Best Solution For Media Streaming?

Actually yes it would. You need something with a decent CPU to do the transcoding for PlayOn. The bare minimum is a 3.2ghz P4, but I've tried it on different setups, and PlayOn is a mess on anything less than a Core 2.

Buy a gigabit switch and a fuckload of Cat 6 cable for cheap from monoprice or newegg and wire your desktop and PS3 into the switch and then into the router. That will solve your media streaming issues. You'll even be able to watch 1080p content stored on your desktop with no problems. Gigabit is helluva fast. Most hard drives can't even fully take advantage of its transfer speeds.

It doesn't matter what you replace the PS3 with. As long as your desktop is on a wireless connection, streaming is going to be a stuttery pile of suck and fail.

 

My own wireless setup has a computer with 802.11n wireless and an 802.11n WiFi router in one room, with the flat screen and Apple TV + Xbox 360 in another. It seems to work fine for 720p streaming, and the 360 is using the old dual "rabbit ear" WiFi add-on. For me, simply having 802.11n in the computer and the router was the big difference maker for streaming content.

 

Although I use a laptop as my media center, I don't play videos locally from it. I stream it through my 802.11n router and it plays 720p and 1080p videos just fine. It probably all depends on your signal and quality of the router. I busted out $150 for this netgear WNDR3700 and seems to handle things fine.

 

Keep in mind that the PS3 is older and only capable of 802.11g. That's why I was recommending that he take advantage of its gigabit ethernet.

 

Oh in that case.. What a pos. I guess with tv shows and low bitrate 720p movies it's fine due to the fat32 lim

 

What Fat32 limit are you talking about? I've streamed large, high bitrate 10GB+ 1080p BluRay rips with no problem over gigabit ethernet to my PS3. Just run the mkv file through mkv2vob first. It even defeats cinavia audio protection.

The PS3 isn't a POS. Keep in mind that it's from 2006, before 802.11n was finalized. And it has gigabit, which is really the best thing for media streaming anyway.

He could buy an Apple TV or something, but why not just use what he has? A gigabit switch is $30, and 100ft of Cat 6 is $12.

http://www.monoprice.com/products/subdepartment.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10232

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833156250

Problem solved for $42.

 

I'm talking about for storage devices. I think Fusion mentioned it on the first page. I don't know how relevant gigabit ethernet is for supersonic since it sounds like he's keeping that as a last resort.

Although gigabit ethernet is the best thing for media streaming, it's not realistic for some people. There's still an alternative though.. just get a wireless 802.11n bridge for the ps3 and you're good to go.

 

Got it. Yes, FAT32 is an issue if you're trying to play things off a flash drive. It doesn't affect streaming.

I've always found wireless flaky and unreliable for large files. My house is wired except for our laptops. But it's my house so I can fuck with the walls if I want to. I guess it might be different living in an apartment.

Also this is straight from PlayOn:

In other words, considering the PS3 only does wireless G, everything should be wired.

 

You can still connect an 802.11n router directly to the PS3 through gigabit ethernet. As long as the PC is also using 802.11n, it should work fine the vast majority of the time.

 

While we are on this subject, I just wanted to share a little device that has been one of my most treasured possessions: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833127256&cm_re=dlink_xtreme-_-33-127-256-_-Product

 

My PS3 just seems to have a faulty wireless device or something. I don't game online with it, but had a couple of problems updating games when using wireless for the first time (successfully) last year. Later in the year I tried media streaming and it kept freezing the PS3 after 5-20mins of streaming. I tried the usual media player option, TVversity and PS3 media server. All have the same issue. My conclusion is that my PS3's wireless device is clearly defective. Although I may just try it again now since I'm currently using a different router... of course I would have thought that the PS3 hard locking made it pretty clear where the blame lies.

My current house would be alright with an ethernet cable between the router and PS3, since there is a lounge and bookshelf running along the wall, so I'll probably just do that. In the mean time I've been using a flash drive. I did get a 720p mkv file recently that was 4.3GB but after conversion to vob it luckily came out to 3.9GB

What router do you have currently? If it has g series wireless, just give it a go and see how it works out.

 

I am currently using a whs based on the intel atom CPU (dual core) and the nvidia ion chipset. It is the pov cs330. It is fast enough with hardware decoding for fullhd.
But i am only using it as a Windows home server.
For streaming i am using the hdi dune 3.0 prime through a 1 gbit network.
The movie and series is customisable with pc software. Which looks pretty awesome.

 

What about something like this?

http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-1080p-Media-Player/dp/B003MVZ60I/ref=cm_cmu_pg__header?t=slickdeals&tag=slickdeals

 

I'm getting my aunt that for her bday next month. it's simple enough to use. Good to see it's back to $80 again.

 

You could use an old computer as a Boxee box.

http://www.boxee.tv/

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.sunilsadasivan.Boxee&feature=search_result

I have an old laptop hooked up to my HDTV running Boxee with my phone set up as a remote. I've been using it more lately since Sony has been slipping cinavia into a lot of recent movies, making them unplayable on the PS3. I also don't experience stuttering over wireless using Boxee the way I did with the PS3.

 

Just an update on my PS3. It still drops out when using wireless with my new router. Whether on internet or streaming content. Damn you all!