Hauppauge HD-PVR with the Playstation 3
jamesp — Sun, 06/08/2008 - 18:47
Use
This is a rather short recipe about how to get the nice HD-PVR output to the Playstation 3. There are probably other ways, and ways to get it to the XBox 360 as well, but I stopped at the first solution that worked.
Chosen Tools:
- TVersity
- Arcsoft Total Media
Recipe
Basically, use the bundled software to record some content. For some reason, I had weird results trying to place my media into an MPEG4 container. I am currently using our Vista laptop because it was the easiest to get next to our DirecTV H20. For Vista, you need to download the updated MP4Converter to even be able to re-wrap the files in MPEG4. Instead of that, I choose to get them wrapped in an M2TS file that the Playstation 3 loves, since it is the form used in BluRay movies.
After you get your recording, go into Arcsoft Total Media. You will want to chose the option to Burn your media to disk. Pick your video, use the default themes, and when you get to the burn--choose your harddrive. You may have to tell the software that you are using a Dual Layer DVD if the file is large--i've had it truncate before but I'm not sure if it was because of that or if the HD-PVR stopped during the capture. Anywho, pick your harddrive instead of a Drive letter when you burn.
This process usually is as quick as the MP4Converter since it just re-packages the video with AAC audio (hopefully soon with AC3 audio-which wasn't ready as of this writing). Once it's done-navigate to the folder you told it to burn in, where it will have created a folder using the Name you gave the disc (or "untitled"). Go to BDMV\STREAMS, and there will be two .m2ts files. The size should make it obvious which is the show. I pull the file to my Videos directory, and rename it showname m2ts.mpg. I then make sure that the Videos directory (or wherever) is shared by TVersity, refresh if necessary, and the video shows up and plays perfectly on the Playstation 3 (including FF/RW/SEEK) from the TVersity UPnP server.
It may be possible on Vista or computers with Media Center 11 to share using that, but I haven't tried. It also may be possible to share MPEG4 files with the XBox, but I haven't tried. This worked so I stopped trying stuff. It is recommended to turn off the transcoding in TVersity so it leaves the files alone. The transcoding is very useful if you will try to share content to the Wii, iPhone/iPod Touch, etc. TVersity is the bomb in that arena, but transcoding Hi-Def H.264 realtime will bring all but the beefiest rigs down.