.mkv on PS3??

[Digimortal]

I know about PS3 Media Server but is there some way that I can get my playstation to actually play .mkv files just straight from a flash drive or external hard drive?

I really don't want to have to go through and convert 600GB of stuff, especially since a lot of the time mkv2vob screws up the subs and the timing is way off.

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

You will probably have to convert the files, with a program. Have you checked to see what your settings are? I find sometimes I need to re-adjust my settings to keep video and audio in sync with each other.

The beauty of the PS3 Media Server is you don't have to re-encode the movies, well, they are re-encoded, but done on the fly. Recoding 600GB will take a good bit of time.

The thing about MKV is, it is a container, so, what is the actual video and audio type in your video files? That could be part of the reason you get audio out of sync with video. Also, HD movies will go out of sync if you do not have a processor that can re-encode the video fast enough.

This may be of help though. http://www.manolution.com/2011/06/the-complete-guide-to-playing-video-on-your-ps3/

 

[Baez]

Most likely the majority of your MKV files are encoded in H.264, the general movie standard these days. So you you won't be able to play them directly without a conversion as c0rr0sive said.

What's your reason for not using PMS?

 

[Digimortal]

I'm going to Job Corps and I can't bring my computer, or it wouldn't be a problem at all. I can have my PS3 so I just got a 1TB Passport to bring most of my stuff. It looks like I can't format a 1TB hard drive to Fat32 though so it's kind of a pain transferring anything I want to watch to a 4GB flash drive. I was hoping to just get a 32GB flash drive and find some way to get my PS3 to play matroska so I don't have to convert everything I watch (the computers are terrible out there and it takes about an hour to convert a 30 minute 100MB video file....)

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

Job Corps usually lets you bring w/e you want when it comes to that... The issue is, you have thiefs...

Anyways, about your only choice would to be grab your favorite movies and put on a smaller hard drive, or if possible a really good laptop, with a security lock of **** if they would let you... I would even go as far as having a security lock on the PSU. If you have a good CUDA enabled GPU, you could grab some software that will re-encode most the movies for you so they are PS3 compatible rather quickly, but you run back into the issue of, FAT32 is highly limited in space. Not sure, but you could potentially make multiple partitions on that drive and the PS3 may see each and every single one of them.

 

[Digimortal]

I've already been there for 2 1/2 months, I'm just on summer break right now. They definitely won't let me bring my computer which really sucks since I just built a new beast right before I left since my admissions counselor said I could bring it...... I found a lot of the stuff I've been looking for in .avi which is PS3 compatible but I still have a lot of my old favorites in .mkv, I guess I just need to convert it all before I go back. I'll try partitioning the hard drive though and then formatting, maybe that will work.

 

[Thomas]

Job Corps usually lets you bring w/e you want when it comes to that... The issue is, you have thiefs...

Anyways, about your only choice would to be grab your favorite movies and put on a smaller hard drive, or if possible a really good laptop, with a security lock of **** if they would let you... I would even go as far as having a security lock on the PSU. If you have a good CUDA enabled GPU, you could grab some software that will re-encode most the movies for you so they are PS3 compatible rather quickly, but you run back into the issue of, FAT32 is highly limited in space. Not sure, but you could potentially make multiple partitions on that drive and the PS3 may see each and every single one of them.

You can format drives well over 1tb fat32. The maximum disk size is approximately 8 terabytes when you take into account the following variables: The maximum possible number of clusters on a FAT32 volume is 268,435,445, and there is a maximum of 32 KB per cluster, along with the space required for the file allocation table (FAT).

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

Ok, but, the fact still stands, his maximum file size per file is 4GB.

 

[Thomas]

It's pointless anyhow as Ps3 won't play mkv files from usb. Only through a pc with something like ps3mediaserver can this be done.

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

No, re-read everything. Even IF he converted his media files, some reason the audio/video goes out of sync. Second, 90% of the time, you don't get much smaller in file size, and if you have 10+GB file sizes, well you won't be able to convert those to be small enough to fit in a 4GB file.

In the end, what CAN be done is this, format the hard drive (make sure the PS3 can read a partition that large in FAT32) then re-encode ALL the videos, if you get one over ~3GB, split the video or, reduce the quality so that it fits with in the file size limit.

This is about the only real option in the end, why your files go out of sync is beyond me, I had that issue with PS3 Media Server, but never with the file it self. You may need higher quality software that is meant for this.