I’m addicted to Revision3 shows.  Every weekend, I sit back and watch the week’s shows.  At the end of January, Revision3 decided to change up their supported formats, dropping the Xvid format, my format of choice.  This left me with a choice of WMV or MP4.  I’ve tried streaming MP4s in the past of wireless G to the PS3 with no luck.  The amount of jitter makes them unwatchable.  I settled on WMV.  Although it worked, I wasn’t really satisfied.  The quality was far worse.  There were distracting artifacts.  Every week, at least one show would be corrupted.  Sadly, I was forced to make it work.

Then, my wife came to the rescue.  She had been asking me to cancel the cable for a few months now, as we hardly ever use it.  This past Monday, I made the call.  She was so happy I finally did it that she gave me permission to drill the hole, and run the Ethernet cable.  Today, I did just that.

So now, I’m resubscribing to my Revision3 shows again, this time to MP4.  I’m also going to play around some with other media servers that offer transcoding features.  I’m by no means throwing away the Windows Media Player solution.  It’s by far the best media server I’ve used so far, and if it works so well over wireless, it’s only going to be better wired.  Occasionally though, I’d like to play an MKV file without running it through Handbrake first.  Possibly PS3 Media Server?

1. Goodbye FeedDemon. Hello Juice!

FeedDemon really dropped the ball since I recommended it for downloading podcasts.  They moved from version 3 to version 4, and took the automatic downloading ofenclosures out of the free version!  Angered, I searched out another way to download podcasts.

I opted for Juice, as recommended by Revision3.  It’s a free, open-source tool designed for simply downloading podcasts.  I originally thought I needed all the newsreader functionality, but all I really need is a tool to download files to a folder.  Juice does that quite well, along with maintaining playlists in Windows Media Player for easy viewing.  They also have the ability to run an executable after download, a feature I’m not using yet, but am hoping to.  A feature I miss from TVersity is how they rename the podcast file name when streaming to the title of the podcast episode itself.  When I figure out how to set the video title metatag by command line, I will have replaced all of TVersity’s functionality that I used.

2. Goodbye GOTSent. Welcome back MKV2VOB!

MKVs don’t play on the PS3, but even if they did, MKV support for Windows Media Player is quite clunky.  The last file I tried to convert out of MKV using GOTSent failed on writing out the file.  Maybe it was a new Windows 7 security thing that I didn’t fully understand, but I didn’t care to try.  I gave MKV2VOB another try, and it worked perfectly.  I think I had something weird with the MKV splitter the first time I tried MKV2VOB, so it had issues, while GOTSent bundles everything it needs with itself, so it worked.  GOTSent is still a good second choice.

3. Windows 7 sharing permissions are annoying.

This was a non issue with TVersity.  Whatever folder I pointed TVersity at would stream just fine.  Windows Media Player however respects the Windows sharing settings for each file.  I’m not sure why, but video files always stream fine, while MP3 audio files default to a “locked” status.  The PS3 can see them, but can’t play them.

The solution.  Find the files in Windows Explorer.  They likely have a small lock on their icons, indicating they are not shared at all. Even if there is no lock icon, that may mean they are only shared with the “homegroup”, still not available to the PS3.  Highlight the files, right-click, “Share With”, “Specific People…”.

Select “Everyone” from the droplist, “Add” them, and make sure they have “Read” privileges.  I wish I could get music to automatically share nicely like video, but I’m not quite there yet.

Despite these minor hiccups, I’m still not missing TVersity.  With any new tool, there’s a learning curve, and I think I’m almost at media streaming bliss.

On the old machine, I had TVersity installed to stream media to my PS3.  The whole setup worked quite well.  The computer was wired to the router, while the PS3 was wireless.  Xvid streaming worked great.  Divx streaming had the occasional hiccups.  Anything 720p was unwatchable.

When I got the new machine, I recreated the TVersity environment with the same results.  Some of the stuttering issues are guaranteed due to the wireless PS3, but it still seemed like too much.  I started playing with settings.

I was able to eliminate the Divx issues entirely by setting TVersity to always transcode.  The problem with transcoding though is that you can’t easily rewind without having to trancode the whole video again up to the point you want to see.  Strike one.

Next I tried transcoding an MKV file.  Weird results.  Every time I started playing the MKV on the PS3, the TVersity server would shut off entirely.  I had to then open up the TVersity admin screens and restart the server.  This may have been a codec issue, but crashing the server entirely is just unacceptible.  Strike two.

Then the little things started adding up.   720p video in MPG format would show awful compression artifacts.  Although TVersity had scheduled library refreshes, I’d often still have to manually refresh to see new files.  My podcasts were no longer updating daily.  The main reason I chose TVersity was because of the built in RSS support for podcasts.  If that didn’t work, what was the point?  Strike three.

I’ve always seen Windows Media Player show up on my PS3, but have never taken advantage of it.  After unblocking the PS3 and setting up some folders to show up in WMP, I hopped on the PS3.  Impressive results.  Real-time refreshing of the folder.  Xvids still played perfectly.  The Divx files played without jitter.  The 720p MPG even played without jitter!  I’m sold.

Now the two missing pieces, podcasts and transcoding.  For the podcasting, I opted for FeedDemon.  It’s quite a feature filled RSS reader, but the key feature I liked was auto downloading of enclosures (or podcasts).  I resubscribed to my Revision3 shows, and in no time I was able to watch them.  Nice.

Next, the transcoding.  With this setup, MKV transcoding is a guaranteed no go.  I tried a few  conversion tools, but they all seemed to crash.  (Maybe it’s because I’m running Windows 7 64 bit.)  The tool that did work was GOTSent.  Sure it takes a lot longer than MKV2VOB, the program I used before, but it gets the job done, the output looks good, and it streams great.

The things I’m going to miss about the old TVersity setup:

• TVersity has built in podcast support.  No need for a separate application.
• TVersity renamed the podcasts to the titles from the RSS feeds.  Now, I just see the file names.
• TVersity can trancode files to other formats on the fly.
• TVersity has a web interface for managing the media server.

What I love about the new WMP + FeedDemon + GOTSent setup:

• WMP was running anyways, so there is now one less media server running in the background.
• WMP runs as 64-bit, taking full advantage of my computer’s capabilities.
• WMP updates in real time.  No need to do a manual refresh for new files.
• FeedDemon has easy to configure, feed specific settings.  TVersity has feed settings, but not nearly as granular.
• 720p over wireless G baby!

Why didn’t I try PS3 Media Server?  Well, I did.  But it was quite confusing to set up and I never got good results.  WMP seems to be my answer for now.  Seriously, try it out.  You will be surprised.

[UPDATE: PS3 Media Streaming project, part 2]

PlayStation Web Media Players.

Ok.  My name for it kind of sucks, but imagine.  From the XMB screen, select Web Media.  A list of channels appear within the menu itself.  New channels are available through the PlayStation Store.  Select a channel to see a list of available shows.  Select anything, start watching.  Simple.  Easy.  Wonderful.

The concept isn’t new.  Boxee does it.  Sony could just as easily do it too.  They’ve already started with Major League Baseball.  The problem, I don’t watch MLB.  Networks is what we need.  YouTube, Revision3, and other online video sites.  And something for Canadians!  I’m tired of Canadians being second-class citizens for web content.

Sure you could use the web browser on the PS3 itself, browse to the website, navigate to what you are looking for, and ultimately watch the show.  With Flash support, it’s not impossible, but it sure is clunky.  A clean, nice interface for it would be great.

Sony, hear my call.  Build more web media tie ins.  Maybe even talk to Boxee about putting the whole Boxee platform on the PS3 itself.  That would accelerate the whole process.  And while you are at it, movies in the Canadian store would be awesome as well.

I work for my municipality in the IT department.  There, I maintain existing in-house and third-party systems, develop new systems, and support city employees who use the systems.  My official title, Systems Analyst/Programmer.

That said, work went quite well today.  My day was without meetings, so I was able to tie up some outstanding work from last week. I was also able to make some good progress on my web project, and answer a few user requests. I really felt productive.

The weather was absolutely gorgeous.  My office is right on the water, so on my lunch, I took a nice stroll on the boardwalk.  I almost didn’t need a jacket.

Things took a turn when I got home.  Sarah had plans with the girls, so I thought I’d watch Community and The Office, and try out the new PS3 firmware.  Unfortunately, my hopes were dashed.

According to the release notes for the 3.21 PS3 firmware, its pretty much just a security update, at least from the PS3 Silm perspective.  I was really hoping for more video formats, but that didn’t happen.  That was just wishful thinking anyways.  I’ve decided to wait until tomorrow to do the update.

As for TV, seems like this week is between seasons.  Yesterday, no Dragons’ Den, today, no Community or The Office.  Sarah’s shows, Survivor and Grey’s Anatomy are new, but not mine.  So instead, I’m watching reruns of The Office.  I probably could watch my Revision3 shows, but I’m thinking of watching The Marriage Ref at 10, so it’s a little late now.

The good news is, I have a four-day weekend ahead of me.  Not too sure what I’m going to do with it yet, but I have it.  I’m still not too used to having days off.  I’ve only been at this job for a couple months.  In my previous job, we were extremely short staffed, so holidays were workdays without client calls.  Now, a day off is a day off.  Maybe I’ll go for a bike ride.  It’s supposed to be nice out.

• There is some ice cream left in the fridge.  After this post, I think I’ll have a bowl.
• I have a pretty important deadline at work that has been consuming a lot of my time, and everyone else’s work depends on.  Once it’s done, I can get back to my web project, and I won’t feel so under the gun.
• PlayStation is coming out with a firmware update for the PS3.  It removes the Linux functionality from the older models.  I have a newer one, so that doesn’t affect me.  Nothing else is said in the announcement on the PlayStation Blog, but there has to be something more to it.  I’m hoping the update may support other video formats.
• Four day weekend!

In April:

• The weather is getting nicer.  That means more boardwalk strolls at lunch.
• My birthday is in April, and there are a few things I’ve wanted, but have been told to wait.  Maybe in April.

In the few months after:

• I actually get vacation at work this year.  This may be the year for our honeymoon.  Two years late, but better late than never.