Java PS3 Media Server for dummies – chapter 2 networking and technical basics

network foundations

Before installing and running PS3 one should get an overview of the network topology. The Playstation 3 communicates with the PC or Mac. If one wants to see web content like youtube videos an internet connection is required. Most used technology for accessing the internet is an ADSL- or cable-internet-connection. You connect the socket with a modem (ADSL or cable) which will later do the dial in. The modem can be connected directly to the PC or Mac. But most people use a WLAN-router to connect. The router is then a gateway to the internet for PS3, Mac and PC.

WLAN

In most WLAN-routers nowadays there is an integrated modem and WLAN-accesspoint. The PS3 and notebooks both have integrated WLAN-NICs and can therefore communicate via WLAN when logged in into the access point. The integrated WLAN  network card of PS3 is compatible to standard 802.11 b/g. This means a maximum network speed of 54Mb/s. To log in into the WALN-accesspoint you need the following infos:

• WLAN network name (SSID)
• WLAN network password (PSK)
• encryption standard (WPA, WPA2)
• radio channel / frequency

All these settings are defined on your WLAN router / accesspoint. If there are a lot of WLAN-networks in your range try to change to a radio channel with the biggest frequeny distance regarding the other cannels. Otherwise you may experience poor network quality and speed. Another quality factor is having walls with much ferroconcrete.

You can reach an average speed of 35Mb/s. For streaming HD videos this might be not enough…

LAN

What is the advantage of LAN (wired connections)? Its maximum bandwith of 1000Mb/s. One big disadvantage is you have to wire all devices, so you need physical access. The devices (PC, Mac, PS3) have to be wired with Cat5e S/FTP with RJ45-plugs. All devices have to be connected to your router integrated switch. Of course you can extend the switch ports of your router with an uplink to an external switch. If your router switchports are 100Mb/s you can tune up maximum speed with an external 1000Mb/s (1Gb/s) switch. The link speed and duplex mode should be handled automatically via autonegotiation. Sometimes it doesn’t work correctly and you have to change settings on your PC or Mac by yourself.

example screenshot for changing linkspeed and duplex mode in Windows XP:

DLAN

If it’s not possible to wire your devices but you need an higher network transfer rate there is a solution available called DLAN aka powerLAN. In this case you use your power line for sending data accross it. Market leader for this technology is devolo. You can get DLAN adapters with up to 200Mb/s.

Update:

Now there are new 1Gb/s powerline adapters available from Belkin!

TCP/IP, DHCP, ICS, DNS and firewall

The router is default gateway for all devices in your home network. The communication is done via TCP/IP protocol. In such a network every device needs an identifier called IP-address. More than one program on your PC can use network at the same time. Therefore these programs also use an identifier called port number. PS3 media server uses port 5001 as default. You can change that if it is already used by another software. Your home network is a private network and therefore uses special IP-addresses. The IP range is limited by the so called subnet mask (e.g. 255.255.255.0). Because nobody can memorize a large numbers of IP addresses (like 74.125.67.100 for google.com) you need another network service called DNS which translates IP addresses into domain names and vice versa. The router forwards DNS requests to a dns server of your provider and sends the answer to the requesting device.

Setting up an IP-network is not a simple task. There was also a need for automation. DHCP solves this issue. Your router has an integrated DHCP server which sets up every network device (PS3, PC, Mac) automatically. You mustn’t use DHCP and internet connection sharing (ICS), a windows feature, at the same time. ICS has to be deactivated.

It is possible that your PC or Mac has more than one network card builtin. If you use vitualization software (VMware, Virtualbox, …) additional virtual NICs are created.

For security reasons a firewall is integrated in your router. The firewall restrics communication with the internet. Most router integrated firewalls do not restrict communication in your local network. It is also possible that there is a personal firewall software running on your PC or Mac. To get PMS running you have to open port 1900 (UPNP discovery) and 5001 (PMS). If you change the port for PMS in configuration you have to change  your firewall settings as well.

UPNP

Windows only discovers UPNP devices in your home network when SSDP service is running. Here is an Microsoft kb article how to enable SSDP.

machine power

You can stream media files with quite old PCs and Macs. If PS3 doesn’t recognize the video container format and has to remux you will need some additional CPU power. A 2GHz CPU should be sufficient. When transcoding a video on full HD resolution an up to date dual core processor from Intel or AMD with at least 2,6GHz is necessary. It is also necessary to have enough network bandwith available when streaming HD videos. It is nearly impossible to stream a full HD video via WLAN, even when restricting network bandwith and setting video quality very low. You should also have enough free RAM, which means about 512MB. There is also some space needed on your systems hard drive for buffering videos. 500MB free disk space is enough. If you want to stream media files from an external hard drive please consider that an USB1.1  connection is too slow for videos.