I am setting up a tutorial in how to take you from the Media Center's recorded television show to a WMV video using Windows Movie Maker, all the way to PS3 Video to convert that into a MPEG-4 based video that you can stream and download to your PS3's hard drive in the best possible quality.
Let's start off by taking an example recording from Microsoft's own selection. I'm going to take the "Apollo 13" selection video from the Recorded TV\\Sample Video category from Vista. You will want to Import Video, go to the Recorded TV directory, or wherever you set your Media Center program to record television to, and put that onto Movie Maker's storyboard. Drag and drop that onto the processing video board on the bottom of your program.
Now, take and go under "Publish to, " and select This computer, and save the TV recording to whatever you choose, just so long as you put the title of the television show in there. In my case, I just name mine Apollo 13, and save it to the default Videos category. Click Next.
For my taste, I take the video settings for publishing, I click on More settings, and choose the Windows Media HD for Xbox 360 (6.9 Mbps) option, even tho this is for the PS3, this is probably the best setting to convert the DVR-MS file to for any game console/entertainment box that can carry a high-def signal. I look at the settings, and determine that it will consume 102MB of hard drive space, which is fine, since it's a high-def quality video. Just click Publish, and let it take its sweet old time converting that TV recording to a WMV. It'll let you know when your movie is published successfully. Just uncheck the Play movie when I click Finish, since it will only interfere with the next conversion steps.
Close out of Movie Maker, and don't bother saving the template, or whatever else, since you already got the video converted. You can choose to delete the DVR-MS source file, if you wish... Now, go into PS3 Video, usually under Red Kawa, and when it loads, click on the Convert button in the menu bar. This will take you to the VideoWizard... On the bottom, you have Select File, and Set Title. First off, you want to go to the Select File tab, click on the Select File button, and find the video that you have just converted. In my case, I do find the Apollo 13 file in my Videos directory, right where Microsoft sent the WMV file to. Click on that, click Open, then it will set itself into place on the conversion block. The VideoWizard will now take you to the settings menu, where you can tweak the settings to your PS3 and home theater settings, for whatever quality you can utilize. For now, I set the Video Format to new, for me, I set the Video Size to HDTV, Video Quality to Best, Enhance Quality I turn On, and Audio Quality to Best. This will bring out the MPEG-4 conversion to the best possible that the PS3 will allow for, which will upscale your source file to the PS3's selected resolution and sound. Click Next on the settings page.
This will send you to a tutorial on the conversion process, just so long as you have your file in place, it will bring you to the Set Title tab, where you can set the title of the video you wish to convert. I just leave it as Apollo 13, then I click on the Start Converting button. This will automatically take you through the conversion page, and will display the stats of how far it's going. Once successfully converted, it will show up in the Converted Videos folder in your My Documents folder, under most likely MPEG-4 AVC subfolder, when the conversion is complete. You can just do about your leisure while it's converting. It's usually a looooong process for the quality I chose. It takes over an hour for mine to convert over, so I got some time for other tasks.
Now that you have your video successfully converted from a WMV to an MPEG-4 in high-def quality, close out of PS3 Video 9, and open up the TVersity Media Server. If you already have an open session, please stop the current session, and do so through Run As Administrator by right clicking on that tool in the Start Menu. Now, start the Media Server back up, and wait for the share screen to pop up... It will display the splash screen, then it will start up in the Sharing tab. Click on the "Plus" button to add a file. Click on the Browse button to find the MPEG-4 file that you have just converted, find the file where PS3 Video has put it, and click "Open," give it a Title for the TV show that you have recorded, and any appropriate tags, then click Submit to add it into your list. Once successfully added, make sure that TVersity can start sharing that video with the network.
Turn on your television, choose the source that your PS3 is using, usually HDMI, then turn on your PS3 using the PS button on your Sixaxis, or your BD remote control, and wait for it to boot up. Go to the Videos menu, and see if the PS3 can pick up your TVersity server. If not, then you will have to restart your sharing session. Then, use the PS3 to find the video, going through the My Videos, All Videos, and then find it in your library. Once you do that, press the "Triangle" button, and let the PS3 copy it off the server, and onto your PS3 hard drive. Once the copy is done, back out of there, then you will find the video in your PS3 Videos menu. Just press Enter or X on the video, then you will be up and playing your TV recording in no time. Presto! Magically, now your PS3 has turned into a glorified Tivo!
This is my tutorial, and let's hope that this will work for you. If anything is missing, or you have any further comments, questions, or concerns, please post them here, PM me, or e-mail me, and I will make sure that you have a PC TV recording that you will be able to convert to the best quality, and the best results for playing back your videos on your PS3 system. Thank you.
