saumitra
Active Member
Reading a few threads on PS3/PS3 slim and its media handling capabilities and limitations, I believed that PS3 can't read and play media files from external HDDs mainly because all/most of these HDDs are NTFS formatted while PS3 could read only FAT32 disks. I have a WD HDD (MyPassport 320 GB) and have many movies/ videos and music stored in it. Recently I bought a new HDTV (LG 42LH90) that has USB playback feature. I was able to connect the HDD to the TV's USB port and play some of the movies. But the trouble was the TV didn't recognise all the formats (e.g. some mp4 movies, m2ts videos). Plus LG TVs had this odd limitation of not allowing any picture settings while playing videos from a USB HDD/ flash drive.
Recently I got the PS3 slim (120 GB). Now I wanted to play all those movies and videos in my HDD that I couldn't by connecting the HDD directly to the TV. So, going by the recommendation from some of the forum members, I installed the PS3 media server in my laptop and then by connecting the HDD to my laptop, I was able to stream the movies/ videos to the PS3 and watch in the TV. However, there was that occasional hiccups with few video frames getting stuck temporarilry or moving in broken slow-motion. Fortunately it happened very few times (2-3 times during a 2.5 hour movie), so it was not that bad, though a bit irritating. I read in this forum that by manipulating the PS3 media server settings, one could resolve this. While I was trying that out, I was also getting tempted to consider buying a media streamer.
Till day before yesterday, I had not even tried once connecting the HDD to PS3 (as I was sure PS3 won't recognise it) though I tried playing media from USB flash-drives. Just as an experiment, yesterday morning I connected the HDD to the PS3. I browsed to the "video" menu of the PS3 and saw the HDD listed. I tried opening it but got the 'no title inside' message. I was expecting this anyway. But just before giving up & taking out the HDD, while the HDD was selected, I went to 'options' (green triangle on the PS3 controller) - it had 'information' and 'display all' option. I selected 'display all' option. To my surprise, all the folders in the HDD were now visible. I browsed to the 'movies' folder (where I had all the movies). Again I had the same 'no title' message and again I tried options--> display all. And I could see all the movie folders. I selected one folder with a mp4 movie and again got the same 'no title' message and again tried the same trick ('display all'). Now I could see the movie file. When I selected the file and entered, the movie started playing, perfectly. Funny thing is - from next time onwards whenever I connected the HDD, I got that 'no title' message only for top menu. But after using the 'display all', when I selected any of the movie (or music/ video) folders, the contents/files were displayed w/o any more error and I was able to play all - movies, m2ts videos (transferred from my Sony camcorder) and the music. For the wma music files, PS3 directed me to go through the Sytem Settings --> Audio settings --> Enable WMA playback option (you need to have the PS3 connected to the net during this step as it does some one-time authentication before activating this option), but once that was done, I was able to play all wma files.
With this pleasant and unexpected thing - I am now able to do everything using the PS3 and the HDD that I wanted to do.
I am sharing this small thing just to let some other 'ignorant' PS3 slim owners like me (if any) know that you can actually connect your HDDs to your PS3 slim & play the media files - contrary to what some members in this forum suggested and I believed.
Recently I got the PS3 slim (120 GB). Now I wanted to play all those movies and videos in my HDD that I couldn't by connecting the HDD directly to the TV. So, going by the recommendation from some of the forum members, I installed the PS3 media server in my laptop and then by connecting the HDD to my laptop, I was able to stream the movies/ videos to the PS3 and watch in the TV. However, there was that occasional hiccups with few video frames getting stuck temporarilry or moving in broken slow-motion. Fortunately it happened very few times (2-3 times during a 2.5 hour movie), so it was not that bad, though a bit irritating. I read in this forum that by manipulating the PS3 media server settings, one could resolve this. While I was trying that out, I was also getting tempted to consider buying a media streamer.
Till day before yesterday, I had not even tried once connecting the HDD to PS3 (as I was sure PS3 won't recognise it) though I tried playing media from USB flash-drives. Just as an experiment, yesterday morning I connected the HDD to the PS3. I browsed to the "video" menu of the PS3 and saw the HDD listed. I tried opening it but got the 'no title inside' message. I was expecting this anyway. But just before giving up & taking out the HDD, while the HDD was selected, I went to 'options' (green triangle on the PS3 controller) - it had 'information' and 'display all' option. I selected 'display all' option. To my surprise, all the folders in the HDD were now visible. I browsed to the 'movies' folder (where I had all the movies). Again I had the same 'no title' message and again I tried options--> display all. And I could see all the movie folders. I selected one folder with a mp4 movie and again got the same 'no title' message and again tried the same trick ('display all'). Now I could see the movie file. When I selected the file and entered, the movie started playing, perfectly. Funny thing is - from next time onwards whenever I connected the HDD, I got that 'no title' message only for top menu. But after using the 'display all', when I selected any of the movie (or music/ video) folders, the contents/files were displayed w/o any more error and I was able to play all - movies, m2ts videos (transferred from my Sony camcorder) and the music. For the wma music files, PS3 directed me to go through the Sytem Settings --> Audio settings --> Enable WMA playback option (you need to have the PS3 connected to the net during this step as it does some one-time authentication before activating this option), but once that was done, I was able to play all wma files.
With this pleasant and unexpected thing - I am now able to do everything using the PS3 and the HDD that I wanted to do.
I am sharing this small thing just to let some other 'ignorant' PS3 slim owners like me (if any) know that you can actually connect your HDDs to your PS3 slim & play the media files - contrary to what some members in this forum suggested and I believed.
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