twonky 4.4 Beta2 and PS3 compatibility list

General discussion about the media server. Feature requests. Hints, tips and tricks.
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Video_newb
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twonky 4.4 Beta2 and PS3 compatibility list

Post by Video_newb » Sat May 26, 2007 2:39 am

I thought we might try to compile a list of working and non working media types both for users and so the twonky people can know what to work on. I'll edit this post as I test some more but here's what I've come up with so far.

Working formats:

MP3
WMA
MPG Mpeg1 and Mpeg2
MP4 (finally got it to work, although still very picky about which files it will play)
VOB files, both sound and video although the PS3 is limited to stereo sound right now
JPG

PS3 acceptable formats which thus far don't seem to be supported:

WAV
MP4 (aac audio, although this may work for those who have mp4 video working as well, see my note)
M4A (aac audio)
PNG
GIF
TIFF
BMP

Finally got MP4 files to work by disabling UPNP on my router and reinstalling twonky. Not sure what did it, but at least my test file from the PS3 store works. Still very, very picky about which files it will play, but any progress is welcomed.

Edit 1: I'm going to keep doing some more testing, but here are a few more things. Right now I'm trying to focus on files which work on the ps3 but not through twonky. WMV and AVI files aren't really supported by the ps3 (they claim limited avi support) so I feel we can ignore them for now.
Last edited by Video_newb on Tue May 29, 2007 10:00 pm, edited 4 times in total.

starhubble
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Post by starhubble » Sat May 26, 2007 9:24 am

Just a note. The PS3 won't read mpeg files with the .mpeg extension. They must be named .mpg for the PS3 to recognize them over TwonkyVision (same with local files I guess). I didn't realize this and thought it had something to do with the encoding of the video.

starhubble
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Post by starhubble » Sat May 26, 2007 9:32 am

Anyone tried wave files? I couldn't get the ones I tried to play, but I've recorded those myself... though I think they are regular Windos PCM wave files.

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twonky-christian
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Post by twonky-christian » Sat May 26, 2007 10:28 am

WMA should work
MPEG2 should work

MPEG4 is difficult but there are files that work
would be great to get a list of tools which produce working files

WMV does not work

we can not get AVI to work

bluheim
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Post by bluheim » Sat May 26, 2007 10:33 am

TwonkyMedia 4.4ß2 MacOS :

- iTunes library doesn't appear, not only on the PS3 but also in the Twonky Media Browser
- None of my videos work : mp4, wmv, avi.
- Pictures work flawlessly

GM_01
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Post by GM_01 » Sat May 26, 2007 10:44 am

I have 4.4 Beta 2 installed on my Mac Pro

I can see and browse my music collection on the PS3, but any .m4a files are listed as unsupported data. Is this a PS3 issue or a TwonkyMedia one?

Otherwise, my .mp3 and photos seem to be working without a problem.

Dartan
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Post by Dartan » Sat May 26, 2007 5:02 pm

MP4's I made with HandBrake work great (though only in 2 channel, not 5.1, but I think that's a PS3 issue). I can post the command line I use to make them if anyone is interested.

The only issue I'm having so far is the sort order of tracks when viewing the artist/album view. I would like it to sort the tracks by track number instead of however it's doing it (not sure how it's sorting it right now). Any idea on how to fix that?

Dave

Video_newb
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Post by Video_newb » Sat May 26, 2007 6:10 pm

Just in case you don't look up I'm going to keep editing my original post.

WAV and M4A files do work on the PS3, but so far not through twonky

Itunes and Iphoto libraries should show up so we might be able to help you there (I'd poke around in config)

Dave, if you could share a small MP4 file sample which you got to work with me (PM) or the board this would be great.

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mgillespie
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Post by mgillespie » Sat May 26, 2007 6:32 pm

Dartan wrote:MP4's I made with HandBrake work great (though only in 2 channel, not 5.1, but I think that's a PS3 issue). I can post the command line I use to make them if anyone is interested.

The only issue I'm having so far is the sort order of tracks when viewing the artist/album view. I would like it to sort the tracks by track number instead of however it's doing it (not sure how it's sorting it right now). Any idea on how to fix that?

Dave
I didn't think you could have MP4's in 5.1 audio???
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Video_newb
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Post by Video_newb » Sat May 26, 2007 6:41 pm

MP4 can support multichannel aac. The ps3 can also play .m2ts files with Dolby Digital, although in both cases the ps3 is limited to outputting only stereo. Hopefully that will change with future firmware, as I think one of the big downsides of downloadable content is lack of multichannel audio.

Karsi
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Re: twonky 4.4 Beta2 and PS3 compatibility list

Post by Karsi » Sat May 26, 2007 10:01 pm

Video_newb wrote:...

MP3 all good
MPG Mpeg1 files work
VOB files, both sound and video although I haven't gotten DD5.1 to come through yet
JPG all good (someone else noted a problem with file extensions in caps, but this wasn't a problem for me)
....
I tried only pictures more or less in detail:
JPEG is fine, but do you (twonky team) will also enabel stream at least with TIFF and BMP in near future? If I connect USB disc directly to PS3 it works fine with JPEG, TIFF and BMP.

What I see beside of that is again these problems with missing 'Umlaute' Ä,Ö,Ü etc. . Seems to be a Samba problem of the Terastation. On Noxon they will be coverted to !?/ etc. On PS3 they even don't show up.

So far: Great work.
Will try to test Video in more detail.
Thanks.
Karsten

Dartan
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Post by Dartan » Sun May 27, 2007 4:40 am

mgillespie wrote:
Dartan wrote:MP4's I made with HandBrake work great (though only in 2 channel, not 5.1, but I think that's a PS3 issue). I can post the command line I use to make them if anyone is interested.

The only issue I'm having so far is the sort order of tracks when viewing the artist/album view. I would like it to sort the tracks by track number instead of however it's doing it (not sure how it's sorting it right now). Any idea on how to fix that?

Dave
I didn't think you could have MP4's in 5.1 audio???
I did verify by playing it on my computer that it had 5.1 audio. When I try to play it on the PS3 it only outputs 2 channel though. I hope Sony fixes that with a new firmware soon.

As for a sample mp4 file, do you have a way I can just chop off a small part of one of the movies I encoded? I'm not exactly sure how to encode only part of a movie.

In the meantime, this is the command line I used (under linux):

HandBrakeCLI -i dvd -o movie.mp4 -b 2500 -B 160 -R 48 -e x264 -x level=41 -p -6 6ch

Take off the -6 6ch if you only want 2 channel and substitute the dvd for the mount point of your dvd (or mount point of an ISO of a dvd which works works really well).

Dave

Video_newb
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Post by Video_newb » Sun May 27, 2007 3:54 pm

In handbrake you can choose which chapters to encode. I usually use the gui so I don't know the CLI string, but it can obviously be done there too. The reason I asked for a file is that I'm pretty much using the same settings with no luck, so I wanted to minimize all possible difference.

I'm also wondering if you and mgillespie are both using the windows version of the client and if anyone has gotten mp4 files to stream using the mac version. At this point I kind of feel like there is some problem other than the files themselves although I'll keep trying different clips to see if I can get one to stream.

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mgillespie
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Post by mgillespie » Sun May 27, 2007 4:15 pm

OK, here is a test.

Download a reference video from the Playstation store. (I used Pirate Of THe Carribean 3 trailer), Copy it to a USB stick. move the USB stick to your PC sharing the media. Copy the downloaded movie. Get Twonky to rescan.

Does it stream correctly now?

I have just done this (Linux mediaserver 4.4 Beta 2), and it works fine. And looks LOVELY in 1080P....
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Dartan
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Post by Dartan » Sun May 27, 2007 4:42 pm

Video_newb wrote:In handbrake you can choose which chapters to encode. I usually use the gui so I don't know the CLI string, but it can obviously be done there too. The reason I asked for a file is that I'm pretty much using the same settings with no luck, so I wanted to minimize all possible difference.

I'm also wondering if you and mgillespie are both using the windows version of the client and if anyone has gotten mp4 files to stream using the mac version. At this point I kind of feel like there is some problem other than the files themselves although I'll keep trying different clips to see if I can get one to stream.
I don't do windows, only linux. I'll have to find out what the command line is to only encode one chapter. After I figure that out and get it done, I can send you the file to try out.

Oh, and are you using the latest beta version of handbrake?

Dave

TheShadowRunner
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Post by TheShadowRunner » Sun May 27, 2007 7:54 pm

Setup: Beta 4.4 beta 2 / WinXPS2 / JPN PS3

Hi guys, i have a few questions/problems with 4.4 beta2.

- I cannot manage to get rid of "All Pictures", "All Video" and "All Music" from the tree when browsing in the XMB.
I will never use them and prefer the "folder" method, so I wanted to clean the tree a little bit on the XMB if possible.

- There is a problem for displaying MP3 tags with japanese language in UTF-8 (unicode), they display weird chinese ideograms when they should display japanese katakana/hiragana.
I have posted a sample mp3 with japanese trackname & japanese filename that shows the problem on the PS3 XMB:
http://videoff7.free.fr/mp3.rar
The japanese tags are OK on PS3 XMB if I use another media server application called "TVersity" so i think it rules out a problem of the mp3 file itself. (i checked that using different albums with japanese tags)

- When in the PS3 XMB, under the native "Images", "Video" and "Audio" entries from the XMB itself, there are 3 folders called "Images", "Video" and "Audio", it's confusing because for exemple if i browse "Images" (xmb feature), i can access the user-defined "Video" folder.
So here is a suggestion:
Is it possible maybe to have a very simple "folder" navigation option which would show directly the user-defined folders at the very upper level of the browsing? Because obviously if i browse VIDEO (XMB feature) itself, then i don't see the point in having to select "VIDEO" again when browsing the server begins.

Thank you for your support.

TSR

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mgillespie
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Post by mgillespie » Sun May 27, 2007 8:34 pm

The last item you mention has already been discussed, it's a problem at Sony's end. Hopefully they will sort it out in a future release...
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starhubble
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Post by starhubble » Sun May 27, 2007 10:14 pm

Yes, please make it possible to remove the All-tags.

Also... here is something I really think should be fixed.

Let's say I want to add a directory to the share, for example:

D:\Music\Mp3\Blub\

This directory contains a number of files...

a.mp3
b.mp3
c.mp3

I add the directory to the share and set it up as "Music-Only", which tells Twonky that it should be displayed under the Music root folder.

Now, the problem is that Twonky will not add this directory to the Music root folder, but rather the files it contains:

Music\

a.mp3
b.mp3
c.mp3

There should be a way of making the directory appear as a subdirectory under the root folder:

Music\Blub\

a.mp3
b.mp3
c.mp3

If all shared music files are shoved directly into the root folder things get real messy.

Video_newb
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Post by Video_newb » Mon May 28, 2007 6:55 am

Ok, ran another round of testing including taking a PS store trailer back to my comp. Still no luck. File shows up as unsupported data. Trying to play it anyway results in the filename showing up but the file still won't play. I'm working with 4.4 b2 on a mac. If someone has gotten .mp4 playback to work on a mac let me know, also if the linux users have any ideas I'm all ears. Right now, however, I'm starting to suspect the mac build.

Also updated my original compatibility list. Any feedback from the twonky people on what we might expect and/or what might be going on with .mp4 video would be great. Also, cheers to the moderators for trying to keep the board spam free.

snipah
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Post by snipah » Mon May 28, 2007 7:45 am

Hi! Another question concerning the compatibility of the PS3-client:

If you rename ts-files (transport-streams which contain pure mpg2), which are recorded on a neutrino-dbox, from *.ts to .mpg they play fine on the PS3. Is it possible to play them directly without renaming? Guess it's a problem on the client-side? Maybe you can inform Sony about this, so they can fix it in a future Firmware-Release! Thanx a lot ;)

Maybe it's even possible to play them with their recorded AC3-sound, as the PS3 only outputs stereo-sound...

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Post by srammij » Mon May 28, 2007 7:54 am

So far, i was only able to watch a movie file through Twonky, when it was a .mpg (mpeg2)

I'm assuming the Mpeg1 works the same. I wish this thing would support AVI... it would make life so much easier.

I've only tried a small clip so far, but i'm in the process of converting a full movie with Visual Hub, which surprising is going fast... only will take about 12mins. Much faster than converting to MP4.

Video_newb
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Post by Video_newb » Tue May 29, 2007 10:09 pm

Finally I was able to get an mp4 file from the ps3 store to stream. I did this by turning off upnp on my router and reinstalling twonky. Still not sure what did it, but it works. I'm still trying to sort through issues with files not showing up or not playing, but things seem to be getting better. So in summation at least some mp4 files do work through the mac client.

whackmushrooms

mac users

Post by whackmushrooms » Wed May 30, 2007 4:01 pm

i have an appleTV and the ps3 so i was looking for a way to encode my video so i can use on both ..

http://mac.softpedia.com/get/Utilities/ ... rter.shtml gave me the solution when I export as mp4 for appleTV .. so far so good on what i have converted so far ..

however .. the problem now is getting the ps3 to see the TV server consistently .. its driving me NUTS! i have to copy the file to the ps3 then play from there .. it just started happening to so I think its a network issue. Any advice?

TheShadowRunner
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Post by TheShadowRunner » Wed May 30, 2007 4:54 pm

Maybe the following can help the developpers :
the formats officially compatible with the PS3 according to SONY:

VIDEO : MPEG-1 , MPEG-2(PS,TS) , H.264/MPEG-4 AVC , MPEG-4 SP , Motion JPEG(Linear PCM) , Motion JPEG (micro-Law) , AVCHD(.m2ts)

SOUND : ATRAC(.oma .mas .aa3) , AAC(.3gp .mp4) , MP3(.mp3) , WAVE(.wav) , WMA(.wma)

IMAGE: JPEG , GIF , PNG , TIFF , BMP

I found this information on a japanese review site. I hope it can help to make Twonky compatible with the maximum formats available.

See you,

TSR

whackmushrooms

Post by whackmushrooms » Wed May 30, 2007 4:57 pm

TheShadowRunner wrote:Maybe the following can help the developpers :
the formats officially compatible with the PS3 according to SONY:

VIDEO : MPEG-1 , MPEG-2(PS,TS) , H.264/MPEG-4 AVC , MPEG-4 SP , Motion JPEG(Linear PCM) , Motion JPEG (micro-Law) , AVCHD(.m2ts)

SOUND : ATRAC(.oma .mas .aa3) , AAC(.3gp .mp4) , MP3(.mp3) , WAVE(.wav) , WMA(.wma)

IMAGE: JPEG , GIF , PNG , TIFF , BMP

I found this information on a japanese review site. I hope it can help to make Twonky compatible with the maximum formats available.

See you,

TSR
i am pretty sure they know this.

starhubble
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Post by starhubble » Wed May 30, 2007 8:31 pm

I can't stream .png files (even though they are natively supported by the PS3). Anyone else?

THE REVENGE
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Post by THE REVENGE » Wed May 30, 2007 9:33 pm

I can only stream MPEG2 video ts :cry:

srammij
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Post by srammij » Thu May 31, 2007 2:45 pm

Something is still weird here with Twonky and streaming Videos. Yesterday, i was able to finally save some movies out and got them to work. But i was converting more movies the same way, and now they don't work.

I've also had the same issues as others, where a file will show up, then disappear, and won't show up again through Twonky.

Still a bit buggy i think.

whackmushrooms

Post by whackmushrooms » Thu May 31, 2007 2:52 pm

not that its a problem but it depends on what you have your directory share rescan timing set to .. i had a problem with -1 maybe change that to be every 12 hours or whatever it helped me rather than keep rebuilding the database each time there is a slight directory change.

srammij
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Post by srammij » Thu May 31, 2007 3:00 pm

I also just found that some movies that would show up, did after i changed a setting.

Under the Sharing tab, I have my directories selected for each content, pictures to my pictures folder.... etc.

I set the video one to All Content Types instead of being on Video, and my missing files popped up. I just make sure i don't put anything but videos in that folder.

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