First time user
I have to say I am pretty disappointed :( having spend my first minutes with the player but I hope that I am missing something (several thing actually).
I have a few questions which I will number below.
This is how it went.
Inserting the disk I was greeted with a blank screen, after a few moments the animated ray in blu logo came up, a big sign of relieve, I thought the disk was bad.
On to the 3 tests. The scrolling text was jumpy at 24Hz but consistent. At 50Hz it looked as if I was missing a frame every few seconds (repeating like clockwork) something akin to playing ntsc content at 50hz instead of 60Hz. At 60Hz the scrolling was even more jumpy than at 24Hz and the clip was really low res with lots of compression artifacts. I haven't paid attention to the quality of the first two clips as I was specifically looking for the smoothness of the playback (fps).
At all 3 clips my dvd player correctly outputs 1080p24/50/60 (No source direct on my player so everything gets upconverted to 1080p). I've also checked my display and it was correctly receiving 1080p24/50/60 respectively. So to my 1st question:
1) What's wrong with the pal clip?
After that I decided to install the ps3 media server. After the install finished I dragged and dropped my blu-ray folder (1:1 rips around 50gb each, around 1tb in total) in the small square. This is where is all went horribly wrong. My hard disk was continuously working and the htpc ground to a halt.
With the htpc unresponsive and sounding like a sewing machine I thought I try ray in blu. After a few minutes I managed some form of navigation (obviously the htpc was busy doing whatever it was doing). I managed to point ray in blu to a blu-ray movie and hit the green button (play) expecting the blu-ray menu to pop up so I can start watching the movie.
To my disappointment a small m2ts file with some random behind the scenes footage started playing at which point I tried to turn it off but it was having none of it. I had to switch my blu-ray player off.
Frustrated with my disabled htpc I had an hours break and came back to find my htpc with a low hard disk space warning just 400kB left. The media server managed to consume around 1tb and filled my C:\Users\myusername\AppData\Local\Temp with several files. As there was no way stopping the media server I waited until it was done, closed it and deleted all the files. Which brings me to the following questions:
2) What is the media server doing with my hard disk? I just want it to list my movies like Movie1, Movie2, etc. I don't want any thumbnails or anything. I don't want to transcode or encode anything. Is this not possible?
3) To keep it simple I have two folders. dvds and blu-rays containing 1:1 rips respectively. Ideally I should specify these two folders in the media server. When loading the disk these two folders should come up with the option to browse for other folders if I so do wish. After clicking on dvd for example a list ordered by newest to oldest of films sould appear like Film1, Film2, etc. Going over the movie using the arrow keys and hitting Enter the movie should start playing (trailers, menus, etc.) Same with blu-ray. Is this not possible?
4) What is the point of dragging & dropping folders into the media server if I can see all folders anyway?
Some things I liked and was impressed by in order of appearence:
a) ray in blu animated logo
b) instructions at the bottom of the screen
c) buttons on the right showing what they do
d) buttons on the right animation when pressed
Having said that I still prefer the xmb interface of my player utilizing the arrow keys and enter button only.
I haven't tried playing any music, photos, or videos. I need to sort out blu-ray/dvd playback first and then move to the other formats.
Rendr does not show the BD menu since it is a Java application and not simply a video. But it would show all media items, including the main feature and additional material as the content of the folder.
We are beginning to test the next release and want to check with you for some of your preferences
1. Current settings of Rendr/PS3MS would show BD folders (BDMV and CERTIFICATE) just like the hard disk. The media is stored in BDMV/STREAM folder. Would you prefer us to hide this folder structure and show the media items instead of these folders?
2. The media items of BDMV/STREAM are numbered and not named. Would you like to see these items sorted by their play time (in descending order) so that the main feature is the first item?
We are still looking into the PAL clip issue on the disc.
Hello,
OK so BD menu is not available. What about DVD menu? I'm guessing based on your explanation (java vs. video) it is not possible either?
For some of my blu-rays which the movie is a single .m2ts I can see this working but how does it work for dvds (multiple .vob files) or blu-rays with multiple .m2ts files?
In addition what about subtitles and audio tracks (lossy vs. lossless audio codecs). Are this changeable during the movie?
To answer your questions:
1. Personally I prefer to see the folder structure but non techie people would not. Best of both worlds would be to give the option to the user something like "Hide folder structure" option.
2. See above. Again personally I would prefer to see the actual .m2ts file name like 0000.m2ts, 0001.m2ts and sorted by size (in descending order).
Dear htpc,
In the upcoming release (expected in about a week), we were not able to include capability to play multiple VOB and multiple m2ts files together as a single movie. We will add these features in the next update hopefully within a month.
htpc or blu-ray
Can you advise me which type of USB stick is fast? What features are important?
Grtz,
Peter
Dear Peter,
Choose a USB 2.0 flash drive but virtually all USB flash drives in market today are USB 2.0. We suggest 4GB if most of your videos are SD, 8GB if most are 1280x720 and 16GB+ if most are 1920x1080.
Hello,
We apologize for the things horribly gone wrong with the server. When you drop a media folder in the drop-box, or when you first browse to a folder through the Rendr menu, the PS3 Media Server - Rendr Edition (PS3MSRE) looks at the video items in that folder if they can be played without transcoding. This process duplicates the media temporarily and deletes the temporary version after the analysis is complete. It obviously didn't happen correctly for you.
The original design allowed 1 analysis at a time precisely because of the problem you observed but, in the last release, we allowed 8 analyses at a time. In our testing it did not created any problem but it obviously did for you. We will retest the analysis process and release the corrected version with the next release expected in 1-2 weeks.
The only purpose of the media drop-box is to have the media analysis done ahead of time since it can take a few minutes to complete. If media analysis is incomplete and the media is requested to be played, the PS3MSRE will have no option but to force transcode since it is unsure if the media can be played correctly.
Regarding the incorrect Blu-ray media item playing, what format your Blu-ray rips are in? Rendr is designed to list each media item as a separate thumbnail that can be played individually. Of course the chapters are not to be presented as separate media items since that would cause break or glitch during chapter transitions.
Regarding the 25 framerate clip, we are still investigating that issue. All players that we have that support PAL format, play that clip correctly. Can we have the exact model number of your player?
Once again, we are sorry for the server issue and we want to know the following two things from you
1. What format your Blu-ray rips are in? Are they in Blu-ray folder BDMV/STREAM format?
2. What is the exact make/model of your player?
Regards,
Ray in Blu Team
Hello,
My bd/dvd rips are 1:1 rips of the optical discs created by AnyDVD HD in folder not iso format. If you compare the optical disc to the rip the contents are exactly the same.
The player is Sony BDP-S760 same as the US version BDP-S1000ES.
Since my first test I found my usb extension cable and was able to use my fast usb stick (doesn't fit without the extension cable). Compared to the very slow memory stick I was using during the first test the speeds have increased tremendously, so a fast usb stick is definately required. (although it still works fine with slow stick a lot of patience is required)
Is there any way to disable all transcoding? I don't mind if the clips don't play at all. I have the original discs anyway, an htpc that plays everything and other media players as well. My blu-ray player beats everything on quality/usability except that it only works with optical media which is a hassle to use. This is where ray in blu comes in.
So is there a way to play my dvd/bd-rips with ray in blu without transcoding having access to their menus as you would using optical media?
I have also noticed ray in blu switching to a resolution and/or refresh rate unsupported by my tv (screen goes black for a secons or two) just before playing the test clips. I will see if the projector can see the resolution/refresh rate and report back.
For the pal clip my guess is that is has not been sped up when converted from 23.976 as all pal content is. Pal is always so smooth compared to 3:2 pulldown ntsc. When watching the clip it is as if there is a frame missing every few frames.