I recently decided to use my PS3 which had been collecting dust since I got it back in Christmas. If your not aware the PS3 can be a decent media server and if your model comes with built in wireless, well it provides an easy way to sling your media box to remote locations in your home, as well as the PS3 is a Blu-ray player. Combine this with a 1080p/i LCD and your lovin it. Under Vista and XP it is quite easy to set up , I dont feel like providing walkthroughs ( I will provide support for anyone who needs it though), you can read on HOW TO’s HERE. Even if you didnt buuy a more expensive model, the standard cheap PS3 comes with a 10/100 LAN connection as well as optical audio, and HDMI. For those old school idiots, trust me….HDMI makes a world of a difference. Whatever you do, do not go running down to your local Best Buy (which seems to be the only place open after Cicuit city, CompUSA, and Fry’s closes down), because Best Buy has the most insane mark ups. I bought a 12 ft HDMI cable with gold plated connections and shielded cabling, for $11 bucks, from a local electronics store, brand new. The same cable at Best buy was selling for $98….amazing.
A lot of retards on the net say that PS3 can only access FAT32 formatted HDD, but that is a misconception, all my HDD are NTFS, and the PS3 reads the just fine. Ive slammed 5tb into my media server and now sling it across the house to my other PS3 upstairs, and am have it working with my Wii as well, which was a little more difficult and since it uses a webservice type setup, it does downscale your videos for faster throughput, you can read how to do that HERE.
Amazingly the PS3 can handle quite a bit of tasks as a media center, it can have playlists, play your favorite music, yaddi yadda yadda, all the stuff a simple media server can do. If your downloading BLU-ray videos like me, like a lot of people out there, youll notice that some jackoff decided to start encoding everything in .mkv file format, which sucks and is slow (resource intensive) in my opinion, AND does not play on the PS3, let me repeat….no matter what updated PS3 you have , it WILL NOT PLAY MKV…unless the 120 or so mkv videos I had were just special and unique (TPB DL’s). So grab this handy and fast converter MKV2VOB, set it up, convert it to avi, it retains the quality and viola, it now plays on your PS3.
If your still using Wireless G/B/A routers, and you plan on using the wireless in the PS3, you’ll definately want to upgrade to wireless N, it is worth it and especially if you plan on watching and streaming BLU-ray videos, wireless G will barely cut it. If your using a wired solution, it would help to be using a 10/1000 connection, and hopefully your smart enough to know that 10/1000 only works with Cat5e , Cat6 or Cat6a twisted strand, NOT Cat5… but I don’t feel like explaining the difference just take my word…or don’t and be like a local tech nob head at Best buy.
Setting up your PS3 to read HDD on your computer is a relatively simple task, it doesn’t take some computer guru to set it up, and if your having trouble drop me a line and I can hop on to your PC remotely using CrossLoop, it’s safe, fast, and free…kinda like drunk cheerleaders, but more intelligent.
Have fun kids!
-Exempt
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