Optimizing TVersity for the PS3 (Part I)
With the introduction of firmware 1.80, the Playstation 3 has become a full-fledged media center device, thanks mainly to DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) support. There has however been a lot of confusion on how to get the PS3 working with the various DLNA and UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) servers. There are quite a few servers available, including TVersity, TwonkyMedia, Nero MediaHome, and Windows Media Player 11. This guide will focus on TVersity, as it is currently the most popular and full-featured solution available.
The main benefit of TVersity is its ability to transcode media into a format the client device can process. Currently, the PS3 can only render MPEG and AVS (H.264) formats. This is a problem because the majority of content available on the Internet is in alternative and open formats such as Xvid, Divx, and x264. This guide will explain how to optimize TVersity to stream these formats at the best quality possible.
What you will find here is the result of scouring countless forums, trial and error, and good old fashion common sense. The goal here is not to take credit for discovering the optimal settings for streaming media with TVersity, but to get everything down one place, written in a clean, concise fashion.
Step 1: Clean Out Your Codecs
The number one reason people have problems with TVersity is that the codecs installed on their system are not in order. The majority of “Unsupported Format” and “Corrupt Data” errors are the result of missing or invalid codecs.
The first thing to do is to get rid of all the disparate codecs installed on your system. This includes stand-alone Xvid, etc. codecs as well as installs you may not suspect such as Nero Premium and tools like AVI Splitter.
A good test to see if your system is clean is to try and play a Xvid or x264 file from Media Player Classic or VLC and it not playing. If the video renders there’s a codec still installed on your PC and you need to track it down and uninstall it.
Step 2: Install CCCP (Combined Community Codec Pack)
CCCP is an organized collection which contains all the codecs and tools you will ever need to decode the various media formats out there. It is recommended that you first run the CCCP Insurgent tool to verify there are no lingering codec packs on your system. After you ensure your system is clean, install CCCP and reboot. Do not skip the reboot step! It’s a pain but it’s important.
If for some reason you do not want to use CCCP, there’s the K-Lite Codec Pack. I found it does not play nearly as many files as CCCP, but it’s a good alternative. Do not install both! Another alternative is to install ffdshow by itself. You may not be able to play as many formats, but your system will not have a gazillion codecs installed (which some consider bloat).
Step 3: Install TVersity
The current version of TVersity is 0.9.11.4 (December 30, 2007). TVersity is very much a work in progress. It can crash or stop working at times but for that most part it’s the best tool out there for streaming media to the PS3.
TVersity consists of two components: The media server itself (which is invisible to the user) and the Flash front-end. The front-end does not need to be running for Tversity to operate. The media server runs as a system service. Unfortunately, due to a bug involving permissions in 0.9.10.7 the media server Windows service needs to be tweaked to ensure proper operation.
Go to the Windows Services applet (from the Run… menu type “services.msc”) and in the list find the “TVersityMediaServer” service. Double-click on it and go to the “Log On” tab and change the process to run under your Windows account as shown below:
If the service is not already started, start it. Also insure the Startup Type is set to “Automatic”.
At this point TVersity should be operational. I am not going to go into how to add your media to the server as that’s beyond the scope of this guide and it should be fairly straight forward.
Step 4: Optimize the Transcoder
The goal here is to optimize the transcoder to output the best possible video quality possible. Keep in mind that this involves a great deal of horsepower and network bandwidth. I am transcoding on a 3.2Ghz Core 2 Duo processor over a 802.11g wireless network (with an excellent connection) and have yet to hit my head on the ceiling with these settings. Your mileage may vary and if it does you will need to scale back where appropriate, especially if dealing with HD content.
Start up the TVersity front-end and navigate to the Settings->Transcoder tab.
When To Transcode?
This should default to “Only when needed” so keep it there. This will allow TVersity to pass-through MPEG and AVS formats without transcoding overhead and image degradation.
Maximum Video and Image Resolution
This determines how the transcoder will scale (down) your media in order to conserve network bandwidth. We want the best image possible so set both of these fields to the maximum resolution of your television. I have a 1080p native set so I set it to 1920×1080. If you’re at 720p set it to 1280×720. The “Image resolution” boxes pertain to photos, it does not hurt to crank them all the way up as well.
Windows Media Encoder
TVersity uses DirectShow under the hood to do the actual media transcoding. CCCP installs a DirectShow encoding/decoding filter called ffdshow which does all the magic behind the scene. Further versions of this guide will go into optimizing ffdshow for better video quality, but let’s get everything working first.
Make sure the “Use DirectShow…” checkbox is checked and that the Windows Media Video version is set to “9″. You can choose an older version of Windows Media for faster decoding but 9 produces the best image quality (at least on paper).
Optimization
This is a no-brainer. Tag it for quality.
Connection Speed and Quality
Here’s where things can get sticky. I’m on a 802.11g connection in a small apartment and have no problem settings the connection type to “Wired” and the signal strength to “Excellent”. If you notice network stuttering or dropouts definitely scale these settings back.
In my experience the PS3 does a thorough job in buffering content. As long as your PC can encode at a pretty decent rate (2x or greater) the connection settings don’t mean much as the PS3 will buffer way ahead of what is being played, assuming your network can keep up.
Compression
By transcoding we’re essentially re-compressing and already compressed file. This equates to a degradation of image quality. Set compression to “Minimum”. This is going to result in a larger file being sent over the network, but it results in better image quality at playback.
Decoding Speed
Finally, ensure the “Decode the media as fast as possible…” box is checked. The PS3 times out pretty quickly if the media does not load fast enough and this setting helps with that.
Step 5: Optional Tweak
Output to MPEG2
In the TVersity install folder (C:\Program Files\TVersity\Media Server) find and edit the file “profiles.xml”. Ensure you are in the “Sony Playstation 3″ profile block, there should be a block of code that looks like:
<!-- When transcoding is needed to which format should we transcode -->
<transcodeTarget
audio="audio/x-wav"
video="video/mpeg16"
photo="image/jpeg"
onlineAudio="audio/mpeg"
onlineVideo="video/mpeg16"
onlinePhoto="image/jpeg"
adjustReadStartPos="false"
audioFailFutureSeek="false"
videoFailFutureSeek="true" />
Change it to read:
<!-- When transcoding is needed to which format should we transcode -->
<transcodeTarget
audio="audio/x-wav"
video="video/mpeg2"
photo="image/jpeg"
onlineAudio="audio/mpeg"
onlineVideo="video/mpeg2"
onlinePhoto="image/jpeg"
adjustReadStartPos="false"
audioFailFutureSeek="false"
videoFailFutureSeek="true" />
This will ensure the transcoder produces MPEG2 video as opposed to MPEG1, which results in overall better looking video. You will need to restart the media sharing service from the TVersity front-end after making this particular change.
Conclusion
You should now be able to playback nearly any video file you throw at your PS3 in high-quality. Granted, I’ve come across one or two files that refused to play (mainly video podcasts or Flash video) but for the most part I’ve been enjoying high-quality steaming media using TVersity and the PS3.
If you encounter any problems be sure to check the TVersity Support Forums, the PS3 Forum in particular.
Part II of this guide will go into further quality optimizations including tweaking of ffdshow and profile.xml hacking.
Enjoy!
August 5th, 2007 at 6:06 pm
Great guide, I have just set this up as well and it runs good. I will be wiring my ps3 instead of using wireless and I should be able to get a little better quality out of it.
I will be running a dedicated box for the server and the shares.
Can’t wait for the next part of the guide.
August 6th, 2007 at 4:51 pm
Hi i followed you instructions and still i get the data not found or what ever…
it plays on my vista machine even through tversity but on th e ps3 it does not work..
i did the -debug and found when i click the avi to play on the ps3 i get on the ps3 data not found or what ever but on the vista machine a little ff icon comes down in the task bar..
you have any solution fer me as its driving me nut…
to note i am running nod32 and spyware software ive tried disabling firewall opening ports and whatever has been suggested on the tversity forums.. still data m=not compatable….
Help please
Denis
August 9th, 2007 at 12:50 am
Great guide! When is the second part comming?
August 12th, 2007 at 10:41 am
Part 2 will be out when the next version of TVersity is released.
August 13th, 2007 at 3:39 am
I couldn’t understand some parts of this article Optimizing TVersity for the PS3 (Part I), but I guess I just need to check some more resources regarding this, because it sounds interesting.
August 16th, 2007 at 3:15 am
Thanks for the great guide. One question, I’ve got a 1080p TV, but is there any benefit in setting the video resolution to 1920*1080 if the source I’m generally viewing is a HDTV rip of a TV show which is 624*352. At the moment, my resolution in TVersity is 1280*720p. Will it make any difference changing this if the source resolution is smaller? If so, presumably that will require additional processing on the PC. Thanks.
August 16th, 2007 at 9:36 am
Lee: It really makes no difference in your case. The video resolution entered is the threshold at which point anything that passes it will be scaled down. TVersity does not scale up, so your ~720p content will be passed through unscaled with your res set to 1080p. If you’re on wireless it’s probably a good bet to set your resolution at 720p (or lower if your videos stutter) so content above 720p gets scaled down to something more network friendly.
Hope that helps.
August 16th, 2007 at 7:56 pm
hey this is all good but it may as well be russian to me wich i dont understand i would like to get this to work on my PS3 but am afraid i might do something wrong so if it can be spelled out more and you will help me i would be gratefull! thx in advance Blay
ps Blayros is my PS3 handle you can add me if needed!
August 23rd, 2007 at 7:50 pm
awesome man
really helpful. Can’t wait for part 2.
August 28th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
[...] for noe møkk. Følgte denne guiden til punkt og prikke, men tversity nekter å transkode. Får feilmelding "Datatype er ikke [...]
September 2nd, 2007 at 9:30 pm
Hi!
I followed your guide but i still cant see .avi files on my ps3. It says it doesnt support the file.
When I used the CCCP Insurgent tool it found K-lite but it said (uninstalled) so then it shouldnt matter right? And also I didnt quite get the part where you change from local system to this account. On my omputer I have only one account and I dont have a password. Must I still do this step and if so, what password should I write in?
Tversity runs great when I watched converted movies in mp4 format. But I really really want to be able to see .avi movies directly. Please help me!
September 7th, 2007 at 2:28 am
@Tenge…
IMO the best thing you can do if you are using Windows XP is a fresh Windows Install (I was using vista but was PITA… really… now using Windows XP)… then install ffdshow rev802 20070120… nowI can play everything I throw to my PS3… even HD files in .MKV format after installing Haali Splitter codec… I think you have kinda a Codec Hell on your PC like I was having before (codecs packs sux big time)… hope it helps!
October 3rd, 2007 at 6:22 pm
Just a bunch of questions,
I am a vivid user of CCCP mainly for anime on my computer as a lot of it is encoded in crazy formats, though the most common is AVI and MKV. If I use this guide I will be able to completely view all of my shows in their HD format correct? It doesn’t matter what format it original was made for and it doesn’t matter what resolution the fansubbers have made it to be correct?
One last thing, for those people who for some reason, and I imagine some people still do not know where to find it. CCCP or Combined Community Codec Pack can be found here http://www.cccp-project.net
Am I able to view my files on my PS3 without having to start up TVersity all the time?… do the files get stored on my PS3’s HDD and are they able to be read at anytime at the resolution I have set on my HDTV that atm (I might get a new one) only supposrts 720p?
CCCP is way better than any other codec packs I have seen out there, it gives you everything you should need to view just about every common file used for whatever it is you want to watch.
October 3rd, 2007 at 6:26 pm
Just to add to my comment about CCCP… it was made for the majority of anime fans that loved watching their programs and needed codecs for them. They even have Chiyo-chan (or atleast mine does) from the anime Azumanga Daioh… =P CCCP all the way!
October 7th, 2007 at 11:52 pm
This Guide is great But CCP is going to screw you over when it comes to MKVS, for codecs Instead of CCP all i use is FFDSHOW, AC-3 filter, Core AVC, Haali Media Splitter and Lame MP3 codec. All files play perfectly for me this way and i don;t have a Bloatware Codec Pack on my system causing Excess bagage also In FFDSHOW i turn off Decoding of ac-3 audio and H264 Video as its not very good at either task compared to other codecs i listed.
So if you want simple and easy. This works like a charm Just Make sure if you decide to try this You Remove all Codecs from your pc first , and reboot afterwards! before u begin installing these codecs clean.
October 9th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
CCCP works fine for me with any files. I haven’t had problems with it in a year of using it on my computer but I can’t say the same for PS3 because I don’t have one yet. But Everything works for me with CCCP, no problems on my friends PS3 and all I did was download and istall it and made no changes at all. works fine for his PS3 and great on my PC… most of the anime files I download are MKV as they are better quality than AVI and are mostly 720p.
CCCP comes with ffdshow (video and audio)/ haali media splitter and all of the codecs installed in one place, so it’s not confusing at all and they can all be controlled through MPC easily.
My system is not a dual core and the only time it seems to lag is when windows update tries to do something it doesn’t have to haha. My pc is only 1.8GHz as well, with 1GB of RAM… ffdshow and haali can also be controlled to only show up with certain players, I only use Media Player Classic, which came with CCCP
October 10th, 2007 at 2:49 pm
GReat guide !!
Thanks for your work. It did work perfectly !!!
October 15th, 2007 at 8:01 am
I have just installed this this weekend, went pretty smoothly, everythings on default at the moment, and it’s playing everything. And now I have found this guide I can tweak it…
Just wanted to say a couple of things
If you want to play audio – you have to do it from the audio menu on the PS3
If you want to play video – you have to do it form the video menu…etc
also
on my system I do a search for media servers and it constantly returns “no server found” and then I just leave it and after about 2 or 3 minutes it appears by itself… odd
October 17th, 2007 at 5:37 pm
this helped me a lot.. better than those videos.. thank you
November 3rd, 2007 at 2:16 pm
This is a great tutorial I got TVersity to show up on my PS3 fine the only issue I am having is video play back especially .mkv files. I have installed CCC/K-Lite and I cant get the video playback to work. When I try to play a file the audio and video stutters after about 30sec. I have uninstalled both TVersity and the codec packs and reinstalled all of them I also tried it on a clean system. So can anyone help with this issue. TVersity installs its own codecs should I not install them and just use CCC/Klite or should I install them also? I have tried just CCC pak and just Klite pack. I use the CCCPinsurgent tool to see if any codecs are left. My computer is more than enough to have this work, but I am at a loss.
Any help is appreciated.
February 17th, 2008 at 3:57 am
I assume when installing tversity (newer version than mentioned here) you should not install the codecs when suggested since the cccp pack already took care of that?
February 17th, 2008 at 8:14 am
Let CCCP install all codecs. Run CCCP Insurgent first to make sure there’s no previous codec packs installed.
February 18th, 2008 at 6:31 pm
This doesn’t work at all concerning MKV files.
March 5th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
Thanks for your help getting this set up. I am running into a major block, though, and i have no idea why my computer is doing this…
in regards to
“Go to the Windows Services applet (from the Run… menu type “services.mscâ€) and in the list find the “TVersityMediaServer†service. Double-click on it and go to the “Log On†tab and change the process to run under your Windows account as shown below:”
after entering my user name, when i click Stop and then Run, i get an error message, telling me there is an issue with the login info. when i change the password to mine, i get the same error. and when i change the password at all, it automatically changes itself back to the long number of dots originally located in the field. what the f is going on here???
March 23rd, 2008 at 7:22 pm
Hi,
Great guide, I have no problem at all reproducing music or videos; however if I tried to see a picture it will take forever and will give and error 8000100B, do I need something else in order to reproduce pictures? BTW, I checked on the ps3 and the formats for the picture should be supported.
April 13th, 2008 at 5:01 am
To everyone with problems regarding Tversity, PS3 and .mkv-files:
Visit http://ekoshyun.blogspot.com/2008/01/10-steps-to-stream-any-type-of-video-to.html or simply go to http://forums.tversity.com/viewtopic.php?t=8063&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=30&sid=a44d08379d96af868c09590a99cb1272 and scroll down.
The problem lies in the decoding of the subtitles inside the .mkv-files which tend to mess shit up. There are workarounds though. Anyways, good luck!
October 10th, 2008 at 3:30 am
Hey thanks for the comprehensive list of tweaks…really helped but having some problems like the other people here with regards to the MKV files as well as HD AVI files. Probably because my connection strength is way to weak.
Just as a suggestion though, could you include a guide to setting up the PS3 as well since this is also required to play files at their BEST..
Looking forward t part 2 and maybe an update since TVersity has an update too