In order to enable some engines you have to meet prerequisites.
Videolan / VLC
VLC (Videolan Codec) is a good choice for playing web streaming content. VLC is available for almost every platform including Windows, Linux and MacOsX. PMS is well tested with current version 0.99. You can download VLC here. VLC version 0.9.8a works well, later versions may have issues…
After installing VLC you have to restart PMS and enable the VLC engines. In PMS go to menu “transcoding settings”. Select “videolan video streaming” in the menu on the left side and press the plug-button to enable the engine. After that do the same with “videolan audio streaming”. You can use the blue arrow-buttons to change the priority of engines. I prefer VLC as default streaming engine. So I moved VLC to top position… After all press the save button and restart PMS.
Avisynth
You may think why bothering with transcoding when muxing is available… That’s absolutely right in most cases. But there are some video files which can’t be muxed because of special conditions. You may get for example a trailer with h.264 video codec but AVC level 5.1. PS3 doesn’t support that (yet). Maybe you don’t even use a PS3 for Playback but another streaming device like a modern TV which is only capable of playing MPG2. In that case you will need transcoding very often.
You can see that there are some reasons why people want to optimize transcoding. On Windows platform there is an additional method available for transcoding.
Avisynth is a frame server for free, available on Windows platform (developement of Linux version won’t be continued). Regarding PMS readme one should install Avisynth 2.5.7. I couldn’t detect any problems on current version 2.58 which you can download at Sourceforge. Latest Avisynth 2.5.8 seems to cause stuttering on certain files.
After installation of Avisynth you also have to install plugin vsfilter. Download it here. You have to decompress the 7z-file and copy the vsfilter.dll from unicode-subdirectory to your Avisynth plugin directory (C:\program files\AviSynth 2.5\plugins).
Decoding with ffdshow
Transcoding means decoding the video in the first step on the PC and in the second step encoding it to MPG2 and streaming it to your PS3. For decoding the free software ffdshow is commonly being used. In order to demux container formats ffdshow needs the free Haali Media Splitter. Both software are avialable as software packages, so called codec packs.
K-Lite Mega Codec Pack
Who wants to get an “everything included” package should consider K-Lite Mega Codec Pack which is available here. There are different variants available, from basic to mega but also a 64-bit variant.
After installing k-lite codec pack you may have to configure subtitles and your speaker setup.
Change to Windows Start menu “programs > K-Lite Codec Pack > Configuration > ffdshow audio decoder”. In menu “mixer” you have to set your speaker config. In order to get 5.1 surround sound (speakers: 4x surround, 1x center, 1x subwoofer) on your PS3 you have to set “3/0/2 – 5 channels”.
After that run “programs > K-Lite Codec Pack > Configuration >Haali Media Splitter” and change to options tab. Choose menu “languages” and select your language priority:
Audio language priority: ger,eng
Subtitle language priority: ger,eng
audio and subtitle languages: ger,off;eng,ger;*,ger;*,eng
Trackset languages: ger,eng
The example above is optimized for German language. Here is an example for English language:
Audio language priority: eng
Subtitle language priority: eng
audio and subtitle languages: eng,off;*,eng
Trackset languages: eng
The settings above are only vaild when avisynth video engine is used for transcoding.
Go to menu compatibility and set “autoload VSFilter” to “Yes”.
CCCP Codec Pack
For those who prefer minimal installations CCCP codec pack is the right choice. It is available here. Read FAQ for configuration. It should be similar to setup k-lite codec pack.
activate Avisynth-engine
After installing and configuring Avisynth, ffdshow and Haali media splitter you can enable both engines Anisynth/MEncoder and Avisynth/ffmpeg.
tuning performance of transcoding: decoding of h.264 with coreavc
With CoreAVC there is a very fast decoder for h.264 HD-videos available but it’s not for free. You can get a trial version which is valid 14 days. So you can try out…
First of all you have to disable decoding for h.264 in ffdshow. If you have installed k-lite codec pack goto Windows start menu “programs > K-Lite Codec Pack > Configuration > ffdshow video decoder”. Select menu “Codecs” on the left side and change format H.264/AVC from “libavcodec” to “disabled” and press o.k..
Now you can istall CoreAVC:
Haali Media Splitter is already included in codec packs and therefore doesn’t have to be installed once again.
You should enable CUDA if possible. Goto Windows start menu “programs > CoreCodec > CoreAVC > Configure CoreAVC”. Check “Prefer CUDA Acceleration” and press o.k.. Please consider that CUDA is only available for NVidia based graphics cards. You also have to install an up to date driver (at least version 181.64!).
There is no GPU-support planned in ffdshow. So CoreAVC is best choice for transcoding performance at the moment.
Update: regarding Windows7
use preferred filter tweaker for Windows 7 to change from preferred Microsoft DTV/DVD Decoder to another
Update: regarding VLC and streaming web videos
Using VLC for streaming web videos like youtube doesn’t work well anymore. I suggest to use pmsencoder, a PMS addon which works as a wrapper for mencoder, instead of VLC. Read pmsencoder readme for installation howto.
Thanks for this amazing guide, I have windows vista and CoreAVC is now working with windows media player 11 and just about everything else even PS3 media server. The specs on my PC are P4 3.0G 2 gigs RAM and Nvidia Quadro 570. Now my findings are that 1080p is running well at about 35-40% CPU, however when streaming via PMS to the PS3 and transcoding it is still a bit jerky and that’s most likely because of my slow PC. Thanks again for a great guide!
@ttt2k: Thank you for your positive feedback!
Regarding your statement… P4 is probably a Hyperthreading CPU – you should set 1 core in common settings and disable multicore-support in mencoder options. On the other hand there might be a bottleneck with your network connection because encoding to MPG2 (when using Avisynth/Mencoder engine) results in higher demand of network bandwith (because of worse compression compared to h.264). So maybe your CPU isn’t the bottleneck (when using CoreAVC with CUDA enabled) but the network connection.
Hi, after installation Win7 ult and again installing this program I couln’t find ps3 in my laptop, Before that I used with no problems with WinXP and 7beta.
I can not tel You what I did to resolve the problem. After many, many hours I unstalled the Java version (the latest on Sunjava) and installed Java from Java.com this was anonther version… PS3 mediaserver is working.
Nadat ik mijn laptop opnieuw geinstalleerd met Windows 7 Ult kon ik met geen mogelijkheid PS3-Mediaserver gebruiken. Volgens de log zou ik hem wel moeten zien maar ik bleef een rood veld met wit kruis krijgen. Ik heb van alles uitgeprobeerd met Windows Firewall, poorten, in mijn Router gekeken(waar het niet aan kon liggen want daar was niets aan veranderd). Op mijn zoons pc werkte alles echter wel maar het enige verschil was dat hij Java van een andere server had gedownload. Daarna heb ik mijn versie van Java verwijderd en opnieuw geinstalleerd vanaf Java.com en zie het programma werkt nu wel. Ik weet niet meer wat de versie van Java was die ik gedownload had van Sunjava met ik meen wel dat deze een hoger nummer had.
Hopelijk is dit een extra handvat voor anderen met dit probleem
@Anders: Dutch is a cool language and google translator is my friend. Reading Dutch without translator/dictionary is interesting, I can guess some sentences right without ever having had a lesson in Dutch language. To me it sounds like a mixture of German, English and sth strange
Du hast recht, aber das hat man mit viele Sprachen, ich habe auch etwas Türkisch und Rüsschen studiert und auch dort kan man viele Gleichnischen (??) finden.
Je hebt gelijk, maar dat heb je met veel talen, ik heb ook wat Turks en Russich geleerd en ook daar vindt men veel van het zelfde.
You are right, but that’s the same with other languages, I studied also a little Turks and Russian and there you see a lot of the same sentences.
But I wrote not for commentery on the languages but for the english and dutch readers of your “custumors” with problems
Anders
Thanks for the Guide, great reading. Followed configuration for VLC and CoreAVC, just couldn’t figure out why Web/Youtube content streaming doesn’t work (“data is corrupt”). Streaming of VOB files don’t work either (“no titles” in folder). I’m using Win 7 x64, VLC 0.9.8a & CoreAVC Prof. 2.0 Build 7783. Thanks
Hi Makadamia,
VLC support is broken in later versions of PMS – it’s only working on Mac afaik, but even there you have to use 0.9.8. Chocolate boy tries to fix some problems in mencoder engine in order to use it for web streaming instead of VLC. read this thread: http://ps3mediaserver.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5002#p22479
Drag’n'drop a video file to mplayer.exe (located in win32 subdirectory) in order to create font cache. Restart PMS after doing that.
P.S.
Is there a specific reason to double post your problems here and in forum?
Thanks, didn’t know that. I thought using VLC0.9.8a does the trick.
I stumbled over your great site after posting to the official forum and some G searches to no avail.
Appreciate your help, am willing to summarize in the forum thread if I get it working – promised
Hey Otmanix, first off, great tutorial it really helps alot. Although I have run into some problems I hope you can help.
I want to get Core AVC to work with PSM. I’ve performed every step in this tutorial, all the engines are installed and green, so to speak.
But to get HD streaming with support of Core AVC, which of the video engines has to be in bold letters? Thats the first question, 2nd I’ve
tried to put all of the video engines in de bold space (top priority) to check. Now it seems when I put either Avysinth/FFmpeg or Avysinth/Mencoder
in the top priority and I stream to my XBOX360 all the codecs (core avc, ffdshow etc.) get to working as I am seeing systemtrays of all the
codecs, but then my xbox says that he can’t play the file and all the system trays dissappear?? I hope you can explain my questions it would help
alot with understanding. If you need more information from me I will be more then willing to give it as I am desperate. I will check here for
a reply but I woul appreciate it if you mailed me ( bl_ckh_wk@hotmail.com )
Thanks in advance, Pedro
Im soo confused for the Avisynth and plug in? you said copy wht to where? HOW? If i dont have this what will it do>?
Jessica, after you download “Avisynth” from here http://sourceforge.net/projects/avisynth2/files/AviSynth%202.5/AviSynth%202.5.7/Avisynth_257.exe/download, Install it then download the plugin “vsfilter” from here http://sourceforge.net/projects/guliverkli/files/VSFilter/VSFilter%202.37/vsfilter_20051125.7z/download. After you unzip it open the unicode folder and copy the vsfilter.dll file and paste in C:\program files\AviSynth 2.5\plugins folder.
Hi
i followed the instructions……(and thanks)
But “Avisynth/ffmpeg” isent enabled ? (Avisynth/MEncoder is enabled) – what am i doing wrong ?
@briankdk: Did you select the Avisynth/ffmpeg engine, press the plug button, save and restart?
Hehehe
I dident know that i had to press the PLUG button
THANK YOU
Since i wrote my first question, i have installed COREAVC, after installation, i tryed to this:
> Configuration > ffdshow video decoder”. Select menu “Codecs” on the left side and change format H.264/AVC from “libavcodec” to “disabled” and press o.k..
But it was allready disabled ??
And now when using avisynth/mencoder, my CPU goes to 100% – when not using avisynth, i only use 60%, any idea what is wrong ?
Win Xp
Intel Core 2 CPU
6600 2.40GHz
3,5 GB ram (strange, im pretty sure i have 4 GB ram?)
and also a Nvidia 8800 GTS (and i cant get the CUDA icon to turn green
)
@briankdk: When using avisynth you force transcoding (live converting to MPG2) which needs lots of CPU power. Standard behaviour of PMs is to autodetect wether transcoding is necessary or streaming/muxing is sufficient.
>> 3,5 GB ram (strange, im pretty sure i have 4 GB ram?) << please google for 32bit vs. 64bit on Windows, you won’t get more useable RAM on XP 32bit…
ok, but when using mencoder i only use 60%
And before i installed COREAVC i also only used 60 % when using avisynth – and i thought that using COREAVC would make it use less CPU and not more ?
Without COREAVC 60 %
With COREAVC 100% leaving the PC totaly unusable (slow)
@briankdk: mencoder switches automatically to tsmuxer engine when streaming/muxing is possible, so probably tsmuxer was running, not mencoder… you should see this info in debug.log, you may also use process explorer tool from microsoft to analyze behaviour…
there’s no big difference between using mencoder or avisynth/mencoder/coreavc without using CUDA…
Ok.
If i want to post the debug.log….. would this be the right place, or is it better to do it in a forum ?
The Ps3 media server also tells me that the speed on the network is only 512 kb/s – which is strange since my network is 1 GB ?
@briankdk: please post your debug.log and problem description in PMS forum http://ps3mediaserver.org/forum/viewforum.php?f=6
please ignore not correct speed, it’s estimated by using ping…
typo
512 Mb/s
thank you for taking the time to help me
http://ps3mediaserver.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=6417
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Great tutorial dude!!
Ok first thing, are all these up to date – I mean can I use the exact same settings I see here?
And the second thing, I’ve installed the CoreAVC, should that also appear as a unique engine or not?
Thanks alot!
Hi Emre, there’s an updated howto with less details available for Windows 7. Click “ps3mediaserver” in the tag cloud or use blog search…
As you can read above CoreAVC is being used by Avisynth/Mencoder-engine when setup has been done correctly.
First off great user guide’
Now to my problem I’m trying to watch chinese films with idx/sub but I only see the chinese subs and not english I have set the languages to english as you’ve suggested.
It says in your guide to ” go to menu compatability set autoload VSfilter to yes ” where is that I can’t find it.
@Darren: This is a setting in program “Haali Media Splitter”.
Thanks for replying
I should have read your guide more thoroughly, I have set it as you’ve written but I,m still not able to see the english subs it always uses the Chinese, I can see them using VLC on my pc bout not in the transcode folder on my ps3. If you have any more advice I would be grateful.
@Darren: Have a look at debug.log. You should see why PMS is selecting the wrong subtitles.
In an avi file it only shows the sub selected in the idx so if the sub langidx is say id1 and thats chinese thats what I get but if I change the number to my preference it shows that one.
Hope this makes sense.
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Thanks for the great tutorial. I followed the tutorial and got Avisynth/FFMPeg to turn green but am running into a problem. Whenever i make it the preferred transcoding engine I cannot get any sound to play. I am forced to use Avisynth/Mencoder but would really like to get FFMpeg working. The video plays fine but audio is not working regardless of the container (mkv, avi) with ac3/mp3 audio codec. Nothing out of the ordinary in the ffdshow settings.
Any ideas?
Did you try a different version of PMS (or ffmpeg)?
Did you have a look at debug.log?
Did you post your problem in PMS forum?
I never used ffmpeg, so I don’t know this problem. You don’t have to make ffmpeg your default engine, you can also select it in #transcode# menu in xmb.
I am terribly sorry if I am embarrassing myself by asking such a rudimentary question but I am as of yet unsure of something. While everything you have specified has worked perfectly (excellent job-really, your help was absolutely crucial) I am wondering if there is a way around being unable to access itunes music/movies. I know that movies are drm protected, but the ps3 media server is able to get me all the way to the actual movie file before telling me that the file is corrupted and/ or unsupported. Which of these (if any) programs should I download to circumvent the problem? Or is this something that is simply unable to be worked out? Again, I apologize for the seemingly foolish question and appreciate any insight you might give.
Thank You.
Hi Barry,
I’m not an Itunes user at all, I can’t stand DRM, so I’m no help in that case.
Once I tested Itunes and had to find out that a big Itunes library costs a lot of Java memory in PMS (when Itunes support is activated). This leads to a lot of Java out of memory errors in PMS. There’s no option in PMS gui to increase size for Java memory. One has to manually configure these options. Therefore I see this option useless for most PMS users. It’s not working reliably. Maybe there are additional problems with DRM. But my opinion to that is: don’t use it all and you won’t have problems with that crap. There are enough download stores which offer DRM free music files.
is there any reason the CUDA icon refuses to appear when using AVISynth with CoreAVC installed and prefering CUDA acceleration?
This is a bug and should be solved in latest version of CoreAVC.
This is great piece of work explaining major features of PS3 MS! Though I have one question not covered above.
I have installed PS3 MS on WinXP PC which is then LAN connected to Panasonic Viera TV. Everything works well except screen format which is visible on TV. When transcoding movies (Mencoder) screen format is 4×3 even though original movie is 16×9. It happens for both SD like avi/divix or HD mkv files. This problem does not exist when playing plain movie (without transcoding) or via TSMuxer.
Are there any settings within PS3MS which could be changed to force 16×9 screen ratio when transcoding movies? Any other idea how to solve this issue?
Thanks in advance
mencoder options / codec specific parameters:
((double) width / height) >= 1.7 && ((double) width / height) < = 2.4 :: -mpegopts vaspect=4/3
or
-vf expand::::1:16/9
or
(((width/height) >= 1.8) || ((width/height) <= 1.7)) :: -vf expand=:::::16/9
search pms forum for more infos, read the section for alternate media renderers…
thanks for assitance. i will test it tinight.
This is a really useful and much needed site to help use and install PMS. Great program if/when I get it working!
I understand a lot more than when I started but I’m still struggling to get my head around a lot of this technology.I spent hours today reading over and over from Chapter 1 to Chapter 5.
I have the PMS Icon detected and showing in the XMB Menu on PS3 along with all my folders.
I have my music playing in Music, photo,s showing in Photo’s, and 2 short video clips playing in Video but have not been able to stream anything from the web yet.
Traces tells me VLC not supported, AVIsynth not found – AVI/ffmpeg will not be used, AVIEncoder will not be used and cannot use AVSmencoder.
Think I’m almost their. Can anyone help me over the last few hurdles?
@Borocavalier : Streaming Music/Videos/Pictures from your PC is the main focus of PMS. Streaming web videos was experimental all of the time and had low priority in developement. Streaming web videos as described in this guide doesn’t work anymore because of changes in VLC, PMS and protection of web content by the providers.
Afaik the only way to get web videos work is to use an addon called pmsencoder. Have a look at PMS forum for that.
Hello,
First of all for writing this guides are most useful, but ive encountered an issue and im completely clueless about it, i have been using the ps3 media server and out of the blue ive got the software stucked at “Searching for renderers” tried googling for answers and couldnt find anything, im pretty sure its just something like a checkbox but ive already tried all options and even reinstalled the application several times. Any suggestions for this case? Thanks in advance
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Hy,
i have applicated this tutorial, very completed, thanks Gatts79 but now, when i go to an explorer Windows and if the folder contained mkv files bigger than +/- 2Go my explorer.exe crashed….
I have try to fixed this issue by changed parameters of Haalli Media Splitter but without success
- Haalli Media Splitter / Options / Explorer integration /Enable thumbnails extraction value switched to Yes
- Haalli Media Splitter / Options / Explorer integration /Thumbnails offset value switched to 1000
Have you try to resolved this problem ?
Rgds
Akhlan
@akhlan
go to start menu > K-lite codec pack > tools – codec tweak tool
press button “thumbnail settings” and deselect mkv, apply and close
Hi, PMS worked perfectly on my older laptop with windows 7, but I can’t get it to work with my new laptop. After 30 minutes the tv goes silent, then the video cuts off with an error message of 8002 8801 ( i think) dlna error. I haven’t been able to find help at the ps3mediaserver.org either. Both the ps3 and the laptop are hard wired to the router.
thank you so much for the awesome guide. Im streaming 3d sbs to my ps3 now
@Coti
You’re welcome!