PS3 transcode frustrations

[karjo238]

Hello there! I recently acquired a PS3, and knew that it had a network media player. This seemed ideal to me because if I could use it, it would be the easiest way to play all my music files on my home theatre system.

However, I had forgotten about the fact that the PS3 cannot play FLAC files, which all my music is saved as. After a bit of searching, I found UMS and thought this might be able to help me out. I set it up and started my PS3. UMS detects the Playstation

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, and the PS3 sees the music files, and goes to the TRANSCODE folder of these files, which I assume is what happens when UMS needs to transcode.

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The songs are listed, but when you choose a song, you get the screen saying

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, and nothing happens.

It seems as if all the pieces are in place, but it just fails at the last hurdle. This is a clean install of UMS. I can't seem to attach a photo of it, but when I went to Tools > View Logs on the UMS webpage, there was nothing showing. I assume that UMS thinks that nothing has gone wrong, but something has, because I haven't got any sound!

Can anyone guide me in the direction of a solution to this? It seems that it's almost there, but just not quite. I realise that if I reencoded everything in MP3 I'd save myself a lot of hassle, but if I don't have to have 2 copies of all my music, I really don't want to.

Any feedback is greatly appreciated!

Joseph.

[karjo238]

I really love it when this happens. I posted the above, then left it because I happened to have a PS Vita sitting around. I thought I'd try that and see if I had any luck getting that to work. Same thing - UMS detected the Vita and showed folders and files but wouldn't play them. I googled for a solution and found this post: viewtopic.php?t=2402.

In the first post, this was stated:

# Notes for PlayStation Vita Network Media Player:
# - With audio streaming, if TranscodeAudio = LPCM then the file won't be copyable to the Vita,
# if TranscodeAudio = MP3, it takes forever to initiate a stream, if TranscodeAudio = WAV, the file is
# copyable however the song duration is wrong, instead of 4(Minutes):27(Seconds), it is shown as
# 06(Hours):12:49.

I thought "Alright, here's a solution maybe". I dug around and found the Vita configuration file, and added TranscodeAudio = LPCM. After I restarted UMS, it worked! I could now play any music I wanted to on the Vita.

After I had done that, I thought "Just a long shot, but let's find the PS3 configuration and slap that line in there". After I added that line and restarted UMS - again, it worked! I was pleased, but also a bit annoyed that I found the solution after I had posted this question.

One unusual thing I found was that before I added that line to the PS3 config, you would see the folders and tracks, but not any metadata like album art or anything. When I added that line, suddenly the music played and the metadata came through as well. I can't reason why, but seeing as I can now play my music through my home theatre system with all the bells and whistles now, I'm not complaining.

Many thanks again,

Joseph.