unpack it to get it in the backseat of my car.
But unlike you I am not so lucky with the HDMI cable so I will get me a HDMI switch (for the TV side).

[rolf]

Oh, I think Boxee box is smarter than Sony's PS3. I'm impressed that Kaffeine can play isos, directly, but the PS3 will not do that on its own. PMS does the necessary translations to make isos and other files play, when PS3 says only "unsupported format" or "no titles found", when left to do the job by itself.

[R_Head]

Sony is a big time anti piracy advocate.

They tend to be very paranoid if you have some that they think you have not paid for

I backed up some of my good DVDs in case I go on road trips the good ones are kept at home.
My Sony PS3 and DVD player would not play some of them.

[viking60]

Yup they are so eager with their DRM that they even created a world famous rootkit:
http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2005/11/5514.ars
http://news.cnet.com/Sonys-rootkit-fias ... 61248.html
http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/20 ... urface.ars