PS3 Media Servers

STEP 1: Connect to your home network

In the PS3’s main menu, navigate to Settings – Network Settings – Internet Connection, press X on your SixAxis controller and select Enabled. Then go to Internet Connection Settings (also under Network Settings), and select your network name (SSID). Enter the network password if you have one.
You Can set up Media sever with a Ethernet cord or wi-fi, for HD play back it is better to use the Ethernet cord.

Internet Connection Settings Screenshot
Note: A keyboard connect to the PS3 (either a Bluetooth one, USB or the official Sony keyboard that connect to the controller) really comes in handy when entering information.

STEP 2: Connect to your computers

Go into the PS3’s Settings menu and navigate to Network Settings – Media Server Connection, and select Enabled. This allows the PS3 to detect networked computers running Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) server software.
NOTE: Below I will be showing you how to set up different Operating systems.

WINDOWS XP/Vista: Windows users have a number of useful options when it comes to serving media files from their PCs. I will be using Windows Media Player 11 for this guide due to the simplified setup and broad install base – you probably have it on your PC already.

Open WMP, right-click on Library, and select Media Sharing. Check the box next to “Share my media to:” and select either PlayStation 3 or Unknown Device (if the former doesn’t appear).

MAC OS X: UPnP software is available for Mac OS X, too. We used Nullriver’s MediaLink ($20, www.nullriver.com) because it’s quick and painless. The freeware we looked at generally required familiarity with Unix commands.
After downloading and installing the software, you access the interface in System Preferences.

Click on Start to begin UPnP sharing; you can also use this screen to configure the software to limit access to specific items like iTunes playlists or iPhoto albums.

Once sharing is enabled, go to the Devices tab and verify that either “PlayStation 3? or “Unsupported device” is listed in the pane.You should also see a MediaLink icon in your Mac’s menu bar; you can start and stop sharing or open the preferences pane from there.

STEP 3: Start watching and listening
Access your content by navigating to Photo, Video, or Music on the PS3’s home screen, and scroll until you see your computer or external drive. If you don’t see your computer’s media server listed, try selecting “Search for Media Servers” from any of the multimedia menus.

PS3 Codec Support

Video: MPG, MP4, AVI, DivX (except v3.11), AVCHD, WMV

Audio: WAV, MP3, AAC, ATRAC, WMA

Photo: JPEG, BMP, GIF, TIFF, PNG

Not supported: Protected content, lossless audio formats (Apple Lossless, FLAC, etc.), RAW image files, or VOB movie files.

Step 4: Copy your files onto your PS3.
Note: Copying via network is much slower then copying/ripping from a CD or USB device.
Note #2: The PS3 automatically grabs the artist/song info for CDs from the Internet,When you copy items to the PS3’s internal hard drive, they show up in the PS3 menus as folders arranged alphabetically.

Tip: By hitting triangle you can group the content By Artist, By Album, By Genre, By Track, By Release Year and All.

OPTIONAL
Step 5: Flash Drives, External HDD & Memory Cards
Important Note: Only then 40GB, 60GB, Older 80GB have memory card readers and 4 USB ports. But don’t worry USB card readers are cheap.

This part is simple — just plug in your thumb drive or USB hard drive to any of the PS3’s USB ports. When navigating a USB drive’s folders, use the PS3 menu corresponding to the type of media you’re looking for on the drive, or the files won’t show up.

External drives must be formatted with the FAT32 file system for the PS3 to read files on it. Formatting a drive erases all the data on it, so if your PS3 won’t read your drive, make sure to back up all data before you format.

Memory cards (Memory Stick, SD and its variants, or CompactFlash) go in the labeled slots under the door on the PS3’s front, and they don’t require specific formatting. *Check the note above*

Tip: If you have a network-attached storage device you can access it by mounting the drive on a networked computer. Then select your media server in the main PS3 window, and navigate to Folders – Volumes, and select the networked drive you want. Note that this doesn’t work with Windows Media Player’s UPnP server, but it works fine with TVersity (Windows) and MediaLink (Mac).

TROUBLESHOOTING
If your Windows computer still can’t see your PS3, go to Control Panel – Administrative Tools – Services. Scroll down to Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service and double-click on it. If the service isn’t already started, click on the Start button. Then go to Control Panel – Windows Firewall, and click on Change Settings (Vista only), and click on the Exceptions tab (Vista/XP). Make sure the boxes next to “UPnP Framework” and “Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service” is checked.

On your PS3, you may see some DLNA protocol error notifications . Sometimes this was because one of our computers had gone to sleep, and sometimes it remained a mystery. Operation can be quirky: For example, suddenly the PS3 might temporarily become unable to copy multiple items, or it won’t find all the subfolders in a folder. Odd problems like these usually disappear quickly. If they don’t, try restarting your media server software and PS3.