the ps3 came today and i eagerly hooked it up to try it out.
frustration upon frustration set in when i couldn’t get the ps3’s HDMI to work. my configuration is a little awkward though. i’m actually feeding the ps3’s HDMI connection to my outlaw receiver which only has DVI inputs. so i am currently using an HDMI => DVI cable for video and a toslink cable for audio. it turns out that the way that the outlaw stacks its video ports over different connection types. that is, the component 2 video input and the DVI input are shared. so if you want to use DVI 2, you cannot use component 2 for anything else. makes sense, i guess….but that means that you are limited in terms of how many component inputs you can use if you use both DVI inputs.
anyhow, i got that mess sorted out and it looks like all is working just fine now. the next problem was that the ps3 does not support samba shares. this means that trying to share a folder over the network (like a windows share) is not possible. instead, what the ps3 does support is a DLNA media server.
what i really wanted to do is make use of my d-link dns-323 nas, but i had read that the UPnP server that comes with the NAS doesn’t work with the PS3. bummer!
i also read that gmediaserver is a DLNA server and there’s a port for the DNS-323 by fonz. great! i install and run it, but encountered some issues. i kept getting DNLA protocol errors. it turns out that the gmediaserver port by fonz for my NAS is broken and does not work.
by the way, i just wanted to take a second here to rant about DNLA. why? why oh why is this standard around? is it cutting edge? i’ve never heard of it until now. all of my streaming had previously been working over samba and it worked just fine. there shouldn’t be any royalties that you need to pay microsoft to use the samba protocol, right? grrrrr.
it seems everyone is using the twonkymedia server but i just don’t want to pay money for a streaming server. twonkymedia is a commercial product that seems to be compiled to work on a variety of platforms. what’s particularly interesting about them is that they support a large number of devices that have embedded linux. good for them, but bad for me, i don’t want to pay to stream files! but, i did install twonkymedia just to see if it works and it did work fine…
after more research, i read that the default UPnP server in the newly upgraded firmware for the DNS-323 should work. after a firmware upgrade, i enabled that, but it didn’t work. the same DLNA protocol errors!
after a little more research and some guessing, i found out that if you have the NAS’s iTunes server enabled, it interferes with the UPnP AV server. once that was shutdown, the NAS’s UPnP AV server seems to be working out ok. loads on the NAS are higher than i like them to be (i’m running a bittorrent client on the box too), but everything seems to be working ok.
after even MORE research, i’ve discovered that there’s a port of mediatomb for the DNS-323. mediatomb has an admin web interface and my initial testing of a video seems to work great.
so in summary:
to stream video from the DNS-323 NAS to your PS3, you need a UPnP AV server. the latest firmware has a server that seems to work fine, but you can also install mediatomb if you want something a little fancier.
*UPDATE*
there are a lot of issues with pure streaming of xvid files. it seems that if the encoding is not done properly (which is often the case in downloaded tv content), the PS3 will choke on your file. the way to ensure that your content will stream correctly is to transcode the files on the fly with something like tversity. i think that mediatomb now has a hook into mencoder if you have a powerful enough device to do real-time transcoding, but the DNS-323 is not that device.
until sony fixes the streaming issues, i’ve gone back to the xbox as my media center. 🙁
*UPDATE 2*
i have installed the twonkymedia server for the DNS-323 and have not yet run into any problems streaming video to the ps3. this really is awful because it’s a commercial product and you have to pay for it, but after the 30 day trial, i may end up buying a license because nothing else has worked problem free for me yet. i really wish that there was an open source/free solution that works on the NAS.
*UPDATE 3*
i have installed ffp 0.5 and the associated mediatomb package and everything works just fine for me for streaming to the ps3. it’s a nice free solution, though mediatomb’s indexing of mp3s is way, way slow.
I don’t know. I read the 1st couple paragraphs, saw the label of “techie,” and yet i STILL clicked on the “more.”
i tried to warn you. i knew it wouldn’t be accessible to most people because most people don’t have a PS3 and the same NAS as i do, but there are people on the net who do have that and their blog entries towards a resolution really helped me.
but i warned you!!
Thanks man this is very helpful as I was considering buying a 323. And just to confirm all I need is the latest firmware and it should all be sweet?
daniel, i’ve updated this post, but i have had issues with streaming files that have been downloaded over the internet. some files work fine, some work for a while and stop. it’s just a crap shoot. i suspect what the problem is that if the file is not properly encoded the ps3 chokes. not sure if it is incompatibilities in the xvid encoding with divx or not, but there are enough issues that i don’t use my ps3 as my media center yet.
I have a DNS323 and a PS3..I noticed you are having issues with your video streaming to the PS3..I don’t currently have this need, but I would like to be able to access my MP3 collection at the PS3…can this provide that capability without issues ?
justin, the mp3 streaming that i did had no issues when i tried it. you should be able to access your mp3 collection with the built in uPNP server that is built into the DNS-323. just make sure to turn off the itunes server because the two seem to interfere with each other in my experience.
you could go through the trouble of installing mediatomb, but i don’t really see the benefit.
I have the DLink 323 and 2 PS3s. I had trouble running some movies with the built in upnp so I installed twonky over the weekend and it works great so far. It seems to load the files faster and when scrolling through my 20000+ mp3s it is much faster. Also, when streaming movies to both PS3s at the same time it had serious problems before (very jittery) but now I can stream 2 movies at the same time with no problems. I also upgraded my network to a gigabit and both PS3s are wired, that seems to have corrected alot of the movie streaming issues the PS3 had after firmware 2.20. twonky is not free but it has made a huge difference.
i have been pretty adamant about not having to buy a uPNP server, but it may very well come down to it. it just makes me mad that i have to spend money just to get access to something that i already have.
In my opinion tversity is the best dlna \ upnp software out there
tversity is a great product, but as far as i know, it is a windows product and does not natively run on the dns-323. i’m hoping for a solution that is self-contained in the dns-323.
I just bought a DNS-323 and noticed that, when streaming mp3’s from it to my PS3 (both with most recent firmwares installed), the mp3’s ID3 tags aren’t read. When I used my PC’s Windows Media Player 11 as my media server, it worked fine. Do you know if the DNS-323 really doesn’t support it? Or may I be doing something wrong?
i haven’t done much mp3 streaming with the DNS-323, but the little i did from what i recall, they ID3 tags were not read, either.
i’ve had a PS3 now for a couple of weeks, a DNS323 for 4wks and after connecting the two i was able to listen/watch mp3 mpg ac4 mp4 but not all avi – interesting!
the dns323 is vB1.4 and the ps3 is 60G with all the old functionality but it still won’t see the organised content. it appears one of the media platforms needs to put the library content into the folder used under upnp – i’m trying songbird at the moment and will look for something else if it doesn’t work.
Great article and read!!!
I’ve have the same NAS and PS3 setup as you. I can get my movies to stream w/o any problems. It’s super quick. It sees my NAS drive. I go to My Doc, My Movies and they’re all there. It’s super quick and even works streaming to my PSP. My problem is I can’t get my pictures and music to work at all. It recognized the NAS drive but just won’t find MY Document, etc.
Any suggestions?
Thank,
Eric
Eric,
in your mediatomb config (for me, that’s at: /ffp/var/mediatomb/config.xml) add the line:
<map from=”jpg” to=”image/jpeg”/>
in the mappings section and you should be able to see the images. i didn’t have a need to view images on my share in this way, but i just tried it out and it works fine.
Hi, nice thread. Might need to check into mediatomb or twonky.
I don’t have any troubles streaming both MP3 and xvids (PS3 2.60, DNS 1.05), but I have a problem with the ps3 not showing all content on the NAS. And also new content loaded onto the nas is not shown. Although the indexing is set to 30min intervals.
Hi,
i got myself a ps3 recently and i wanted to stream video, photo and mp3 from my Dlink DNS 323. Can you email me a step by step configuration to the DNS 323? i’ve tried many way but it seems not working. the ps3 written there DLNA error occurred. Thx. my email is brian_mysurname@hotmail.com
sorry, brian, i don’t have step by step directions, but a good place to start is at the dns-323 wiki.
1) install fonz fun_plug 0.5
2) install mediatomb
Nice summary, I just hooked my PS3 up to a DNS-323 and ran into every issue you did. I could not get the default UPNP server to work but the latest build of mediatomb works great, with a little tweaking following the instructions in the Wiki.