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PS3 + hdd for movies. Is it doable?

post #1 of 24
7/20/08 at 5:09pm
Thread Starter 
I have a question for those seasoned ps3 owners. Id like to purchase one of those external usb-base hard drives and hook it up to the usb ports of my ps3.

http://shop1.frys.com/product/5654671

The hard drive would typically be attached to my pc where I would transfer all of my movies into it, then I'd attache it to my ps3 for viewing. Is this possible and if so, what dvd player program could I use (the default ps3's) to read the movies on the hard drive. Could the dvds be encoded in a format the ps3 would (ie avc)

Thanks

Victor
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post #2 of 24
7/20/08 at 5:19pm
Well you'd have to make sure the drive is formatted for for Fat32. If you have a windows pc it'll make if NFTS and your ps3 won't recognize it. You'll probably have to go to disk managment and create several partitions because fat32 is limited to 32Gigs.

Also the files would have to be in a format your ps3 can use.
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post #3 of 24
7/20/08 at 6:12pm
Quote:


fat32 is limited to 32Gigs.

Fat32 is not limited to 32GB. I believe the limit is around 2TB. Windows 2000 Professional and XP Professional cannot FORMAT a volume larger than 32 GB. I have a USB 250GB formatted in Fat32, hooked up to my PS3. With Fat32 you are limited to 4GB file sizes. I used SwissKnife to partition my drive. Just Google it.

There's plenty of info out there dealing with what movie format the PS3 can handle and how to do it.

Hope that helps
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post #4 of 24
7/20/08 at 6:13pm
Quote:


You'll probably have to go to disk managment and create several partitions because fat32 is limited to 32Gigs.

FYI, you can make fat32 partitions over 32gig, just not through the easy windows format interface.
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post #5 of 24
7/20/08 at 9:43pm
It's possible, this is how I watch my 80gigs of HD content on my PS3, with a Western Digital Passport plugged into the USB. They just have to be converted to a format the PS3 will read. I usually just convert to mp4.
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post #6 of 24
7/21/08 at 8:26am
Quote:
Originally Posted by gooki View Post

FYI, you can make fat32 partitions over 32gig, just not through the easy windows format interface.

With Vista you can.
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post #7 of 24
7/21/08 at 8:29pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks everyone for responding. I'm still an XP user so is fat32 the best method to format and what is the best program (aka cheapest) to convert my dvd movies into a format the ps3 will easily read?

Victor
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post #8 of 24
7/21/08 at 8:45pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by victor-eyd View Post

Thanks everyone for responding. I'm still an XP user so is fat32 the best method to format and what is the best program (aka cheapest) to convert my dvd movies into a format the ps3 will easily read?

Victor

Fat32 is the ONLY option not the best. To get DVD rips DVD Decrypter is free and what everyone uses pretty much. Since Fat32 is limited to 4gb file sizes you have to compress or convert some movies. (vob will work if under 4g)

I'm still trying to find a good program for that myself. (Divx is a no go as the PS3 limits it to 2gigs per file)
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post #9 of 24
7/22/08 at 12:53am
Quote:
Originally Posted by victor-eyd View Post

what is the best program (aka cheapest) to convert my dvd movies into a format the ps3 will easily read?

PS3 Video 9 should work. Though I'm sure there's something better out there. If any of your movie files are .mkv (unlikely if you're ripping them yourself, I think), I recommend GOTsent.
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post #10 of 24
7/22/08 at 2:24am
Just keep in mind that you can't really play the movie like from your DVD.
You will have to select the VOB files to play (so no menus or subtitles) and some VOB files will give you problems to play properly.
Just so you know it's not a walk in the park.
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post #11 of 24
7/22/08 at 2:39am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kedas View Post

Just keep in mind that you can't really play the movie like from your DVD.
You will have to select the VOB files to play (so no menus or subtitles) and some VOB files will give you problems to play properly.
Just so you know it's not a walk in the park.

Would stuff like chapters work?

On a related note, it would be fantastic if Sony updated the XMB so you could insert chapter breaks into any video file. I keep a few movies on my HDD and this would be greater than great, but I don't know how possible it is.
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post #12 of 24
7/25/08 at 6:57am
I am going to be upgraging the HDD on my ps3 soon.

I have an external USB hdd that I currently use with my PC, could I use swissknife to create a part of that harddrive my ps3 could read and back up onto while keeping all the files that I use on the PC? And when I do back up the PS3 does it keep all my saved games and such?
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post #13 of 24
7/25/08 at 7:01am
You can do this but why spend hours uploading/compressing content when the machine has an optical drive on it? It usually takes more time to encode a movie than to just watch it. Music I understand. I'll never understand this for video.
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post #14 of 24
7/25/08 at 8:53am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ulnevrwalkalone View Post

I am going to be upgraging the HDD on my ps3 soon.

I have an external USB hdd that I currently use with my PC, could I use swissknife to create a part of that harddrive my ps3 could read and back up onto while keeping all the files that I use on the PC? And when I do back up the PS3 does it keep all my saved games and such?

You don't need to create a new partition to back up your PS3, it just creates a folder on the current partition with the backup data.
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post #15 of 24
7/25/08 at 10:53am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Martez View Post

You don't need to create a new partition to back up your PS3, it just creates a folder on the current partition with the backup data.

ok so if I reformat my external to whatever it needs to be so the PS3 can read it then I can back up onto it, but when I am done can I just plug it back into the PC and still use it like before without changing formats again?

PS- I have a 1gig flashdrive but I figured this is too small for what I want to do
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post #16 of 24
7/25/08 at 11:00am
Yes, you can backup the PS3 data to the hard drive and keep using the drive as normal for other stuff. My 120gig Passport has my PS3's backup data along with about 70gigs of video and another 20 of music, and all my documents and junk.

As for the 1gig, it depends on what you've got on your PS3's drive. The backup function will also backup all the music and video and whatnot you've got on there. If it's just the basic stuff, it might be under a gig.
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post #17 of 24
7/25/08 at 1:48pm
Using a program like DVD Shrink, you can rip most standard DVDs (not Blu-ray) in less than 15 minutes. Once ripped, you have one VOB file that can be played on the PS3. However, about half the movies I've ripped have problems with playback on the PS3 - it'll usually hang at some point and won't allow you to FF or RW. I don't know why some movies are like this and others aren't. Also, you get no chapters when ripping this way, so you're stuck with FF and RW through the movie, if that works.

My conclusion is that it would be nice to have all these movies on the hard drive, but the PS3 isn't quite there yet. Re-encoding takes too much time and hurts the quality. It's best just to rip to an ISO then burn a DVD-RW when you want to watch it.
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post #18 of 24
7/26/08 at 5:11am
You always have the option of just buying an eSATA hard drive. Then buy a cable from the external drive to go to where the PS3's hard drive should be. But you would have to remove the stock hard drive. That means you could have up to a 1TB external hard drive attached.
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post #19 of 24
7/26/08 at 12:03pm
Thread Starter 
The sequence/setup I am envisioning is this:

Buy/Rip dvd into xp pc via dvd fab. Convert vob files into ps3-readable video file and tranfer that file into an external usb hard drive. Disconnect and reconnect with ps3 which is hooked up to a Channel plus whole house video system. I'll probably/probably not need some sort of signal extender so I can bring the controller upstairs and access the hd movies off the ps3 for playback. I'm not interested in menus or even chapter searches since once the movie is done, I'll delete it from the usb drive.

The whole video system is still legacy based (hey, it works) so the output is composite/stereo based and since the channel plus downscales it to mono.

From what I've read so far, you can tranfer direct to the usb the video files ripped from the dvd but there's a possible 50% chance it will play correctly. You can also transfer dvd files into mp4 or avc (any free program preferrable) and be 100% playable but there are more steps/recoding involved.

Did I miss anything else?

Victor
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post #20 of 24
7/27/08 at 6:40pm
I think you've got it right. The only other thing to mention is that the PS3 will not do subtitles. Some of the media server programs can do it with some effort (I think TVersity can, but Twonky, which is what I use, can't). So, if you need them, be sure to use a ripper than encodes the actual video with the subtitles.
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post #21 of 24
7/28/08 at 5:47am
Quote:
Originally Posted by twentw View Post

Using a program like DVD Shrink, you can rip most standard DVDs (not Blu-ray) in less than 15 minutes. Once ripped, you have one VOB file that can be played on the PS3. However, about half the movies I've ripped have problems with playback on the PS3 - it'll usually hang at some point and won't allow you to FF or RW. I don't know why some movies are like this and others aren't. Also, you get no chapters when ripping this way, so you're stuck with FF and RW through the movie, if that works.

My conclusion is that it would be nice to have all these movies on the hard drive, but the PS3 isn't quite there yet. Re-encoding takes too much time and hurts the quality. It's best just to rip to an ISO then burn a DVD-RW when you want to watch it.

Try using shrink with 1 gb chunk vob outputs then use vob2mpg to convert the chunks to one .mpg. rename and transfer to the ps3. Whole process takes about 20 minutes or less, unless I compress and analysis is performed.
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post #22 of 24
7/28/08 at 6:22am
Quote:
Originally Posted by beach scrub View Post

Try using shrink with 1 gb chunk vob outputs then use vob2mpg to convert the chunks to one .mpg. rename and transfer to the ps3. Whole process takes about 20 minutes or less, unless I compress and analysis is performed.

Actually, DVDShrink can output the entire movie in one vob. Is there an advantage in using vob2mpg?
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post #23 of 24
7/28/08 at 6:42am
vob2mpg will fix the time displayed for a movie (00:00) and ff/rw errors but it doesn't like 1 vob output from shrink. vob2mpg will combine the smaller vobs to one .mpg.
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post #24 of 24
7/28/08 at 7:37am
Thread Starter 
I tended to use dvdfab for my ripping as dvdshrink many times cannot break the code to rip movies. Then I use dvd shrink to extract the subtitles and audio to save on my hard drive/blank dvd-r
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