Blog

media

Viewing posts tagged media

16 Mar 2009

messing around with DLNA

By Rudy

W00t! I think we’ve finally figured out our DLNA setup.

Picked up a pair of Aztech HL108 HomePlugs from Low Yat which totally fixed the Wifi bottleneck problem. 1080 HD content streamed flawlessly from the media server.

The only remaining issues were stream compatibility on the PS3 and codecs. CCCP and TVersity combination did not seem to work for certain AVI-packaged HD content (Harry Potter 6 trailer). Playback of this video on Windows Media Player (WMP) had the video lagging behind audio by a few seconds.

PS3 Media Server (PMS), however, managed to play every single thing we threw at it, except for CDG karaoke files (which TVersity can’t seem to play either). Only caveat is that the media layout on the XMB doesn’t look as clean. There will be files that PMS can’t play the first time, but you’ll have an option to go into a #TRANSCODE# folder for that file and manually choose a transcoding option. You can even change PMS settings from the XMB, but I’ve yet the need to touch anything.

By all means, this doesn’t mean we’re done testing. Both TVersity and PMS are still enabled on the media server. I still want TVersity to work for everything because we may have more DLNA devices in the future (say, another home theater setup in the bedroom :D). I’m also still wondering how the quality of PMS’ transcoding compare against other products on the market, e.g. TVix (RM 1800~ but looks great) or the WD HD Player. We’ll want to make CDG work as well, as Fai and I are both karaoke freaks. 🙂

11 Mar 2009

messing around with tversity

By Rudy

Yesterday Fai & I messed around a bit with TVersity streaming to the PS3. We followed a particularly long thread on TVersity’s support forums on the proper installation sequence of ffdshow and other relavant codecs.

Playback of the usual divx videos, like the TV series we usually download, worked well without any problems at all. Only problems we had were selecting audio tracks on VOB files, some clipping when playing a particular packaged AVI (FF7 AC with stereo/5.1 tracks), and stuttering when streaming that particular 5.1 track.

For the stuttering part, the bitrate display on the PS3 went up to about 6-8MB/s (can’t recall if it was bits or bytes). I’m guessing the wireless 11g network is the bottleneck, and my crappy Linksys router isn’t helping either. Tonight, we’ll continue testing using wired Ethernet for confirmation, and I even downloaded a full HD trailer of Watchmen for this purpose. 😀 If there are no hiccups, then it’s confirmed to be a wireless issue, and maybe that’ll push me to pick up an 11n router (or I could go back and grab the 3com router from my mom’s home).

Worst case scenario, short of breaking down the walls to lay cable, is to buy two 11n routers and WDS them together.

PS: Another alternative to TVersity is the PS3 Media Server, which is especially made for the PS3. Might give it a go as well.

11 Dec 2008

we wants hunter loot!

By Rudy

Will be replacing the WoW ItemStats plugin with the ‘Powered by WowHead’ script. At least it’ll be something constantly updated. 🙂

So, here’s the pre-raid loot we should be gunning for:-

King Dred’s Helm
King Dred – Drak’Tharon Keep (H)

Hauberk of the Arcane Wraith
Anomalus – The Nexus (H)

Dragon Slayer’s Sabatons
Keristrasza – The Nexus (H)

Grips of the Beast God
Gal’darah – Gundrak (H)

Hollowed Mandible Legplates
Hadronox – Azjol-Nerub (H)

Massive Spaulders of the Jormungar
Gortok Palehoof – Utgarde Pinnacle (H)

Belt of Tasseled Lanterns
Zone Drop – Gundrak (H)

Eaglebane Bracers
Eaglebane Bracers – Leatherworking

Will look at trinkets and accessories later. This is all pre-hitcap, so things will change after.

For now, Daryune and I will continue farming AV till we get our Frostwolf Howlers. Hopefully the winning streak continues. Frostwolf Perfection, anyone? 🙂

29 Nov 2008

revamped media landscape

By Rudy

There was a time when I was going to build myself a nice HTPC to stream all my media downloads to TV, as well as replace the usual Astro box as a PVR.

Well that plan has now gone to hell, with the acquisition of a certain piece of equipment. Let’s just say this piece plays really good looking games and is a uPNP/DLNA device. Let’s also say that it’s really expensive. 😛 For now, let’s call this the ‘media client’.

With this purchase, it looks like a HTPC is no longer necessary. Replacing Astro with a PC-based PVR doesn’t seem worth the effort too, so the idea to use MediaPortal will now be replaced with TVersity, a uPNP/DLNA media server software for Windows. With it, I can just stream stuff over to the media client, with support for on-the-fly transcoding just in case the client is anal about format.

Problem is this still needs me to set up a Windows 24/7 server to host the media. So I might use uShare as an alternative. uShare is another supported media server, but for Linux/BSD machines. That means I can continue using my BSD server for torrent downloads, and stream media directly from it.

Speaking of the BSD server, which I named Mario for some odd reason, it will have its Gnome GUI software removed with needed components migrated over to console. Gnome was becoming a pain in the butt to maintain, and I only needed it to run Azureus, which is also being replaced by TorrentFlux.

But anyway, looking forward to to the new way of things.