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NextGen Consoles as your MEDIA CENTER, how good are they?

7K views 48 replies 17 participants last post by  calvin940 
#1 ·
PS3's media center capabilities?

Hello, I basically want to DL my movies and music onto my laptop in my upstairs room and stream wirelessly to a PS3 or XBOX360. I have a wireless Highspeed modem that acts as a wireless router. So can I stream to these consoles effortlessly with amazing results? I have read about people doing it with Lan cables and such but not through wifi. thanks.
 
#31 ·
Still frustrated

Thanks for the feedback. Its still not working. I have Shaw Secure firewall.
I turned it off - nothing. Tried Windows firewall - nothing. UpnP is "on" on my router and shows "on" in PS3. I have a Linksys BEFSR41.
normancw: When I do a network > settings > test network connection all I see is 2 things:
obtain IP address ... succeeded
internat connection ... succedded.
No mention of UpnP or NATx.
Is your PS3 at rev 2.10?

Here's what I meant by "see" the PS3. In Vista there's a "Network" option in the "start" menu. It shows all PCs connected to your network. Not sure what the equivalent is in WINXP. My PS3 is not in the list.
Here's another fact that I think is relevant. When I go to my router and look at my DHCP Client Table, the PS3 is in the list but it's hostname field is either blank, or consists of non standrd characters like Euro signs, not signs, upward pointing arrows, etc. That's why I asked if you could see the PS3's hostname. Not sure if the "computer name" in the PS3 system config will become the IP hostname, but I would think so. Mine is PS3-637.

Questions:
1). If you go to your router and look at the DHCP Client table what does the hostname field show for the PS3? Is it the same as the computer name?
2). Find out the IP address of the PS3 and if it's 192.168.1.101 for example, open a DOS prompt and do a nbtstat -A 192.168.1.101. What do you get?
3). I thought you had to be in the same workgroup to share files. I see no way to specify workgroup name in the PS3 config. I would realy like to see the results of your nbtstat command.
 
#38 · (Edited)
Also try enabling Filter Multicast on your BEFSR41

Tried Windows firewall - nothing. UpnP is "on" on my router and shows "on" in PS3. I have a Linksys BEFSR41.
normancw: When I do a network > settings > test network connection all I see is 2 things:
obtain IP address ... succeeded
internat connection ... succedded.
No mention of UpnP or NATx.
Is your PS3 at rev 2.10?
Yes, my PS3 is at rev 2.10. I'm not at home right now so I can't answer your other questions, but here's a shot in the dark: In addition using Windows firewall and enabling UPnP on your router, you can enable Filter Multicast on your BEFSR41 under security tab - I just read this on another forum.

FYI, I did not try doing this on the Linksys WRT350N router - like jcol, I just gave up and exchanged the router for a D-Link DIR-655.
 
#32 ·
My PS3 is 10.1.1.77

When I test my network on the PS3, I get:

Obtain IP Address: Succeeded
Internet Connection: Succeeded
Playstation Network: Succeeded
UPnP: Not Available
NAT Type: Type 3

1) I am not running DHCP. My PS3 has a static IP just like all of my other machines on the network. (I am also using a Linux machine as my router)

2)
C:\>nbtstat -A 10.1.1.77

Wireless Network Connection:
Node IpAddress: [10.1.1.34] Scope Id: []

Host not found.
C:\>

3) I have never configured my PS3 in any workgroup.
 
#33 ·
I signed up at the PSN and now my network test on the PS3 looks like yours. UPnP is N/A and NAT is TYPE 3. UPnP is set "on" on the router.

This is frustrating for me because I'm used to being able to at least have an error message to go on. There's no future in the "change this and try it again", method of debugging. I need a log, trace file, of monitor file to look at that will tell me why the PS3 can't see the PC!
 
#34 ·
This is frustrating for me because I'm used to being able to at least have an error message to go on. There's no future in the "change this and try it again", method of debugging. I need a log, trace file, of monitor file to look at that will tell me why the PS3 can't see the PC!
Problem is that the PS3 doesn't know there is something it is not finding. You need to look at your source machine closer because I think that's where the issue is.
 
#35 ·
WMP11 and PS3

pwn - Back in September or October I tried getting the WMP11 and my sons PS3 to work and I got nowhere. I don't recall the specifics but what you are describing sounds familiar. At this point my son also purchased the PS3 online game WarHawk. We had nothing but trouble getting the online part of WarHawk working - while it would find lots on online servers we could never connect to any. I remember focusing in on the PS3 network or internet connection test and trying to get a NAT2 and UPuP to show up. Our results were the same as yours, no Nat and no UPuP. All of the advice we were getting was that we needed those responses in order to get WarHawk online to work. At the time we were using a Linksys 54 something wireless router. This is an inexpensive router that had worked OK for allowing my laptop wireless access to the internet. Out of frustration my son went and purchased a D-Link 655 wireless router which was recommended by some folks at the various support forums. Well after installing the new router and doing very little fiddling with it we quickly got our Nat 2 and UPuP response from the PS3 connection test - at this point WarHawk started to work and my Vista computer appeared as a media server on the PS3. We found we could look at pictures and play MP's. So in my case it was my Linksys router,, I'm not suggesting that you need to replace your's as it is a different model them mine, but your problem sounds similar and for us the D-Link router seemed to make the difference. Good luck.
 
#37 ·
pwn, one thing you want to do is open up the correct ports on your router, to connect to the Playstation Netowork. http://manuals.playstation.net/document/en/ps3/current/settings/connecttest.html

Also, to get WMP11 work, try this. I had the same problems as you (PC coundn't see the PS3 over the network), and this worked. Took me a while to find this link.

http://boardsus.playstation.com/playstation/board/message?board.id=ps3media&message.id=86802#M86802

The "second way" worked for me....see below.

1. Shut off the ps3. In Windows go to “start”, “run”, then type “services.msc”.
2. When that pops up go to the bottom and pick “windows media network sharing” and stop the service. Close the window.
3. Go to “My Computer” then go to “tools” at the top and “folder options”. From there hit the “view” tab and select the “show hidden files and folders” and about 2 spaces under that is something about hiding system files. Un-check both of these. When you click the second one it will ask you if you are sure and say yes. Close that window.
4. Go to “C: drive”, “docs and settings”, “all users”, then under that there should be the “DRM” folder. In that folder delete everything.
5. After that go back to the tools folder, options, view tab, and put back the two checks that you took off.
6. Go back to servies.msc and start back up the windows media sharing service.
7. Now turn your ps3 back on and it should work!!!!!
 
#43 ·
Yes! Oh the joy!

Thank you normancw! You solved my problem.

I enabled "Filter Multicast" on the router and it started working! Did a "search for media server" on the PS3 and it found my PC. Ran some WMV files and *.jpg photos and they played perfectly.

The description for that option follows:

"Filter Multicast allows for multiple transmissions to specific recipients at the same time. If multicasting is permitted, then the Router will allow IP multicast packets to be forwarded to the appropriate computers. Select Enabled to filter multicasting, or Disable to allow multicast to pass through."

I think Linksys choked when they set the default to "Disabled" for this one. I'm sure this has caused a lot of frustration.

I'd have never found it without your help. Thanks again to all who responded and especially normancw.

This is a great forum!
 
#44 ·
my PS3 works well for me as a "media centre", it's not much of one but I am happy with it, I have it paired to my Sharp D64U 42" LCD.

I use it to watch home movies, pictures, play games, watch BD/DVD and sometimes even surf the net.

Heck of a deal the PS3 considering how much I use it.
 
#45 ·
Just to summarize my situation in case anyone else is having PS3/WMP11 problems:

1). I’m using F-Secure, which is free from Shaw as my windows firewall. It’s active with all the default settings. I made no changes to it.
2). I made no changes to the PS3 initial default setup for wired connection.
3). My router is also running with all default settings. The only changes I had to make to get the PS3 to recognize the WMP11 media player was to change “filter muticast” from “disabled” to “enabled” and enable UPnP.

BTW, I still wonder why the PS3 doesn’t show up as a PC on my network. Not sure if it should or not. In WIN98 this was called “Network Neighbourhood”. Vista has the same sort of thing. Also it has a garbage hostname in the DHCP routing table. I have 2 other PCs on my network with hostnames of ASE380 and NETVISTA.

An example follows:

DHCP Active IP Table
DHCP Server IP Address: 192.168.1.1
Client Hostname IP Address MAC Address Interface
€L 192.168.1.100 00-19-c5-fe-8c-2f Ethernet
NETVISTA 192.168.1.101 00-0d-60-07-23-9d Ethernet
ASE380 192.168.1.103 00-19-21-50-8b-b3 Ethernet

The PS3, is 192.168.1.100.

Anyone with a PS3: Is yours the same?
 
#47 ·
jcol, your Linksys 54 router should work if it is supports WRT software. My Linksys router 54GL works well and runs DD-WRT firmware. Also, works is my Belkin Pre-N router.

When I first set up the DLNA server, it worked like a charm. Now all my PCs and laptop can stream to our PS3 for music.

Awesome!
 
#48 ·
Thanks lawman, is WRT third party firmware that I have seen available for the Linksys router? If it is I did try some of those. My Linksys always worked OK, however as my home network got larger it started having problems. I'm running 3 laptops wireless, 2 wired computers (one XP and one Vista), two PS3's (one wired and one wireless) and my cell phone/pda which has wifi. We started having alot of drop outs and lock ups when two or more wireless devices were on, this got much worse when we added the first wireless PS3. We put up with it but with the WarHawk problems and the WMP problems we thought it was time to retire it and get a different router. I had used the Linksys for 3 years and it was around $70. In hind sight I think some of my problems might have been solved by changing the "filter multicast" setting but I don't think I knew about that setting and it's affect. The D-Link went in and worked with minimal tweaking. It immediately solved our lockups and as I mentioned the PS3 and the Vista computer started to work together. It also is signficantly faster for downloads. Don't know why, but my internet download speed tests always came back at around 2 MB/sec with the Linksys, but with the D-link I started seeing much better download speeds; the tests come back at around 3 Mb/sec. Now either my ISP changed something at the same time that I switched routers or the D-link is simply faster. Either way thanks for your suggestion. My old Linksys is now at my friends house dealing with one wired and 2 wireless laptops and it is working fine.
 
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