Remux VC-1 BluRay/HDDVD Movie to play on PS3

[zodiachsx]

First post here, so please excuse me if I'm doing anything wrong, but I'm wondering how other people are dealing with VC-1 encoded movies (which means pretty much every HDDVD and some BluRay titles) that they want to play on the PS3. The method I'm using is a bit well, idiotic really, because I'm remuxing 6 times total and it only allows for one stereo audio stream, but it works. If anybody has any idea how to do this in fewer steps or allow for multiple audio streams than I'd highly appreciate a post. Especially steps #7 and #8 should be doable in one pass, they're just two steps because VirtualDubMod doesn't allow for segments >2GB, but we want 3.9GB segments, so we do 1.95GB segments and stich two toegether afterwards.

1. Rip the movie from the disk using AnyDVDs internal Ripper or install an UDF reader (Toshiba in my case) to access the files directly.
2. Open the main EVO file in EVODemux and Demux all streams.
3. Use VC1conv to change the picture format from 30fps+pulldown to 24fps. (commandline "vc1conv input.mpa output.vc1")
4. Use VC-1ES to AVI to repackage the video stream.
5. Use EAC3to to convert the audio streams to AC3 (commandline "eac3to input.mpa output.ac3 -448")
6. Use FFMPEG to convert the AC3 to a WMA encoded WAV (commandline "ffmpeg -i audio.ac3 -ab 192k -ac 2 -acodec wmav2 output.wav")
7. Open the first .00.avi part in VirtualDubMod, ignoring the warning. Skip to the end, then append the second segment by appending the .01.avi segment with detect additional segments enabled. Go to Audio/Streams and add the WAV file. Then save with segmenting at 1.95 GB.
8. Open every second (#0. #2, #4) segment in virtualdub, append the corresponding next segment (#1, #3, #5) with additional detection disabled and save again to get 3.9GB blocks
9. Open GraphEdit and add a filter DirectShow/File Source (ASync) and load the first 3.9GB segment. Add the SolveigMM ASF Muxer and connect them. Add an additional connection from the automatically inserted AVI demuxer's audio channel to the ASF Muxer audio input node, Hit play and after conversion has finished repeat for each 3.9GB segment.

[zodiachsx]

Forgot the links :)

vc1conv http://www.w6rz.net/
VirtualDubMod http://virtualdubmod.sourceforge.net/
eac3to http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=125966
ffmpeg http://ffdshow.faireal.net/mirror/ffmpeg/
vc1es2avi & ASF Muxer: http://www.dvbportal.de/
GraphEdit: http://www.videohelp.com/tools/GraphEdit

[Tyrod01]

First post here, so please excuse me if I'm doing anything wrong, but I'm wondering how other people are dealing with VC-1 encoded movies (which means pretty much every HDDVD and some BluRay titles) that they want to play on the PS3. The method I'm using is a bit well, idiotic really, because I'm remuxing 6 times total and it only allows for one stereo audio stream, but it works. If anybody has any idea how to do this in fewer steps or allow for multiple audio streams than I'd highly appreciate a post. Especially steps #7 and #8 should be doable in one pass, they're just two steps because VirtualDubMod doesn't allow for segments >2GB, but we want 3.9GB segments, so we do 1.95GB segments and stich two toegether afterwards.

1. Rip the movie from the disk using AnyDVDs internal Ripper or install an UDF reader (Toshiba in my case) to access the files directly.
2. Open the main EVO file in EVODemux and Demux all streams.
3. Use VC1conv to change the picture format from 30fps+pulldown to 24fps. (commandline "vc1conv input.mpa output.vc1")
4. Use VC-1ES to AVI to repackage the video stream.
5. Use EAC3to to convert the audio streams to AC3 (commandline "eac3to input.mpa output.ac3 -448")
6. Use FFMPEG to convert the AC3 to a WMA encoded WAV (commandline "ffmpeg -i audio.ac3 -ab 192k -ac 2 -acodec wmav2 output.wav")
7. Open the first .00.avi part in VirtualDubMod, ignoring the warning. Skip to the end, then append the second segment by appending the .01.avi segment with detect additional segments enabled. Go to Audio/Streams and add the WAV file. Then save with segmenting at 1.95 GB.
8. Open every second (#0. #2, #4) segment in virtualdub, append the corresponding next segment (#1, #3, #5) with additional detection disabled and save again to get 3.9GB blocks
9. Open GraphEdit and add a filter DirectShow/File Source (ASync) and load the first 3.9GB segment. Add the SolveigMM ASF Muxer and connect them. Add an additional connection from the automatically inserted AVI demuxer's audio channel to the ASF Muxer audio input node, Hit play and after conversion has finished repeat for each 3.9GB segment.

This seems to be a simpler & higher quality method.
http://forum.slysoft.com/showthread.php?t=13688


I don't do the DVD5 splitting, but I use this method to generally convert HD-DVD to BD.

PS: If you don't have access to the sonic or nero decoders, the default libav decoder seeems to work fine for everything I've thrown at it..

[zodiachsx]

That probably works for people with a BluRay writer (or not minding swapping disks three times during a movie), but I don't have one of those yet, so I'm playing from the internal HDD (after downloading from my PC using Apache/httpd). Sadly, the PS3 doesn't allow everything you can do with disc formats for regular files, and that includes VC-1 tracks in M2TS containers.

[Tyrod01]

That probably works for people with a BluRay writer (or not minding swapping disks three times during a movie), but I don't have one of those yet, so I'm playing from the internal HDD (after downloading from my PC using Apache/httpd). Sadly, the PS3 doesn't allow everything you can do with disc formats for regular files, and that includes VC-1 tracks in M2TS containers.

Although I do have a BD writer, I use that method for streaming original HD-DVDs to my PS3. It works! Try it.

If you need to convert VC-1 files to AVC or MPEG2 there are ways.

Ripbot264 will convert a VC-1 file to AVC, albeit at a significantly lower bitrate, but at 1080 resolution. I notice it on my 61" Samsung.

Nero8 will also convert a VC-1 file to AVC or MPEG2. Depending on the speed of your computer, you may choose to convert to MPEG2 which Nero8 can convert in about half the time it takes to convert to AVC. In most cases, it's a matter of speed of conversion vs files size. Usually, MPEG2 conversion is about 1/3 bigger than the same file converted to AVC by Nero8.

In any case, when converting a VC-1 file to any other format, pack a lunch, it's gonna take some time.

On a P4 (single core) running @ 4.0Ghz w/2Gig of memory running XP Pro and VC-1 filesize of 22Gb, Nero8 will take about 24+ hours to convert to AVC. About 12hours to convert to MPEG2.

On a C2D running @ 4.0Ghz w/8Gig of memory running XP x64, same file will take about 6 hours to convert to AVC and 3 hours to convert to MPEG2.

There are caveats using Nero8 to convert files. One is that the method is not intuitive. Nero8 can do the job, but it has to fooled into doing it. Second, the output will always be interlaced. You make of that what you will, my TV deinterlaces properly so I don't care. Lastly, framerate will always be 30fps no matter the input. That may be an issue to some folks, not to me. In either case, whether you convert to AVC or MPEG2, the output will be 1080 and the bitrate will equal the original VC-1. Lastly, the audio output of Nero8 will be the various Low Res DD versions up to 5.1, 640kbs and originally encoded LPCM.

[zodiachsx]

That's why I wanted to just Remux the VC-1 files, even if it means using only a single audio track. Reencoding just takes too long and because my computer is my primary workplace, it would mean not working for two days. Remuxing on the other hand is done in about an hour :)

Anyway, the point wasn't discussing Reencoding vs. Remuxing. There are plenty of good tools and guyides for reencoding, I just wanted to discuss the best way to remux VC-1 for direct access by the PS3 (streaming or HDD).

[Tyrod01]

That's why I wanted to just Remux the VC-1 files, even if it means using only a single audio track. Reencoding just takes too long and because my computer is my primary workplace, it would mean not working for two days. Remuxing on the other hand is done in about an hour :)

Anyway, the point wasn't discussing Reencoding vs. Remuxing. There are plenty of good tools and guyides for reencoding, I just wanted to discuss the best way to remux VC-1 for direct access by the PS3 (streaming or HDD).

I guess you miss the point. That can't be done. VC-1 can play on a BD but can't be streamed to the PS3 in any way shape or form.

[jeff9329]

Zodiac:

I know you are not wanting to do any re-rendering, but I was wondering if you have made any AVCHD BD compatable discs to play on the PS3?

Since VC-1 is very close to the H264 AVC codec in a different container (not MPG2), I wonder if the latest version of Videolan will change the VC-1 container to a H264 container?

I haven't tried that because I have Vegas Pro 8b which smart renders VC-1 to AVCHD. It's pretty fast on my computer because I guess it's mostly a container change.

Then use Ulead MF6+ to create a DVD-9 BD compliant disc (size and bit rates are sometimes a factor).

[Adbear]

Zodiac:

I know you are not wanting to do any re-rendering, but I was wondering if you have made any AVCHD BD compatable discs to play on the PS3?

Since VC-1 is very close to the H264 AVC codec in a different container (not MPG2), I wonder if the latest version of Videolan will change the VC-1 container to a H264 container?

I haven't tried that because I have Vegas Pro 8b which smart renders VC-1 to AVCHD. It's pretty fast on my computer because I guess it's mostly a container change.

Then use Ulead MF6+ to create a DVD-9 BD compliant disc (size and bit rates are sometimes a factor).
You can't just change the container for VC-1 to h264 you would need to re-encode. Technically AVCHD folders can be Mpeg 2, VC-1 or H264, so Vegas may well be just making a standard AVCHD VC-1 folder

[zodiachsx]

I guess you miss the point. That can't be done. VC-1 can play on a BD but can't be streamed to the PS3 in any way shape or form.

??? Then what am I doing? I'm streaming VC-1 inside a WMV container from my PC via apache just fine.

[zodiachsx]

Zodiac:

I know you are not wanting to do any re-rendering, but I was wondering if you have made any AVCHD BD compatable discs to play on the PS3?

Since VC-1 is very close to the H264 AVC codec in a different container (not MPG2), I wonder if the latest version of Videolan will change the VC-1 container to a H264 container?

I haven't tried that because I have Vegas Pro 8b which smart renders VC-1 to AVCHD. It's pretty fast on my computer because I guess it's mostly a container change.

Then use Ulead MF6+ to create a DVD-9 BD compliant disc (size and bit rates are sometimes a factor).

Actually, WMV is the container, VC-1 is the codec. There's no way to transcode it into h264 without totally reencoding it. While VC-1 is more "primitive" than h264 it's not like VC-1 is a subset of h264, just a totally different and more simplistic encoding scheme. While technically most containers can contain pretty much any codec, it has to be supported by the player and the PS3 needs VC-1 in a WMV container, while h264 can be in a MP4/Quicktime or MPEG2 PS/TS container. Only while playing a BD/AVCHD disc, will the PS3 allow for VC-1 in MPEG2 Transport Streams.

I haven't ever tried AVCHD discs because frankly it's just too much hassle and I thought (please correct me if I'm wrong because that would change EVERYTHING) that you cannot copy the AVCHD disc content to the PS3 anyway, which is the whole point for me as I do not want to constantly swap discs around. BTW, the remuxing required for AVCHD can be done entirely in TSMuxer, there's no need for Vegas.

[Adbear]

and what is the source of these VC-1's? The PS3 will play standard WMV, but not Blu-ray VC-1 files. they are not the same thing. You'd need to run them through a converter to make them compliant

[zodiachsx]

They are a mixture of HDDVD and BluRay VC-1 files. VC-1 is nothing more than a rebranded Windows Media Video codec (version 9 I think). Put it in a WMV container and VC-1 instantly becomes a valid Windows Media Video stream. No need to convert anything. (I did say that my method worked just not in the most efficient way, so why is everybody saying that it doesn't)

So far I've tried it (and succeeded) on
Shrek the Third (HDDVD)
Turtles (HDDVD)
Corpse Bride (HDDVD)
Eyes Wide Shut (HDDVD)
Doom (HDDVD)
Crank (BluRay)

Dukes of Hazzard (HDDVD) got out of sync, but there was also a read error while it was processed through AnyDVD, so I guess that's either a bad sector or a copy protection going bonkers.

[Adbear]

VC-1 is not just a rebranded standard WMV codec. VC-1 on Blu-ray and HD-DVD can also use different settings than those available to standard WMV. Also I think you've been lucky in that all the ones you've chosen so far have a English 5.1 audio track. If you try to play one that only has an English HD audio track and foreign language tracks then you'll just get the foreign tracks as it won't decode the HD audio in a WMV file

[zodiachsx]

No, you can chose which stream you want in EvoDemux and you'll have to recompress it anyway through eac3to which supports lossless audio, the only limitation being that you can only mux one audio stream into a PS3 compatible WMV container (actually, you can mux as many as you want, but the PS3 will only play the first). I typically mux the English audio stream as WMV audio stream #1 and German as #2. Sony enhanced the PS3's demuxer a few times in the past and maybe they'll add support for multiple audio streams in WMV one day and I want to be prepared. It adds 150 meg to your video files, but who cares when you're dealing with 15 gig files.

[Adbear]

So it's not just a case of renaming it to WMV, but running it thru some software which converts the audio and is probably re-indexing the file at the same time when it re muxes it

[zodiachsx]

I'm curious... why doesn't anybody seem to read the first post, which describes in a (reasonably) detailed way what this is about? Here's a link, eventhough I'm not quite sure why I have to post it:

http://forum.slysoft.com/showpost.php?p=121160

P.S. concerning the "re-indexing". If you mean re-deriving I, P and B frames, then no, this information is just carried over to the WMV container. While frame types are usually handled by the container, there is practically no difference between how all containers treat them, so they are typically simply copied.

P.P.S. Here's the post with the links again: http://forum.slysoft.com/showpost.php?p=121163

[Adbear]

No re-indexing doesn't mean 're-deriving'. If you were to do that then it would have to be re-encoded to do that, But according to your first post you're actually changing the wrapper from VC-1 to WMV and converting the audio. The very first thing you do is run it through VC1conv which converts the wrapper from a VC-1 compliant to a WMV compliant stream and re-indexes the file to make it compliant. If VC-1 was truly just a re branded WMV then you'd be able to just rename it WMV and it would work, but it's not you have to run it thru all those steps to get an out put that may work on the PS3 at the end of it.
I'm not saying you're method isn't good, but what Tyrod01 said was that you can't just take the vc-1 stream from a blu-ray and stream it and they're right you can't. What you're doing is converting the video to a compliant stream and completely re-encoding the audio so it's no longer the original VC-1 file

[zodiachsx]

vc1conv just changes the framerate by removing the pulldown flag and relabeling the frames... it's a conversion of sorts yes and in a very literal way it's also a re-indexing because it basically changes the frame order and composition, but it's not what is usually refered to as reindexing, i.e. re-deriving the index from the stream.

[Adbear]

well if it's re-indexing in a literal way then it's re-indexing and it still doesn't change the fact that you can't just stream a VC-1 file direct to a PS3 which is what Tyrod01 stated, it has to go through a set of conversion processes before you can get a compliant file that will work

[zodiachsx]

Language isn't that easy :) When we say re-indexing, we're refering to a specific operation, not all operations that update the index. Anyway, this discussion is pretty pointless, because it's really about a fast way to get VC-1 onto the PS3. If re-encoding was fast enough I wouldn't mind doing it. I'm not ruling it out because I think there's wrong with it, just because it takes too long. This is the only relevant qualifier here.

And just to avoid any more confusion. VC-1 is a stream type, WMV is unfortunately the name for both, container and codec. So to avoid confusion, if you have a question say what you're refering to WMV streams/codecs or WMV files/containers.

VC-1 is a subset of the WMV codec, so yes, even if you leave out vc1conv you end up with a valid WMV file, just with some very stupid flags set. And no, not every WMV stream is a valid VC-1 stream, because the WMV codec is "bigger" then just VC-1.

[Adbear]

Any operation that updates or alters the indexing on a file is re-indexing it really is that simple. And you seem to be going off at a tangent. It still doesn't change the fact that you can't just stream a VC-1 file direct to a PS3 which is what Tyrod01 stated, it has to go through a set of conversion processes before you can get a compliant file that will work which is what you were replying to when you made this statement

I guess you miss the point. That can't be done. VC-1 can play on a BD but can't be streamed to the PS3 in any way shape or form.
??? Then what am I doing? I'm streaming VC-1 inside a WMV container from my PC via apache just fine. you're converting it to a standard WMV with WMA not the original WMV with the original audio

[zodiachsx]

You're still confusing WMV Container and WMV Codec... All "conversions" (aside from vc1conv, which is optional and the audio, which has nothing to do with the VC-1 stream) are really just splitting or remuxing (as in put-in-new-container) operations. The only operation in there that affects the VC-1 stream is vc1conv which, again, is optional. The VC-1 stream doesn't change. Period. The file as a whole changes of course, but not the VC-1 stream. Extract it from the WMV and remux it with the original audio as M2TS file and you get the original file back, something that wouldn't be possible if it had been reencoded.

Sigh... now I feel like every word I say is put to the test here.... is nobody interested in actually making this work better

and P.S. yes, something like this really gets to me. I have no problem with know-it-alls who really do know it all, but if I have to explain everything over and over again and nobody seems to make the effort to read it, while they certainly still make the effort to post the same stuff over and over again, then I am offended.

[zodiachsx]

It still doesn't change the fact that you can't just stream a VC-1 file direct to a PS3...

you're converting it to a standard WMV with WMA not the original WMV with the original audio

There's no such thing as a VC-1 file, because VC-1 is NOT a file format, it's a stream format. There are just files with VC-1 encoded streams, in this case M2TS files. And because there are no VC-1 files, there can't be a VC-1 file with this or that audio, only files that contain a VC-1 stream and some other audio stream, because VC-1 is not an audio codec either. So a VC-1 to ??? conversion always referes to the video stream, because that's the only thing that can be VC-1. Not the container, not the audio, because none of these are actually part of VC-1.

[Adbear]

And again I say you can't just stream the original file which is what he's saying and is what I've been trying to get across, you do need to convert from the original file with VC-1 video stream and audio to a new file with the re-indexed video and converted audio. As I've said before what you're implied by your first statement is that it just needed to be changed to WMV and it would stream, when in fact you have to re-index the video stream (which then makes it into a non standard VC-1 stream otherwise they'd still work in Scenarist and after running them through vc1conv I've found they then crash Scenarist) and convert the audio to WMA

[zodiachsx]

And that's what I'm trying to get across: You don't have to reindex with vc1conv... it's just cleaner to do it, but not necessarry and that's the only step that does a reindexing of any kind.

[Adbear]

You do if it's from HD DVD

[zodiachsx]

Are you sure? I have never tried without vc1conv, because I like my files to have the correct framerate and let the player decide what's best, but if every tool in the chain transports the pulldown correctly it should not be neccessary. Maybe the temporary packing into an AVI loses the Pulldown flag... could be ... maybe you can't take the route via AVI if you want to keep it... it's definately supported in WMV files, that's for sure.

[Adbear]

PS3's won't play back VC-1 off HD DVD unless you run it through vc1conv, I think that's why it was originally written, it either comes up with a 'file type not supported' message or plays back very jerky

[zodiachsx]

Sounds like a bug in the WMV parser... Seems I was lucky on that one. I just did it because I always try to store video at the native framerate because while pulldown works perfectly on 30 fps, it isn't perfect on 50/60fps devices which could do a better job distributing the frames and raises havoc on 25fps devices. Still, the stream would be valid :)

[Adbear]

Well even if you run just the demuxed VC-1 video stream from an HD DVD thru something like TSmuxer and tell it to make a Blu-ray it still won't play back even from a disc

[zodiachsx]

Hmm would be interesting to know where the error lies... but I think we'd have to take this discussion to Doom9 to get an answer to that. Has to be a problem with either TSMuxer or EvoDemux, because I've ripped a few VC-1 encoded BluRay disks as well and they're also encoded with pulldown at 30fps.

[ylagace]

zodiachsx,

I am trying to achieve the exact same thing you are working on. I just got my PS3 a few days ago after playing with a netgear 8000 (not powerful enough) and the A-100 Popcorn (pretty good but still getting some hang-ups when playing Blu-Ray files at high bitrate). The A-100 is excellent at handling two audio streams and the subtitles if converted in SUP files.

With the PS3 my Blu-Ray are playing great now (with the limitation of one audio stream and no subtitle) but I can accept that. Now I would like to play my library of HD-DVD titles on the PS3 as well so I do not have to switch boxes all the time since I still have my old XBOX with XBMC as nothing can approach that for displaying and playing my DVD library (600+) and I do not want to convert my VOBs.

Unfortunately I cannot contribute anything yet as I am only trying to replicate what you are doing. I am trying to find a solution where we do not re-encode the video stream but only change the flags, index, and whatever.

I am posting just to ask you if you has seen this post on doom9 a week ago and if his suggestion could help improve your own process:

For those that experience flickering when muxing an untouched vc1 stream into a wmv container and playing on the 360, I believe I have stumbled upon a way to eliminate that problem. Well... it works for me on the vc1 bluray titles I have tried :) Granted it was only 3 of them, but still... Here are the steps I take:

(note: you can start on step 3 with your currently flickering wmv file, just be sure to do video only (File->Close Audio) and then skip to step 5 and remux with your audio from original wmv)

1. rip m2ts from bluray with anydvd
2. mux m2ts (or mkv w/ timecode file) into asf with Solveig ASF Muxer (http://www.solveigmm.com/?Products&id=ASFMuxer), only selecting video (you don't need to rip the vc1 stream and use vc12avi first, but if you have, you can go straight to step 3 without using Solveig's)
as a side note: I am not sure if you can do the same with evo files, but you can always use tsMuxer to create a m2ts from an evo, you can even remove pulldown
3. run asf (or avi from vc12avi) through wmvmuxer (http://www.dvbportal.de/news/index.html) creating a new wmv file (this is the important step, without this video will/may flicker)
4. use your favorite software to convert audio to 5.1 wma10 pro (for ease of use, I use dbPowerAmp (http://www.dbpoweramp.com/) for ac3 files)
5. mux wmv and wma with windows media stream editor

I had previously discounted using wmvmuxer for anything, as I had tried to go straight from mkv to wmv via direct stream copy with very poor results. While it muxes just fine, the resulting wmv file doesnt play correctly. The above steps work for me and the resulting 20Mbps wmv file plays without any flickering/stuttering over my Wireless N network, while it would flicker if I skipped step 3.

Normally I don't bother with the original untouched stream as I usually re-encode to a smaller vc1 w/ ac3 mkv to use on my home network, and only then convert back to a wmv if I need to burn to a disc to play on different 360 or use the re-encoded video with the original audio to make a vc1 AVCHD disc that can be played in a PS3. But, I started experimenting with Expression Encoder 2 after seeing better video quality over TMPGEnc Xpress w/ WMV PowerToy. After I had converted to mkv, I would get flickering when converting back to wmv. So I ended up trying everything I could get my hands on to make the EE2 encodes work with what I was doing (without the flickering), and fell upon this solution which also works with untouched vc1 streams. I hope this helps someone.

Here is the link: http://forum.doom9.org/archive/index.php/t-119785.html

It seems promising as with his method there is no 2GB or 4GB limits.

I have tried to process Bourne Identity as you suggested but the PS3 will put a VC-1 box besides the movie when listed under Tversity but it says unsupported data when I try to play it. MY PS3 is at 2.36 as I am reticent to go any higher (e.g. 2.42) with all the trouble they had recently. I can play the avi from VirtualDub in PowerDVD on my PC but PowerDVD only plays the audio (no video) when I try the WMV file generated by SolvingMM. I need to understand what is wrong. I believe it might be the ffdshow setting. Can you tell me if you are using Microsoft WMVC or libdavenc for VC-1 in ffdshow?

Anyway I will try Shrek 3 since it worked for you and will keep posting my findings.

[ylagace]

Corrections to my previous posts:

I should have said SRT files for the subtitles and WMV9 vs libavcodec for the ffdshow video codecs.

[zodiachsx]

That's the kind of post I like :)

I don't think this gets around the 4GB limit though, as they were refering to the XBox360... The 4GB limit is not a restriction of the WMV container, but really a PS3-specific behavior and I don't think there's anything we can do about it until Sony releases an update. It's not just that we're limited to 4GB files because of FAT32... I stream all my files via HTTP and there's no 4GB limit there, but if a file is bigger, the PS3 will either truncate file or get stuck on the download :(

And that's really also the only reason why I convert to AVI at all... if I could find a DirectShow filter that would let me split the streams directly, I'd do that, but unfortunately I can't - do you know one?

About your TVersity problem: Maybe TVersity doesn't recognize it as a PS3-playable file... I haven't touched TVersity ever since I found out that I can just as well stream via HTTP, which is a lot less hassle for me. Try to disable all transcoding, maybe that'll pass the file right through... otherwise try with a simple HTTP server, it works for me.

As for playback... I usually don't watch entire movies on my PC, because this is a Toshiba and that means there's a good chance that something will catch fire, but for a quick inspection I always use MPlayer (mplayerhq.hu), which has the same codebase as ffmpeg. Be warned though if you want to try it, this is a commandline player :) Generally, every DirectShow player should be able to play the files, i.e. WindowsMediaPlayer or MediaPlayerClassic.

[ylagace]

OK I have progressed quite a bit today. I got the VC-1 video working (Shrek)on the PS3 after I set the SolvengMM muxer to WVC1 instead of AVC1 in the FOURCC field. Still must keep the H264 flag to off though to get it to work.

I also have ffdshow VC-1 Codec set to WMV9 and I also added the Registry key for vdic.h264.

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\Cu rrentVersion\Drivers32]vidc.h264=ff_vfw.dll

I am streaming 30GB files to the PS3 with Tversity (Blu Ray) so I need to test if a large WMV will be a problem. I should find out later. What I like about the other post is the ability to keep a 5.1 channels audio file using dbpoweramp. No idea if it will play on the PS3 though. Again I will know later as I am building the full Shrek movie.

I also never tried to copy a huge file to the PS3 hard disk. Another thing to try.

[ylagace]

Forgot to say that I do not know of other DirectShow filters...

If I can stream very large files, I do not see why you have a 4GB limit on your http...

[zodiachsx]

So, did it work?

BTW, I just noticed that eac3to can output stereo WAVs which avoids recompression the audio twice (I knew it could output a set of mono WAVs, but working with those is a real pain), which makes the whole process a little faster and improves quality:

eac3to.exe "in.mpa" "out.pcm.wav" -down2
ffmpeg -i "in.pcm.wav" -ab 192k -ac 2 -acodec wmav2 "out.wma.wav"

Oh and if you want to store movies on the interal HD... I exchanged it a while back against a 320GB HD and it's really pretty straightforward.

[ylagace]

Yes it is working good now.

I follow your process up to virtualdub but I then save the whole avi with the audio wav. I do not cut them up in 1.95GB chunks. I load the whole movie through SolvengMM and then only run Media Stream Editor. I can then stream the whole movie to the PS3 and the picture is flawless. I really need to use Media Stream Editor because the wmv output from SlovengMM stutters a lot on the PS3.

No luck with trying to mux a 5.1 WMA stream. The PS3 will only accept basic stereo wma audio files and movie streams. So for now we can only use stereo audio for VC-1 movies.

I am keeping my movies on two ReadyNAS with about 4.5 TB of capacity. They have Twonky running on those as part of the regular firmware. I do not want to load the movies on the PS3 internal HDD.

[tyee]

Anyone tried the following to get around the fat32 4GB limit-

Install a new HD in the PS3 and let it format it with Sony's proprietary formatter.
Remove it, re-install the old HD and install this new one in an external USB case.
Hook it up to the USB port on the PS3 and see if it will recognize it!

[zodiachsx]

Thank you , ylagace... I always figured because it didn't work via HTTP that it was a hard limit... looks like I'll have to give TVersity another try :)

P.S. I can't download the Windows Media Encoder right now... seems like the Microsoft page is acting up.

[zodiachsx]

tyee, I don't think the PS3 uses a PC read/writeable format.. I don't know for sure, just the backups look... odd, no compression or format that I know of. If you have the necessary equipment (I don't have SATA on my PC) I'd love to hear the results.

[tyee]

Everyone here does know that you CAN play a VC1/AC3/DTS m2ts file from a PS3 with no re-encoding of the video!! Here's a summary just from memory, hope it's correct

1) With AnyDVD HD running, load desired playlist into tsMuxer (use eac3to or BDInfo to get desired playlist.)

2) Select desired video and audio streams to keep in tsMuxer. Select Blu-ray output and split into 3990MB chunks in the splitting tab. Go.

3) You will end up with multiple .m2ts files in your output Blu-ray folder structure. Now the secret to fool the PS3 into thinking an external USB Hard Drive is a real disc.

4) This method is for using an external USB HDD. Create a folder in the root of this HDD call "AVCHD". Now copy your Blu-ray folder structure, that tsMuxer made, into this "AVCHD" folder.

5) At this point it will still not playback. To make it do so, rename all the files in the Blu-ray folder stucture to a 3 letter extension, not 4 as they are now. I have a utility from doom9 called "AVCHD Me" which does this for us in 1 second.

6) Now navigate to the AVCHD folder using the PS3, select that folder and your VC1 or x264 (AVC) movie will start! Enjoy.

Note - I think your movie disc must have either an ac3 or dts track in it or this method may not work unless you create one of those yourself. I'm not sure if any uncompressed tracks will work with this method but ac3 and dts (core) will definitely. Also there is some bug I think in tsMuxer because after every 4GB the next 4GB will start playing automatically but we lose about 2-3 secs of the start. Oh well, better than navigating to each 4GB section manually and pressing play!

[zodiachsx]

The question for me (I have asked it before but had gotten no reply and therefore assumed a negative) is can you can copy the track from the AVCHD back to the Playstation HD? You obviously can't stream them, but if they could just be saved that would be good enough for me in many cases.

[yotsu]

No you can't.

[EnochLight]

So zodiachsx, I know this thread is approaching a year old and hasn't had any activity since August 2008... but have you had any luck getting your HDDVD ripped VC1's to stream to your PS3 (well, by a simpler means than your original post)?

I am trying to accomplish this as well, but using Tversity. Not having any luck yet...

Cheers!