Stream

All posts tagged Stream

PS3 Media Server

Posted by Ben Thomas on September 3, 2009
Posted in: Applications, Gaming, Multimedia. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a Comment

I recently gave in to temptation and bought a PS3. Got a package with InFamous, Killzone 2 and Resistance 2. Loving it so far, definitely still keeping the Xbox 360 as well though.

Anyway, onto the real reason I was posting this. I’ve been looking for ages now for something that would play MKV files without any hassle… even muxing was becoming a pain in the arse as certain things still wouldn’t stream (depending on filesize and various other weird factors).

These are the things I’d tried to stream from (through the PS3 or Xbox):

Windows Media Player 11 – Extremely fast and nice to use when it worked, however, it didn’t support mkv or some older versions of DivX/XviD.

TVersity – Played everything I could throw at it, but it was totally unusable for MKV or any HD content. If I tried to pause, fast forward or rewind I just got a black screen for over 5 minutes until it started playing again.

Finally, I’d heard great things about PS3 Media Server but I wasn’t getting my hopes up too much as I thought it would be so similar to TVersity… how wrong I was! I don’t want to speak too soon, but so far after a few days of usage it’s been flawless. Plays everything I’ve thrown at it, relatively fast at transcoding when it needs to (not instant but it’s definitely short enough to be usable).

Another cool feature is the ability to go into the #–TRANSCODE–# folder and select which subtitles you want to use if a file has subtitles.

Best of all, it’s totally free. Plus because it’s written in Java, it works on Windows, Linux or Mac (I’ve only tested the Windows version though).

Here’s a screenshot of the main status page. I’m sure there’ll be plenty of images of the other screens around the internet, but if anyone wants to see any more just leave a comment.

PS3 Media Server

PS3 Media Server

So if you’re looking for something to stream any media from your PC (videos, music, pictures) to your PS3, then give PS3 Media Server a try! You won’t regret it. I know I didn’t anyway 🙂

Spotify – Stream Music

Posted by Ben Thomas on January 11, 2009
Posted in: Applications. Tagged: , , , . Leave a Comment

Found another cool application the other day, it’s similar to Last.fm in the fact you can stream music and find similar artists you might enjoy etc. You can also stream full albums, add music to a queue and create playlists. The quality isn’t perfect but it’s listenable, much better than most free “web” services. This is actually a desktop application though.

Here’s a few excerpts from their FAQ, they do a better job of explaining it than I can.

What is Spotify?
Spotify offers you legal and free access to a huge library of music. All you need to do is create an account and download our streaming music player.
What is your goal?
Our dream is to let everyone listen to whatever they want, whenever and wherever they want.
Do I need to pay to use Spotify?
No, the advertising-funded version of Spotify is free of charge, however, for now it requires that you receive an invite to register. Alternatively, you can pay for an ad-free subscription to Spotify.

I’ve been listening for quite a while now and I’ve only heard one short advert so far, so it’s totally acceptable in that respect unless you really hate ads. I’ve got a feeling ads will get more frequent as their user base grows but for now it’s great.

It’s only officially available for Windows and Mac at the moment but apparently it works under Wine on Linux.

Here’s a screenshot from their site:

Spotify

Spotify