This is an entry dedicated to the Asrock Ion 330, a great Atom/Ion mini PC that when combined with XBMC Live becomes the ultimate media player.

Specifications on Asrock site.  What makes the Asrock Ion 330 a great networked media tank better than anything like the Popcorn Hour or WDTV is that you get to use the fantastic XBMC software on it and it offloads the heavy stuff onto the GPU to do the video decoding. The Ion 330 also is a low noise, power size box so it can easily fit into any AV setup.

FAQ for newbies like myself getting XBMC Live up & running on it.

How do I enable GPU acceleration for videos ?

You need to manually enable VDPAU (GPU acceleration) found under Settings->Videos->Player->Render method change from Auto to VDPAU.

Is a RAM upgrade worth it over the stock 2GB ?

I upgraded to 4GB DDR2 as its so cheap now, there was a slight improvement overall I’d say but nothing major, some others have stated about Atom/Ion combos that extra RAM helps smooth video playback.

Does it support wake on usb ?

Yes it does, I use the Microsoft MCE IR receiver and it is properly woken up by the MCE remote or Logitech Harmony remote & XBMC Live supports it no need to alter anything (though see issues below).

How loud is it ?

Well that’s a hard one to pin down as some people are more picky than others, I’d say its not as quiet as a PS3 but not as loud as an Xbox 360 (no disc). You shouldn’t hear the unit when content is playing or with general background noise but in a totally silent room you may hear it. Be sure you to update to the latest bios as it improves the fan control (& it’s overall noise output).

There are actually two fans in the unit a very small fan cools one of the chips it is under the DVD drive if you remove the DVD/HD cage, this is the noisy fan of the two (its 30mm in size) if running 1.00 bios. Asrock have released a bios update which adjusts the speed the smaller fan to address the oscillating noise

The bigger built in fan is a 5cm/50mm (20mm depth - most fans are only 10mm depth) unit though if you want to replace it that fan size isn’t too common so you may need to hunt around various PC stores, since the bios updates have address the noise in the unit there is not much point in replacing it.

How does it handle the Aeon skin ?

Don’t know not tried it myself. Opinions of others can be found here.

Current issues that happen after installing XBMC Live 9.04.1

There is a general discussion thread here on XBMC forums but I will summarize the more important issues.

A) Updating XBMC Live 9.04.1 to latest NVIDIA drivers – solution here.

B) Audio over HDMI does not work - this one is easy to fix just in XBMC simply go into settings->system->audio hardware and switch over to digital audio mode, set both to audio outputs default & iec958 to hdmi like so beneath.

• Audio output device = hdmi
• Passthrough output device = hdmi

Over HDMI you will not hear any audio when navigating the XBMC user interface – this is normal.

C) When coming out of sleep an X cursor is shown on screen and remains until the system is rebooted – solution here.

D) XBMC Live uses the 0-255 PC colour space by default instead of 16-235 TV – I don’t know how to actually switch over to 16-235 proper but an easy fix is to bring up the on screen video controls when playing a video, select the video settings button and from here you can adjust the brightness and contrast plus use the set for all videos function which is the important one. Try a setting of 55 for both.  If you are unsure of how to bring up the OSD check the controls section of the XBMC manual.

E) Enabling 1080p @ 24Hz support – solution here.

That’s pretty much to it and you have a kick ass networked media tank, issues above may be resolved in future XBMC releases so at time of writing consider the above applying only to 9.04.1 release. 

Using Logitech Harmony One & wake on USB

I own this remote and there are guides here & here that are pretty advanced but I wanted to keep things relatively simple without any mods so here is the quick way to get up and running assuming your familiar with Logitech software.

* Add a new device in Logitech software from Computer->Media Center PC->Microsoft->Extender

* Rename device extender

* Go and add a new activity Watch DVD using the extender

* After the new activity is set up you can rename it to XBMC

* Select Customize buttons and make any changes you need to, I suggest adding the “back” button into the position occupied by “prev” button on remote (button next to mute)

* Make any other changes you want – take a look at XBMC mappings to extender remote to see what button does what.

In XBMC go into Settings->System->Shutdown and change shutdown action to suspend.

This will make the Logitech remote put the Asrock Ion 330 into sleep mode when you use the power off button on the remote and wake it up when using the XBMC activity.

If you have an Xbox 360 make sure in its own dash settings that it’s set to Xbox remote only as otherwise it will respond to commands from Logitech remote when using XBMC activity.

Big news at long last someone has stepped up to the plate and properly tied MKV into Windows 7, DivX have released a preview of their integration app which will tie MKV into Windows Media Player 12 [WMP12] and Windows Media Center 7 [WMC7].

Now those who have read my blog may know about my past MKV patch for older versions of Windows however this app from DivX is much better as it enables thumbnails, is based of Media Foundation and even enables MKV playback in Windows Media Center extenders like the Xbox 360!!

Yes I’ve tried it and it works!

Anyway go download and check it out as this means I can now abandon looking to tie MKV into WMP woohoo!

http://labs.divx.com/mkvwin7preview

Unfortunately due to the action of spammers I have to turn off comments again as it’s really getting ridiculous now, I manually deleted all the spam comments from this blog two days ago and today the spam was back on every single entry in the blog!!! - just unbelievable.

What's clear is that the spammers are ahead of whatever measures Microsoft employs, that or people are being paid to do it and they will never stop after getting banned they just sign up a new account and repeat.

Microsoft really needs to add options to ban users from commenting on spaces with an auto delete of all their comments as that's the only way the spam can be managed or allow comments to be disabled per entry.

So the Windows 7 RC has wormed its way out onto the net and here are some quick tests I did.

First up is Windows media player 12 & I’m happy to report things have improved

• AVCHD (H.264+AC3 5.1) videos play without issue
• H.264 in MP4 play without issue
• MP4/M4A AAC-HE, AAC-LC and AAC-LC 5.1 all play without issue
• H.264 in MOV plays without issue, the audio needs to be AAC otherwise it will still play but you wont hear anything
• XviD/DivX videos in AVI play without issue

WMP12 to Xbox 360 dash over UPnP

• AVCHD videos are seen (even thumbnail) but do not play
• H.264/MP4 videos with AAC-HE or AAC-LC 5.1 do not play.
• H.264/MP4 videos with AAC-LC 2 channel play without issue
• H.264 in MOV plays without issue as long as the audio is AAC-LC 2 channel
• XviD/DivX videos in AVI play without issue

So what's clear from the Xbox 360 is that unless a dash update is released than the videos above which do not play never will.

Windows 7 media center to Xbox 360 media center extender

• AVCHD videos plays without issue
• H.264 in MP4 with AAC-HE, AAC-LC or AAC LC-5.1 audio play without issue
• H.264 in MOV with AAC audio plays without issue however if there is no AAC audio it will not play the video
• XviD/DivX videos in AVI play without issue

WMP12 to PS3 over UPnP

I wrote this for those few like myself wondering about an odd problem involving certain AV equipment.

There is a bug with Panasonic plasmas in the PZ8 series (PZ81 & PZ85 confirmed) when used in conjunction with a Sony sound system that uses HDMI pass-through (BD, DVD, SAT inputs) on occasion when powering on either a Playstation 3 or Xbox 360 will cause the some of the colours to be inverted/swapped/reversed/messed up (e.g. blue becomes red, orange becomes blue).

Why this happens is a mystery (I can tell you it’s not a cable issue) but it seems Sony sound systems are the root cause and that it only seems to affect those two game consoles though it seems to affect the Playstation 3 much more than the Xbox 360.

The only solutions I know of are

• Turn on the Playstation 3 & wait till it has fully booted up before powering on the TV and sound system (this works about 50/50)
• Switch inputs from BD to DVD etc & back again and that will correct it
• Power off the console and turn it back on (works most but not all times)
• Running through the display settings menu on the PS3 also corrects it

If its really bugging you the best thing to do is to take the PS3 off the HDMI Sony sound system and plug it directly into the TV but run the audio over an optical connection to your Sony sound system, get yourself a Logitech Harmony One remote to take all the work out of switching inputs.

Links to other owners of such combos link-1 link-2

This is my short guide on converting a Blu-ray/DVD/HD-DVD into a MKV video leaving the video intact but converting the audio into regular AC3 to increase compatibility as software players and standalone devices that support MKV still seem to have quite a bit of trouble handling the HD audio formats.

Is there an easy way to go through all that ?

Yes for Blu-ray & DVD there is a program called MakeMKV which is very easy to use however it is still fairly early in development and doesn't always work plus doesn't really support HD-DVD’s either. It also auto down-mixes the HD audio into AC3 making compatibility much better.

Start Slysoft AnyDVD-HD, put in your Blu-ray or DVD then start MakeMKV it will scan the disc so pick out what you want for the MKV and it will generate one from it, that’s all there is to it.

It didn't work, is there another way ?

Blu-ray/HD-DVD manual conversion - what you’ll need:

• Slysoft AnyDVD-HD
• eac3to + HD-DVD/Blu-ray Stream Extractor [GUI to eac3to] (extract both into same folder)
• MKVmerge (part of the MKVtoolnix suite)

Step 1:

Start AnyDVD and put in your Blu-ray/HD-DVD disc. Now start the HD-DVD/Blu-ray stream extractor and you will have a screen like below. Under “Input” click the browse folder button and point it at your Blu-ray disc or folder if you have transferred it to the hard drive. Now click on “Features” and it will scan for media that can be extracted, be aware their is a further delay when you select a stream so be patient.

Step 2:

After it finishes the scan it will populate with entries like below (though each disc can be different in my case this disc has multiple streams for foreign languages), I have ticked the box for chapters, the video stream is easy to ID because it’s 1080p and the audio stream is thankfully labelled as English. Under the heading “Extract As” for the audio change it to AC3 as seen in my screenshot below.

Under “Output” set a folder to output the extracted files to, and when ready click on “Extract”.

Step 3:

After the extraction you will have a mkv file containing the video, a chapters txt file and the audio in AC3 form – all’s that's left to do is to merge everything together into a single mkv file using mkvmerge so start that. Under the “Input Files” drag your video mkv in and then your audio into it as well, look at the “Output Filename” & select a name for the video.

Now to go to the global tab and see where the section is highlighted you can add the chapters txt in through that.

Once done back on the Input tab click on “Start Muxing” the process will take a while but it will if all goes to plan spit out a fully working MKV.

Various things:

Using AnyDVD ripper to transfer the Blu-ray or HD-DVD to the HD will speed up the process of demuxing though it takes quite a while to actually transfer to the HD in the first place so I’m not sure its worth it.

Playback software recommend is MPC-HC or VLC, there is no need for codec packs as both players have the necessary codecs built into the application. I recommend MPC-HC over VLC and it supports some of the HD audio formats & has DXVA support for handling the HD video stream.

What standalone devices work with the MKV’s generated from above (if you have success with another unit let me know)

• WDTV – Can play Blu-ray/DVD derived MKV’s (must have latest firmware to play VC-1 MKV).

Along with fixing the seeking problems for AVCHD videos Microsoft have revealed that they have added mov container support to WMP12 in Windows 7 release candidate. Anyone who has had the misfortune to use Quicktime (outside OSX) knows what a buggy and poorly performing application it is so this is welcome news to Windows users.

However before you go thinking yes I can get rid of Quicktime and iTunes completely hold your horses, in most cases you should be able to lose iTunes/Quicktime but it is unlikely that WMP12 will be able to play back all content generated by Quicktime as Apple used a lot of proprietary formats over the years and only recently in the past has settled on H.264/AAC which is what Windows also supports. Some older videos are probably not going to work but most current ones provided the author stuck to standards should.

Also Apple used the M4A container for another format of theirs the “Apple Lossless Format” which is not supported by WMP12 so if you encoded your music library into that then it will not play.

http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2009/02/26/some-changes-since-beta.aspx

Customers loved the increased range of formats natively supported by the Windows 7 Beta, but noticed areas where they wanted broader support.  For example, one was unable to seek to a specific spot in the video in Windows Media Player or Windows Media Center for AVCHD content that was imported from a digital camcorder. We’ve addressed this.  Also, while the support for video from some digital cameras worked great, we also got feedback about supporting a broader set of devices out of the box.  We’ve since added support for Windows Media Player to natively support the .MOV files used to capture video for many common digital cameras.

On the topic of non-compatible content

Filtering content that cannot be played

Media Player’s library view is designed to surface and showcase one’s content. However, in some cases items were displayed that couldn’t be played. For example, Apple’s lossless .M4A or .H263 MPEG-4 content would be shown in a library even though Media Player could not play them. In RC, this content will no longer appear in the library view so that there is better expectation of what is supported by the player.

Overall this is good news though especially for those foolish enough to try and play anything H.264 wise with Quicktime and its appalling implementation now have a much better solution right out of the box though of course for pros and the like Media Player Classic Home Cinema is still the best media player around.

It maybe be possible in the future with Win7 compatible ffdshow tryouts to fill in the gaps for decoding the Apple formats not supported as the container support native to WMP was really the bigger problem.

Unlike pasts versions of WMP the new WMP12 and by extension WMC7 in Windows 7 Beta 1 now have proper UPnP client support, what that means is that WMP12 or WMC7 can read media from other UPnP servers and play content back. This is a nice step up from past versions which were just UPnP servers and could only read media from other WMP servers.

I tested out a handful of UPnP media servers to see what would happen, for WMP12 UPnP shares will show in the library left hand column and under WMC7 they will show in your library under the shares category at the top.

TVersity:

Worked perfectly, all media was detected and played back without issue.

Google Desktop Media Server:

Failed to work (it sees the server but no media is displayed) though perhaps an error on my part I couldn't get it to work properly as I could not figure out how it was supposed to tie into youtube, everything was set up but nothing seemed to happen.

FUPPES:

Worked perfectly, all media was detected and played back without issue.

Play On:

Only tried Youtube but that didn't work, it sees the server but no media is displayed.

TwonkyMedia:

Worked perfectly, all media was detected and played back without issue.

Twonky pictures/videos in WMC7 (thumbnails didn't work but the photos/videos displayed just fine)

Synology Diskstation NAS UPnP Server

The NAS I normally use to stream media doesn't work surprisingly, hopefully Synology can fix this.

I will try out a few more when I get the time like XBMC and a handful of others to see though from the above, decently supported UPnP media servers will probably work in most cases.

I’ve no idea if DLNA is supported in client/server you mostly find it on LCD picture frames and some HDTV’s (which don't work over normal upnp) would be interesting to see if anyone has had success streaming to a DLNA device.

Update: It appears DLNA/UPnP is fully supported.

This here is my guide for encoding your DVD (Blu-ray will work too) movies into H.264 using Ripbot264 a very nice encoder that uses x264. The target being high quality & playback via device (PS3/X360 etc) on an LCD HDTV running at 720p or higher.

What we will be using;

• AnyDVD
• Ripbot

The PS3 supports H.264 video in MP4 (AAC audio) or AVCHD/M2TS (AC3 audio) containers.

The Xbox 360 supports H.264 video in MP4 containers with AAC LC audio only.

Step 1: Go download Ripbot264. A mirror is here is case you find mediafire too slow to download from. But that thread is the developers thread so you can keep tabs on it's progress from there.

Step 2: Extract the files to a folder and run Ripbot264. You will be presented with a window like the one below.

This screen allows you to add, edit and remove jobs so click on Add to begin.

I'm going to assume that you already have ripped your DVD to your hard drive if not then go use AnyDVD or some other ripper to do it.

Step 3: On this screen we see the main options but nothing is yet available. Click on the highlighted button to input your movie.

Step 4: Now browse to locate your DVD folder and point it at the first VOB file of the movie (switching to details view mode helps here, see highlighted button), Ripbot will automatically pick up the other parts and find the movie so if all goes well it will display "demuxing audio streams". The demux can take some time so be patient and after it is done we can proceed.

Step 5: The next step is to change a few settings so we can get the optimal quality (though this is by no means definitive just my own personal observations). First up under output at the bottom of the screen you will see MP4, MKV or Blu-ray disc as a selection for compatibility with the Xbox 360 and PS3 select MP4. If you want AC3 5.1 audio select Blu-ray disc then look in the BDMV\STREAM folder and you will find an M2TS file known as AVCHD that you can use with your Playstation 3. 

See where it says mode = CQ change that to a value of 18, the constant quality mode gives a fast encode and high quality video. The higher the value the more compression the lower the value the less compression from the accounts of others with it set at 18 most movies should be close in quality to the original source material.  If you are not happy with the results you can always lower the value.

Just be aware that the CQ mode has no fixed file size and depending on the type of video the file size can vary greatly for example Michael Clayton turned out at 1GB for what is a 7.7GB DVD and Downfall turned out at 3GB for what is a 7.2GB DVD. For whatever reason the Michael Clayton movie was much more susceptible to compression than the Downfall movie was, if the movie goes over 4GB it will not play on the PS3 so you will need to redo the movie, try a setting of 20-22 & that may bring it under 4GB.

The 4GB limitation only applies to the PS3 and MP4 containers, the Xbox has no limit and the PS3 has no limit for AVCHD/M2TS files either, going over 4GB is only best suited if you plan on streaming media over network as 4GB limit applies to any USB HD plugged in to either console. 

The next option on the cards is the audio, pretty much leave it at the 128k AAC LC 2.0 (stereo), the Xbox 360 only supports AAC LC anyway. The PS3 can use the AAC 5.1 options at higher bitrates so if the PS3 is your target select one of those instead. If you are after an AVCHD video for the PS3 then it will change to copy mode for the audio if it is already in the AC3 format.

For the save file location pick any folder, don't use the default root of C: as Windows Vista will not allow you to write a file to that location for security reasons.

Step 6: Now click on properties button as shown in the screen below, this will bring us to the cropping, resizing, de-interlace section.

The cropping feature will remove the black bars/borders from the movie. Some movies don't have borders but are still wide screen, Pixar calls these full frame movies (which are not to be confused with full screen movies) they aren't too common but a few movies you have will be wide full frame as such there will be no need to crop, even if you did select crop it would only shave off a few lines at the edges. The auto crop tool generally does a good job at what needs to be cropped and what doesn't so don't worry about it too much.

If you have cropped the video the select resize and it will display the aspect ratio which may or may not have been adjusted after taking cropping into account. Ripbot264 comes with built in selections for common resolutions, you can also choose custom mode but for that I would recommend using the aspect ratio calculator to get the right resolution so the movie wont be pulled or stretched in the wrong way and look really weird when played back (the aspect ratio of the movie is the [2,40:1] in the screen below).

Personally speaking I prefer the custom route for high quality DVD rips as there is no preset between SD and HD in Ripbot. Some movies are anamorphic and stretch out to 1024x480 or 1024x576 so try resizing taking cropping into account whether it looks any better over SD is up to you. Lastly on a very rare occasion Ripbot264 may detect the wrong aspect ratio so check the back of the movie box to see what’s listed and you can use the custom mode to set it right.

Step 7: Click the > button just to show what other options are present (this is really a once off you most likely wont be looking at these screens again). On this page the only setting that is useful is the subtitles but that is also available from the main screen too. The subtitles will accept a variety of subtitles your best converting into .srt for which there is a guide I wrote here. The other settings should be left alone.

On the last screen you have the denoise option, the denoise should only be used on really bad movies that are poor VHS transfers or really poor quality TV shows etc, the other setting should be left alone.

Step 8: So with everything setup to our liking click ok & were back to the main screen, all that is left is to click on "done".

You will be brought back to the first screen which now shows your queued job, from where you can click on add again to add another job or edit to change anything with the selected job. Once happy click start and it will work it's magic.

Completed jobs are auto removed when you close the program. Overall it's a pretty straightforward once you have done it once or twice.

As for time to encode well that depends on your computer, I'm running a quad Intel core 2 @ 3GHz so that's pretty high end, on average it takes about 1 hours 40mins to do a movie which is pretty fast so you can do a lot in one day.

Some very nice info has been released by Microsoft at the 08 PDC on the forth coming Windows 7. In particular WMP12 and Windows Media Center (WMC7) info has a few goodies that are long over due.

H.264/MP4 support has been added to WMP12 & WMC7, this is great news as it gives everyone at long last a true cross platform video format & really it had to happen as the entire video industry from TV to the web was moving to H.264.

AAC support has also been added to WMP12 & WMC7 so pretty much same as above.

Mini player when playing media through explorer, no more huge UI of WMP eating up the screen space its actually pretty minimal now, this is something I suggested over at the Aero Taskforce I would like to hope I had a little part in it but that's probably doubtful.

Better UPnP/DLNA support via a new management app that also includes transcoding into formats that the client devices supports if the media on your PC does not, very handy.

More info with screenshots below

http://technologizer.com/2008/10/28/windows7/2/

http://blog.retrosight.com/WindowsMediaCenterInThePDCBuildOfWindows7.aspx

For Windows 7 MKV thumbnails go here, Win7 has native MP4 thumbnails support so no patching is required. Do not use the method below it will not work under Windows 7.

If you have applied my MP4 or MKV patch for WMP11 you might be wondering what's the deal with thumbnails which are an odd duck in Windows XP/Vista if it's a non-native format, they work to a degree but are not ideal. What tends to happen is that the thumbnail generator takes the first frame of the video but this is not the standard behavior as with native video formats Windows reads in a few seconds or more with a slight randomization effect so as to not grab the same frame in a video too often.

Unfortunately most third party registry tweaks/filters/codec package appear to not solve this problem but at least with Haali's media splitter you can manually fix it as Haali includes a thumbnail offset feature. This allows you to pick the thumbnail from x number of miliseconds into the video.

Now the Haali media splitter out of the box should work for MKV but it does not for MP4 even though it supports the container. The registry patch below will enable thumbnail generation for MP4 files via Haali. I've also added an MKV patch it shouldn't be necessary but it may help if the thumbnail feature is not working as it should.

MP4 Thumbnail -- MKV Thumbnail

Finally the Haali thumbnail offset does not work in Windows Media Center only Explorer this is a known bug (don't expect it to be fixed).

One last issue is thumbnails appear to work under Windows XP fine but in Windows Vista (32bit & 64bit editions) some thumbnails will not be properly generated were you end up with no thumbnail as seen here. The thumbnail isn't white in that picture, there is no thumbnail and your seeing the white background of the window, I believe it's a bug with Haali media splitter so maybe one day it will be fixed but again don't hold your breath.

Step 1: Click start and go into the Haali program group and run "Media Splitter Settings"

Step 2: Click on the "Options" tab then expand the section called "Explorer integration", now set the "Enable thumbnails extraction" value to yes.

Step 3: Now click on "Thumbnails offset, you can change the value here in miliseconds, try 8000=8 seconds you can use this calculator to look up seconds to miliseconds conversion.

Step 4: Now click apply and then ok to close the window. Now restart your computer you must do this. If all goes well when you restart it should generate the thumbnail for the video from the position you set.

Thumbnails for MP4/MKV in Explorer under Windows XP

Thumbnails for MKV in Explorer under Windows Vista.

Buggy Thumbnail in Explorer under Windows Vista

If nothing has changed then most likely Windows has already generated a thumbnail and does not update it with the new one so to clear the thumbnail cache completely it must be done in one or two stages.

1) For Windows Vista use the in-built disk clean up found under accessories\system tools and select the thumbnail cache option.

For Windows XP enable hidden files and folders then delete the thumbs.db file in the folder of the videos, that will reset the thumbnails.

2) If 1 did not work then delete the Windows Media Player library database as well;

Step 1: If running disable media sharing in Windows Media Player (you cannot complete step 3 without doing this).

Step 2: Enable hidden files and folders, in Windows Vista open Explorer and click Organize->Folder and Search Options->View->Show Hidden Files and Folders, in Windows XP in Explorer click tools->folder options->view->show hidden files and folders.

Step 3: Now under Vista browse to C:\Users\Your user name\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Media Player & delete the contents of that folder. Under Windows XP browse to C:\Documents and Settings\Your user name\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Media Player\ & delete the contents of that folder.

Performing step 3 will not delete the files in your library it will merely delete the catalogue or database that WMP built up. Now start WMP again and it will rebuild it's media database.

Hopefully that will get it working though don't be surprised if it doesn't as thumbnails are a finicky process on Windows and minor changes can undo it with you ending up with no thumbnails at all just stock media icons.

This will add support for .flv flash video files into Windows Media Player 11.

Step 1: If running 32-bit Windows download this FLV registry patch.

If running 64-bit Windows download this FLV x64 registry patch. The 64-bit registry patch includes the keys for 32-bit compatibility.

Step 2: Download Gabests FLV Splitter, extract to a folder to install run the install.bat*, if at any later time you wish to remove it run the uninstall.bat and then delete the folder but you will not be able to play flv files anymore.  

Step 3: Download ffdshow tryouts then install.

Step 4: Double click on the registry patch to apply and it will make the changes to add FLV support to WMP11.

Step 5: Reboot your computer (don't skip this).

Step 6: Now start WMP11 and if all goes well you will be able to play flv files though file-open and should see any files that are in monitored folders appear in the video library.

My registry patch does not auto associate .flv with WMP as you may have another media player doing that duty, either way to associate flash videos with WMP just right click on any file and select open with, then select Windows Media Player and tick the box for always use this application with this file type and your set.

* If running Windows Vista with user account control enabled it will block the batch file from registering the flv splitter unless you turn off UAC or edit the bat file so that the location of the splitter matches whatever folder you have put it in e.g. "C:\FLV\Splitter.ax"

Adobe have released a very nice media player which you can get here it seems to use Adobes new Air framework but best of all it supports H.264/MP4 standard (high profile & all) and is completely free!!

The UI somewhat iTunes like but more centered on videos it of course also plays flash and a bunch of other stuff too.

Go check it out.

I have generally been relying on PC software servers to stream media to the X360/PS3 for a while now but on recommendations from others I decided to take the plunge and check out the Synology network attached storage DS207+ server.

I'm not going to go over the specs just that it houses two SATA hard drives and supports UPnP/DLNA streaming to the X360/PS3 games consoles. A single drive model the DS-107+ is also available. These NAS drives also have a ton of features too many to go over here and instead I'm just going to focus on streaming media from it to the Playstation 3 or Xbox 360.

Setup Impressions;

First up was to download the latest software and firmware from Synology's site after which I was up and running. Although none of the setup guides pointed it out when installing the latest software manager it will ask to install the latest firmware presumably for compatibility reasons so make sure you have the latest firmware .pat file on hand as well.

So with that out of the way it's straight onto media streaming, all you have to do is enable UPnP in the multimedia configuration panel. After that you copy your videos/folders into a video folder on the drive and music into the music folder you get the idea.

If you have copied across a large media collection you must wait till it auto indexes everything to produce a catalogue of the files but you do not need to force the index every time you copy across something to the server it will be automatically picked up which is nice.

You can instruct the DS-207+ to power off at a certain time, this is a great feature as it not only saves power but I know like me that some would be wary of having any device running 24/7 so I think it's a good idea to power it off at night when no-one will be using it.

Surprisingly there appears to be no support for JBOD (Just a Bunch of Disks) which combines HD's into one large pool but unlike RAID 0 where if a drives fails you lose everything with JBOD only whatever was on the disk is lost as files are not copied to both drives.  RAID 1, 0, 5 are supported and you can have single basic disks too. RAID options are still available even on the single drive model as you can use the USB/eSATA ports in conjunction with the internal HD.

Media Support;

What's covered for the PS3 - MP3, MP4, M4A, AVI, MPG, VOB, WMV & WMA containers are supported. What's notably missing are M2TS, WAV & DIVX (.divx containers for subtitles not the codec, though you can just rename .divx to .avi and it will work, m2ts will work if renamed to .mpg)

For the Xbox 360 - MP3, MP4, M4A, AVI, WMV, WMA containers are supported. What's notably missing is M4V/MOV support (though again you can rename M4V/MOV to MP4 and it will work as long as the video is H.264 and audio is AAC LC)

Browsing videos is great as Synology have implemented a simple hierarchical folder browsing method so whatever folder structure you have setup when you copied the files to the NAS is displayed on the UI of the PS3/X360 there is no bloat or unwanted filters to sort your media by which is a common trait in PC media servers. This alone is worth buying for as it allows quick access to your videos. Playback was reliable with resume/restart/ff-rewind all working as they should.

For music you get the browsing by category/filters as you would expect and also a folder browsing option too which is nice. I'm not really interested too much in music playback through this so that's all I have to say on the matter.

Now the negatives;

The DS-207+ is not quiet it does have a fan, however while not overly noisy the fan in the unit has a pitch & tone that is distinct from other devices and this is not good as in the same room with an Xbox 360 (a noisy unit in of itself) I was able to tell the noise apart from both devices as it did not blend into the background. I would not recommend having it in a room which requires silence like a bedroom or rooms were your PS3/Xbox 360 are however the auto power off feature does make it more tolerable in a bedroom.

One other minor negative is the lack of cover art support for music or video, this is something that could be easily implemented but so far still no support for it.

Update: The Synology media server had buffering problems with the Xbox 360 & files that are 3GB in size or higher but it has since been fixed in a firmware update with the inclusion of an option to increase the buffer size.

Overall;

In summary I'm quite pleased with it the Synology DS-207+ is a great NAS UPnP media server. Synology also support their product and don't hang their users out to dry like some others.

Note: Windows 7 [once released] will have native support for AVCHD/M2TS videos so do not use this patch with the Windows 7 WMP/WMC as it will screw things up, this is useful only to XP/Vista.

This registry patch will tie M2TS files [Blu-ray transport stream files also referred to as AVCHD files] into Windows Media Player [WMP11] and Windows Media Center [WMC] allowing them to see this file type. However there are caveats as it is not possible to tie a third party codec 100% into WMP without developing some sort of plug-in. Also available are patches for MKV/MKA, Flac and MP4/M4V/M4A.

This will also permit streaming M2TS files from Windows Media Player 11 to the PS3. This process is compatible with 32/64-bit Windows XP/Vista with WMP11 present, Windows Home Server should work as well.

Be aware that M2TS files will only be playable in WMP/WMC with latest versions of ffdshow-tryouts and Haali media splitter, older versions will crash when trying to decode the video. The commercial decoder CoreAVC will also work.

Alternatively use the free Media Player Classic Home Cinema to play AVCHD/M2TS files on your computer as it now supports them.If going through with below create a "system restore point" before doing so.

Step 1: If running 32-bit Windows download this M2TS registry patch. If running 64-bit Windows download this M2TS x64 registry patch. The 64-bit registry patch includes the keys for 32-bit compatibility & follow the instructions at the bottom of the page for WMC x64.

Step 2: Double click on the registry patch to apply and it will make the changes to add M2TS support to WMP11/WMC.

Step 3: Reboot your computer (don't skip this).

Step 4: Now start WMP11/WMC and if all goes well you should see any M2TS files that are in monitored folders appear in the video library, now enable file sharing in WMP11 and you should be able to stream the video to the Playstation 3.

Lastly the M2TS files will show tagged as MPEG-2 video on the PS3 XMB but you can ignore that as that it just the video/mpeg mime type I used. There is an actual mime type for M2TS which is video/MP2T but the PS3 does not acknowledge this only video/mpeg and video/mp4.

To encode into H.264/AC3 M2TS read my Ripbot264 (select Blu-ray as output then look in bdmv\stream folder) if you want a file for just streaming to the PS3.

Does the Xbox 360 support AVCHD/M2TS files ?
No the Xbox 360 does not support M2TS videos, you would need to demux the video/audio and re-encode the audio into AAC LC and finally mux it into an MP4 for the video to be playable.

However Windows 7 will have native AVCHD support so it may be only a matter of time before the Xbox gets support for the format in one way or another plus this patch will no longer be necessary.

How do I make AVCHD/M2TS playable in WMC x64  ?
This is a little more involved as under Windows 64-bit media center is running the x64 version and the 32-bit codecs wont work. So the solution is to use 64-bit codecs, the author of Media Player Classic Home Cinema has made the x64 versions of his filters available so that’s what you will be downloading.

Step 1: Go here and into the standalone filters x64 sub section.

Step 2: Download the filters, MPADecFilter, MPASplitter, MPCVideoDec and MPEGSplitter.

Step 3: Extract all to a folder of your choosing, then create a txt file in it. Rename the .txt file to .bat (you’ll need show file extensions enabled) now copy and paste this line into the .bat file regsvr32.exe "C:\folder location\MPADecFilter.ax"

Step 4: Now run the batch file and it will register the codec/splitter, you will need to do this for all 4 so edit the bat file for each one. The reason for this is because I’m assuming your running with UAC enabled and it will block the regserv32 command unless the folder location is specified. If you wish to uninstall any of the codecs change the command to regsvr32.exe /u

Step 5: Try playing a movie and see if it works in WMC x64.

This registry patch will tie Flac files into Windows Media Player [WMP11] and Windows Media Center [WMC] allowing them to play this file type. However there are caveats as it is not possible to tie a third party codec 100% into WMP without developing some sort of plug-in. Also available are patches for MKV/MKA, M2TS and MP4/M4V/M4A.

This process is compatible with 32/64-bit Windows XP/Vista with WMP11 present, Windows Home Server should work as well.

Step 1: If running 32-bit Windows download this Flac registry patch. If running 64-bit Windows download this Flac x64 registry patch.

Step 2: Download the madFlac directshow decoder & install.

Step 3: Double click on the registry patch to apply and it will make the changes to add flac support to WMP/WMC.

Step 4: Reboot your computer (don't skip this).

Step 5: Now start WMP or WMC and if all goes well you should see any flac files that are in monitored folders appear in the audio library.

P.S. this was done on request I do not use flac myself so I just tested against various sample flac audio files and everything seems to be okay.

FAQ/Known Issues;

«» There is no Windows Media Center x64 support for Flac unless someone knows of a 64-bit flac decoder. In Windows x64 WMP is set by default to the 32-bit version so Flac playback will work.

«» Seeking (jump to any point in the audio) is not supported if you play the flac track via the WMP music library.

«» Seeking will work if you play the file through File-Open or open it in WMP through explorer (you must associate WMP with flac files for that).

«» Streaming flac to other windows media players over a network does not work.

«» The time length of the track wont be displayed.

«» You cannot edit the tag/metadata info of the file in WMP and WMP will not read any pre-existing info.

«» You can though apply any tag info via WMP's own built in tag/metadata discovery mechanism.

 «» If you wish to read the tag info from an existing collection in WMP or WMC use the WMP Tag Support Extender but do not apply my flac registry patch as it will conflict between the two. You will still need the madFlac decoder as it is recommend.

«» If you need to undo my registry patch just open it in notepad then go into regedit and delete the keys it made.

Just a list maybe someone will see it and perhaps one day at least these might happen.

1. Fix the seamless MP4 playback dash frame rate problem.
2. Enable anamorphic support on high profile H.264 videos.
3. Add AAC-HE support many encoders no longer distinguish between AAC HE & LC but auto encode to one or the other at select bit-rates so it is hurting the compatibility not only with videos but music as well.
4. If there will be no AAC-HE or AAC 5.1 support then at least enabling downmixing of those formats to AAC LC so they will play on the Xbox.
   
5. Add chapter support for MP4 files as defined in the standards used by MP4Box, if no chapters are present then default back to your own built in chapter mark system.
6. Add support for multiple audio tracks in MP4.
7. Add better visualizers to the Xbox 360 the ones built in look poor/old and are no where near as visually impressive compared to the ones found on the PS3.

Here are a few short tips on making WMP11 see the .divx container (which is basically an .avi container with some extensions) so you can stream it to the Playstation 3.

1. Rename all your .divx files to .avi (subtitles will still work on the PS3) [use mass renamer]
2. Install the demo DivX pack, it makes the required changes to the registry so .divx files are detected after which you can then uninstall the DivX pack and just go back to using ffdshow tryouts or XviD as your decoder. However the DivX pack does not appear to make the correct changes under Windows Vista 64-bit.

To convert any avi/srt files into divx without re-encoding try AVIAddXSubs which will generate a .divx file.

Windows 7 WMP12 users go here from MKV integration, do not use the patches below.

This registry patch will tie MKV/MKA files into Windows Media Player [WMP11] and Windows Media Center [WMC] allowing them to play this file type. However there are caveats as it is not possible to tie a third party codec 100% into WMP without developing some sort of plug-in. Also available are patches for Flac, M2TS and MP4/M4V/M4A.

This process is compatible with 32/64-bit Windows XP/Vista with WMP11 present, Windows Home Server should work as well.

Step 1: If running 32-bit Windows download this MKV/MKA registry patch. If running 64-bit Windows download this MKV/MKA x64 registry patch (because WMC is 64-bit you will need to a install 64-bit codec/splitter)

Step 2: Uninstall any codec packs or prior installs of ffdshow and Haali media splitter.

Step 3: Download ffdshow tryouts & Haali Media Splitter then install both. 

Step 4: Double click on the registry patch to apply and it will make the changes to add MKV/MKA support to WMP/WMC.

Step 5: Reboot your computer (don't skip this).

Step 6: Now start WMP or WMC and if all goes well you should see any MKV files that are in monitored folders appear in the video library & MKA in the audio library.

That's all there is to it, I have a short FAQ below which will explain some of the known issues, quirks etc.

FAQ:   

«» My registry patches aren't in any way tied to ffdshow/haali so any directshow decoder should work but generally I would stick to this combo.Alternatively you can also now use DivX 7 which has its own MKV splitter and H.264 decoder though probably a good idea to install ffdshow tryouts as well as DivX only supports a few codecs in MKV.

«» The Xbox 360 & Playstation 3 do not support MKV's so for playing H.264 MKV files on those platforms read this link.

«» If your wondering why the MKV thumbnails in explorer & WMP/WMC are largely black this is down to the fact that the thumbnail generator cannot read into the MKV file and so it takes the first frame in the video which on movie conversions is almost always a black screen. If you were to cut away that portion & straight into the movie the thumbnail would be from wherever you made the cut. Haali media splitter does have a feature in it's properties section that instructs it to take a thumbnail from x number of milliseconds but it only works with MKV files & under Windows XP reliably (in my experience).  I have written another guide on how to enable MP4/MKV thumbnails in Explorer using Haali with the offset feature if you want it.

 «» The patch only adds MKV/MKA integration to a certain degree, I do not know if it is a limitation of WMP or something else (I've yet to find a third party codec tie into WMP 100%) so you will notice that the time length of the video is not displayed in the video library.

Also if you play a video by double clicking on it in the library you will not be able to seek (jump to any point in the video) however you can actually do this if you open the MKV through File->Open in WMP or through explorer by double clicking on it (assuming WMP is set to be the preferred player) I do not know why this behavior happens and it is something I would love to figure out. If that bothers you I would recommend using Media Player Classic Home Cinema or Zoom Player as your video player as they natively support these file types.

Windows media center will not display the time length of the file & of course thumbnails don't work well it reverts back to the grabbing the first frame problem.

«» If you ever want to undo any of the changes just look at the registry file in notepad and go into regedit and delete the entries that were made and your back to where you were, no mess left behind with codec packs and the like.

«» Finally my registry patch does not automatically associate the file types with windows media player through explorer (it is possible) because you may already have the above file types associated with another player like the ones linked to above. If you wish to associate the file types the easy way it to just right click on a video then select "open with" then select WMP and make sure the box is ticked for always use this application and that's it.

This is my quick & easy guide for encoding your DVD movies into H.264/MP4 for the PSP using AutoMKV. AutoMKV is free software and offers excellent picture quality in the videos it encodes, it only takes a few steps to get it set up right for your PSP.

Before we begin make sure your PSP's firmware is up to date as Sony lifted the resolution limitations found in the old/early firmware's and this guide is assuming your running the latest or a recent firmware.

Step 1: Download AutoMKV from here.

Step 2: You will need Avisynth installed & download the Nero AAC encoder too.

Step 3: Extract AutoMKV to a folder and extract the .exe files in win32 of the Nero AAC encoder zip into AutoMKV\exe\BeSweet\ folder.

Step 4: Start AutoMKV and you will have a main screen like this [though the one below is using my presets].

Step 5: First order of business is to set the correct codec & container so as the container select MP4, the codec should be x264 and finally tick the box for "All Profiles" and select the PSP profile.

Step 6: Now look over at the "Audio Track 1" section and from the drop down box select Nero AAC as the type and stereo. The 0.35 value = 112k you can change it to display the bit-rate if you click the !!! symbol next to the stereo entry and from there under Nero Encoding Mode select -BR instead of auto. Generally I think it's a good idea to sacrifice audio quality so drag it down to 0.30 for 96kbps.

Step 7: Now on to the resolution, the PSP profile in AutoMKV is a little out of date as you will see it sets the old max resolution of 320 but this has been lifted in newer PSP firmware's so we can now use the native resolution of the display which is 480 so set the width resolution to the value of 480. (this is assuming your movie is a wide screen 16:9)

Also look at "Resize Filters" and I recommend changing it to Spline36Resize (neutral sharp) as this gives a nice and clear picture without destroying detail in the resize.

Step 8: Under Disk Settings select the "write custom amount here" option and use whatever file size you desire though 500 is a good number as memory sticks are so cheap you can stick 4 to 8 movies if you have a 2GB or 4GB one handy. Movie name should be obvious.

Step 9: The filters section is what a like about AutoMKV but unfortunately there are not at all explained as to what they do in the program so Google searching them are your only way of discovering their properties. That said the remove grain one is rather obvious as it removes the grain/noise from a movie, there are stronger modes available in there but 2 or 3 should be sufficient. Removing the grain is a good idea as preserving grain in a movie consumes bit-rate which would otherwise be spent on persevering details.

Step 10: Now that the basics are over click the save setting to store the above changes so AutoMKV always start with them.

Step 11: Here is an advanced tip from this site, it helps reduce ghosting in the movie because the PSP screens response time isn't that great on the 1000/2000 series and is very susceptible to this issue. Click on the "Advanced Settings" tab look down at the bottom of the window to where it displays "Editing AVS Lines" and tick the box then copy/paste in this Tweak(sat=1.4, bright=19, cont=1.15)

Step 12: Now on the same screen look to the left and click on save configuration then give it a name like PSP for instance. You can then load this configuration by click on the load config button, be aware that AutoMKV does not auto load this so you must manually load it each time.

Step 13: Now back to the main screen once you have loaded in the movies .ifo or .vob make what changes you need then click on the add to queue button to queue up multiple jobs or start encoding button to begin right away.

That's all there is to it now just connect your PSP via USB to your computer and copy the movie.mp4 into the video folder of your PSP.

Extras:

Encoding H.264/MP4 for Playstation 3 & Xbox 360 using Ripbot264

Encoding H.264/MP4 for Playstation 3 & Xbox 360 using AutoMKV

Encoding H.264/M2TS for Playstation 3 using AutoMKV