tearing my hair out with blu ray rips and steaming to PS3

[aleicgrant]

ok..............

I am really frustrated and I know I need to step back and think about this but wanted to make a quick post so maybe, just maybe someone who is an aboslute guru on stream HD to the PS3 can come in and save my day.

here goes

In the early days of the PS3 it was quite clear the format,standards and studios were going to make it tough to play HD streams on the PS3 so I moved on, bought a small HTPC and built up a nice collection of ripped blu rays and using mymovies. It was fairly straight forward with the occasional hiccup. But the color from the PC was never quite as good and even though I had it running through an Onkyo 906 series amp it was also never hd sound

So I recently discovered PS3 Media streaming and thought my prayers were answered and I could ditch the HTPC. but in some regards I was wrong or I have been doing things all wrong

Until now, I have been ripping my blu ray collection doing the following.

Anydvd
Tsmuxer (is select on the video track and the best audio track available and choose blu ray as the output)
imburn to make ISO for PC playback.

Then I discover the world of PS3 Media Server and get excited thinking I can ditch the extra pc and have all my HD rips on the PS3.

Well here is where things get dicey.

Typically, when i use tsmuxer I remove everything but the video stream and what ever the best english audio steam (true hd, dts hd etc) and then it spits out a m2ts file that I then turn into an ISO. I mounte the ISO and then it can play via powerdvd and mymovies (media center plug in)

well with PS3 Media Server, they dont handle true hd files per se and DTS HD is not the easiest

So at first I got the impression I should use something called eac3to so I could change the sound to an AC3 file which the ps would play all the time.
Simple? somewhat but extremely time consuming and I found it was not always fool proof.

then I was told to not bother with that at all but to you MKV2VOB which would simply 'trick" the PS3 into playing the file but that doesnt seem to work because the original files are all M2TS and its looking for MKV files.

Needless to say I am at my wits end... with over 300 rips and tearing my hair out.

if there is a understanding soul and guru of all things MKV2VOB who can take me under their wing I would be forever grateful

HELP

THANKS IN ADVANCE TO ANY WHO CONTRIBUTE TO THIS MESS

[t0nee1]

You could demux/extract the streams from the m2ts file(s) with Tsmuxer, then mux using mkvmerge..Import the mkv in MKV2VOB....Or with Tsmuxer create a .TS file instead, I believe you could import the .TS file in MKV2VOB..Try it..

[aleicgrant]

what is the only audio stream I have is a True HD or a DTS HD steam? Even if a change it to an mkv I understand the PS3 wont play it back. I do have an Onkyo 906 receiver that decodes all HD audio

[yoda313]

I know its probably not what you want to hear but if you buy a western digital tv media player you can dump all your bluray to a harddrive and the wdtv has hdmi out to boot. It works great. Does mkv and m2ts with the original audio.

Might be worth looking into. I have one but don't use it much lately. It is very compact and is not much larger than a thick paperpack book. Coupled with the required harddrive it might even be a smaller footprint than your htpc - certainly smaller than the ps3.

FYI there is also the popcorn hour to consider as an alternative.

Point being the wdtv and the popcorn hour are more friendly to the hd formats with less work required to get them going......

[aleicgrant]

I am going to take a look at it. Question, will it be able to see my network to pick up my enclosures. I have over 10 TB's of movies.

[bmo]

I know that tsmuxer has an audio option to downcovert TrueHD to regular DD AC3 on the fly, so technically this would produce a PS3 compatible file assuming you have a movie with AVC video and TrueHD audio as these wouldn't require any extra steps (like using eac3to). However, if your audio is DTS HD MA, then you will have to use eac3to to convert the audio to AC3 so the PS3 won't have any problems with streaming it.

Alternatively, you can try a program called ClownBD, which does roughly the same thing as tsmuxer in addition to apparently having the ability to convert both HD audio formats (TrueHD & DTS HD MA) to AC3 on the fly. I haven't tried this program yet myself, but if I was reading the guide correctly (http://www.networkedmediatank.com/wiki/index.php/Remux_Blu-ray_HD_DVD_Main_Movie_for_Playback), you could use ClownBD to produce a PS3 streaming compliant file containing AVC video and AC3 audio.

If your movie contains VC1 video, then that's a whole different story. Currently, the PS3 can't play streamed VC1 videos. However, there is another method to play them from a portable hard drive or usb drive that will trick the PS3 into thinking it's reading from a disc. See this page for details: https://www.videohelp.com/tools/AVCHDMe
The advantages of this method are that you get VC1 playback, you don't have to worry about converting the audio at all as the PS3 thinks that the movie is on a disc and therefore will play HD audio formats without any problem, and you can keep the subtitles as well.

Hope this all helps.

[aleicgrant]

I do appreciate everyone's comments. And while I was hoping to make the transition to just using the ps3 for my movies i think its not in the cards at the moment. I have far too many movies I would have to convert. After looking at the suggestion of the popcorn hour, I think that is the way to go.
I can at least ditch the HTPC and only get a small but very powerful piece of equipment to handle the task. maybe in the future someone will crack the code and figure out how to stream HD audio.video seamlessly on the PS3.

Until then

Cheers

[theghost500]

Rip bluray using AnyDVD
This produces 1 (of many) large file with your main movie data.
i.e. C:\EQUILIBRIUM\BDMV\STREAM\ (yes I know this is actuall a VC1 disk)
start tsmuxer (I use 1.8.8b) and select the file.
next remove all tracks bar the ones you want
Select what ever the Video Track is (Except VC1, not got a clue about how to play these on ps3)

The first audio track is usually English
If it's True HD AC3 simply down convert to AC3 (there is a check box for this in tsmuxer)
Select the M2TS file format and proces, you are done for now ! Jump to (2 below)

If main audio track is DTS EX, you have to demux all the tracks at this point
take the dts file producde and use eac3to to convert to ac3
Restart tsmuxer, add your video and new ac3 file
Select M2TS and glue your files back together.

(2)
Next you want to be running tversity, the free version wil do
Tell it where your M2TS files live and then go looking for you media server
on your ps3, you can either play back the file assuming your network has enough
bandwidth, or you can copy the file accross to your ps3, (I have copied 40gig files across)

As stated, this does not work for VC1 disks, and you can only pass AC3 audio, not the true HD tracks or anything DTS
but this method does work.

Enjoy

[mshilly]

I use my PS3 to play all of my HD content (ripped blu-rays, HD-DVD, Cannon HF100 AVCHD recordings). Inthe case of HD-DVDs and VC1 blu-rays or blu-rays with DTS audio there is some work involved (vc1s get re-encoded, DTS gets converted to AC3). I have 50 titles plus all my HD home movies on my server and the PS3 performs flawlessly.
AnyDVD or DumpHD, TSMuxer, eac3to, autox264 are the tools I use. I have a 3TB homemade dedicated server with all of my media files on it. It takes 15 minutes to do ausio conversion and 8 hours to do a vc1 re-encode. (AMD x4, 4GB).