This project is complete for now. I’m waiting a couple of years to see how OLED or SED pans out before replacing the display, but the major additions are done.

TV: Samsung LN-T4665F 46″ LCD
Receiver: Onkyo TX-SR605 7.1 receiver
Speakers: Paradigm CC-70 Center, 4x Paradigm Atom
DVR: Scientific Atlanta 8300HD (running Passport)
Console/Blu-ray: Playstation 3 (60GB)
Console: Xbox 360 Elite (Falcon)
PC: Home-built Asus P5E-VM HDMI E6400 @ 3.2Ghz, eVGA 7950 GT KO
Music: Apple Airport Express
Router: Linksys WRT54G running DD-WRT
Power: Panamax M4300-PM Line conditioner
Remote: Logitech Harmony 550 Advanced Universal Remote
Keyboard: Apple Wireless Keyboard (aluminum)
Mouse: Logitech G7 gaming mouse

An AppleTV may be in the future, but $230 for the privilege of renting movies is not worth it, especially since I have a PC directly plugged into the setup. I don’t see any of the digital download/streaming services working for layfolk without a standard set top box solution in the picture. Apple TV is a possible contender to be that device. Using Unbox, Netflix, Joost, etc. made no sense until I had the PC jacked right into my HT setup. I don’t see any layperson going that route though.

I know I was a big proponent of streaming, but all the hassle of TVsersity, Windows Media Center, etc. seems like such a pain-in-the-ass compared to playing content directly from the PC in Zoom Player. I realize this is not a viable option for everyone.

This has turned out to be a fun (albeit expensive) hobby. I can wait to get a house so I can go big time with it.

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!

Microsoft has officially announced the worst-kept secret in the gaming space, the Xbox 360 Elite. The “Elite” is the same unit that’s been on sale since November 2005 with a HDMI port welded on, bigger hard drive thrown in, and a MacBook inspired matte black finish. Retail price: $480.

What really bothers me is the quality of the hardware. The defect rate of the current Xbox hardware is higher than that of any consumer electronics device I can recall. How does Microsoft address the issue? By rolling out a new unit with the same guts at a higher price point.

Microsoft planned to introduce a redesign of the 360’s innards early this year utilizing a 65nm CPU which would reduce the amount of heat produced, theoretically increasing the reliability of the console. A lot of people thought Elite would house the new CPU, now it seems that plan is in limbo.

It’s not just the CPU that’s problematic. The 360 comes with an enormous power brick, nearly 1/3 the size of the console itself, which has been reported to overheat on its own. This has prompted people to devise less than elegant solutions to combat heat-related crashes. Considering that both the Playstation 3 and AppleTV have internal power supplies and no wide-spread reports of heat related crashes makes me wonder if Microsoft’s hardware engineers have a single clue as to how to design consumer electronics.

Here’s a few questions. Would you buy a TV with a lifespan of less than two years? Would you buy a TV that if left on too long overheats and shuts down? Would you buy a TV with internal components louder than the actual content you are viewing?

My first TV cost me $200 and has lasted almost 20 years. Paying nearly $500 for something 1/10th as reliable is not what gets me, as much as the fear that people are just going to ultimately accept that consumer electronics should no be built to last does. With nearly ten million Xbox 360 owners out there, I’d say my fear is justified.

Paul Thurrott on Apple TV:

For these reasons, Apple TV is recommended only for those people who have drunk the Apple Kool-Aid and decided they really like the taste and can afford the upscale lifestyle. General fans of digital media or those who are interested in accessing PC-based media from their TVs should know that there are better solutions out there.

That’s fine and all, but he also says:

For the same price, you could get an Xbox 360 and use that device to stream media from any XP or Vista-based PC, access live and recorded TV, various online music, movie, and photo services via its Media Center Extender functionality and a Media Center PC, or download rented and purchased TV shows and movies, many in high definition (unlike iTunes, which only offers standard definition video).

The Xbox 360 “tard pack” is $299, the same price as Apple TV. This does not include a hard drive, or high-definition cables (the box includes “low-def” composite cables, not component) so his point that Apple does not include cables is moot.

The $399 unit (that’s $100 more than Apple TV) comes with a hard drive (a whopping 20GB, with ~8GB free when you take it out of the box thanks to the system software), half the size of Apple’s. It also lacks HDMI output, so all content suffers from an unnecessary digital to analog conversion.

There’s also no internal wireless connection on the 360 (that’s $99 more), bringing the overall price to $100 - $200 over the price of the Apple TV.

But in all fairness, the Xbox 360 does do more:

It also plays DVD movies, and, heck, it can play high-definition video games too. Yes, the thing sounds like a wind tunnel, especially when its playing games, but it’s far more versatile and powerful device than the Apple TV. And it costs exactly the same price.

However, Paul fails to mention that the Xbox 360 has worse DVD playback quality than most $99 stand-alone units. Besides, can you really enjoy a film with the box screeching like a F16 the entire time?

As for games, not everyone looking for a media center device is in the market for a hardcore gaming console. Rewind back to 1977, it would be like buying an 8-track player with a pinball machine grafted onto it. Convergence, bleh.

Not to worry, BOHICA, Microsoft will soon roll out a $480 Xbox with a 120GB HDD and HDMI. If you add the external HD-DVD drive ($200) that’s quite an expensive (not to mention unsightly) media center device.

When you add it all up, if a high-end game machine *slash* media center device is what you’re after, you’re better off getting a Playstation 3. You get a Blu-Ray player, internal HDD, internal Wi-Fi, HDMI, and high definition gaming for $599, almost $200 less than the Microsoft solution. All in one nice, quiet package.

So, basically, I’d recommend Apple TV on the low-end, the PS3 on the high end.

Possibly the coolest game demo I have ever seen.

LittleBigPlanet

Overheard on a forum…

Poster 1: So, I just quit WoW for good, (deleted all characters etc), uninstalled the game, canceled the subscription and took a deep breath outside and looked at the sky. Now I suddenly have a crapload of time available (35 hours a week).

Poster 2: 35 hours? Pfft, casual.

If you’re like me and don’t have an hour and a half to sit in front of your computer and watch John Carmack’s Quakecon 2006 keynote this one’s for you. I ripped the audio and enhanced it a tad for iPod consumption.

Link here.

I might pick up a Nintendo DS just for Brain Age when it ships in the US. Brain Age is a game consisting of nine basic tests such as math questions that aim to sharpen your mind and lower your “brain age” which is optimal at 20. At the least it beats rotting away playing Oblivion.

I really like “learning tool” games. I have been using Absolute Pitch Blaster for a while now and it’s really helped sharpen my ear in regards to tone. I’m totally going to program my kid to be genius though the miracles of modern technology (j/k shit like that drives kids to the pole).

Related topic: When I was a kid I had a weak eye and had to wear coke bottle glasses through elementary school. Playing Atari eight hours a day was able strengthen the eye enough that I didn’t need them in high school (at least according to my ophthalmologist).