How to Stream Media Files from PC/Mac to PS3 via USB/Media Server for playing on Your Big Screen TV?

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PS3 isn’t only a game console, but a media player as well for it has a hard drive that allows you to store large media files, such as photos, music, TV shows, videos, movies and even save games on the system. Want to know how to stream or sync media files from PC/Mac to your PS3 easily? This article provides Four methods.

When video game consoles first became popular they were for just that – video games. Today consoles are multimedia machines with massive storage space and the ability to grab content from the internet, and if set up correctly from other computers on your home network. The PlayStation 3 can be connected to your home network via the Ethernet port, and while you’ll definitely want to do this for online play, you may not fancy the hassle of setting up access to your computer.

If you want to watch a movie or TV show on your PS3 that you’ve downloaded on to your computer then there are some simple alternative: use a USB flash drive, Windows and Windows Media Player can set your computer up to be a media sharing server. You could also use an external hard drive, as long as it has a USB cable it will work just as well. You may also want to transfer music and photos onto your PS3 or perhaps even a downloaded save game. They can all be transferred in the same way.

Once everything is ready it’ll be nice and easy to sync content across. This being said though, if you run into problem it can be infuriating to try and diagnose, which we’ll come onto later.

PlayStation 3 Supported Formats

One of the great things about the PS3 is the fact that it supports a wide variety of files. Here’s a complete list of supported file formats on the PS3:

• Hot Search: Play DVD on PS4 | Play DVD on Xbox One | Stream iTunes to Xbox One | Stream iTunes to Xbox 360

For Windows PC

Method 1: Copy videos to PS3 Use a USB Flash Drive

Part 1. Watching Movies on the PS3 via USB

Here is a simple step by step guide for watching or transferring movie files onto your PS3 using a USB flash drive or an external hard drive:

1. First of all you’ll need a USB flash drive or an external hard drive.
2. Plug it into your computer and copy over the movie files that you want to watch on your PS3.
3. Plug the USB drive or external hard drive into one of the USB ports on the PS3.
4. Navigate to Video on the PS3 XMB menu and find your device.
5. Hit triangle to view all contents.
6. Select the file you want and either copy it to the PS3 hard drive or just play it directly from the connected device.
7. The process for copying music and photo files is exactly the same.

Part 2. Copying Save Games to your PS3 via USB

The process for downloading a save game and then copying it onto your PS3 using a USB flash drive or external hard drive is slightly different. Here is a step by step guide for copying a save game to your PS3:

1. Download the save game file onto your computer and unzip it.
2. Create a folder called PS3 and a folder inside that called SAVEDATA.
3. Place the downloaded save files in SAVEDATA (they’ll often already come inside a SAVEDATA and PS3 folder in which case you obviously don’t need to do this).
4. Copy the PS3 folder onto your USB device (don’t place it inside another folder on the flash drive or external hard drive).
5. Plug your device into one of the PS3 USB ports.
6. Navigate to Game on the PS3 XMB menu and then select Saved Data Utility and find your USB device.
7. Hit triangle to explore and select the save game and then choose Copy.
8. You’ll often have to copy individual files one by one.
9. You should also note that copying some saved games will invalidate your ability to earn Trophies on that game. Just be careful about what kind of files you are copying. For example you can copy Pro Evolution Soccer 2010 Edit Data in order to get up to date names but you can’t copy Saved Data or you’ll lose the ability to earn trophies.

Part 3. Troubleshooting USB to PS3

If the PS3 can’t see your device it may be due to the formatting. The device you connect must be formatted to FAT32. There are various ways to do this but the simplest is to plug in your device and check what letter the drive is. Then select Run from the menu in Windows and type cmd to bring up the command window. Type the following line in the window format (Drive Letter): /FS:FAT32

Just to be clear if your drive was K then you’d type format K: /FS:FAT32

There is a specific problem I encountered with the SanDisk Cruzer Flash Drive. If you have one of these USB drives you’ll need to uninstall the U3 Launchpad software which automatically runs. Before you do this make sure that you back up all data on the USB device because this tool will wipe it completely. You can download the U3 Launchpad Removal Tool here.

Once that’s gone you should find it works perfectly and instead of going through the eject process in the software you’ll need to do it via the icon in your toolbar which says Safely Remove Hardware.

Hopefully this guide has allowed you to stream media contents to your PS3.

Method 2: Transfer media to PS3 via Windows Media Player

So you don’t want to download any extra software? Windows Media Player is all you need. First thing we’re going to set is the sharing settings on your computer. If your computer isn’t set to share files, no matter how hard you try the PS3 will never see your computer, and if it does it probably won’t be able to play what it finds. To get things running, follow the steps below, starting with the Network and Sharing Centre.

In Windows 8: Open your start screen and type ‘Network and Sharing’. Click on ‘Settings’ on the right hand side, and finally click ‘Network and Sharing Centre’.

In Windows 7: Click on your start button, and click ‘Control Panel’. ‘Network and Sharing Centre’ should be listed here, if not, click Network and Internet and then you’ll see the option.

Along the left hand side of Network and Sharing Centre, there will be a title saying ‘Change Advanced Sharing Settings’

For the profile you are using, first make sure Network Discovery is turned ON. Without this, your computer won’t show up on networked devices, such as your PS3.

Next, make sure File and printer sharing is ON. Without this, won’t be able to access any of the media on another device.

Next, let’s turn on the Media Streaming Sever. There will be an option further down for Media streaming, click Choose “Media Streaming Options”. When you click this, if you get a button saying ‘Turn on Media Streaming’ click it! This needs to be on for the whole thing to work.

If you have followed up to this point, Congratulations! You can now leave your PC and go to your PS3. Turn on your PS3, and go to either the Audio, Video or Music section, and your PC should be listed there as a media source. Select it, and all available media will be there to use.

Huzzah! You now have a media stream set-up. Results with Windows Media Player have been inconsistent however. Whilst this originally worked fine for me, after a few uses the computer and PS3 wouldn’t see each other without of the settings described above changing. This is a major drawback to using Windows Media Player as it seems to be temperamental and doesn’t provide much information about why it’s not working. There are also limitations and certain file types will never be able to stream using this method. Time for a plan B I hear you cry…

Method 3: Stream media to PS3 via PS3 Media Server

After the inconsistent results I experienced with Windows Media Player, I found my way to a piece of software called ‘PS3 Media Server‘.

If you’re using Windows, just visit their site, click on the Windows logo, and then click pms-setup-windows.exe (there will be a number there too, which is just its version number).

Once the file has been downloaded, open it up and follow the next couple of steps on screen to install the program, open it up and you should see this:

The thing I love about this software most is… That’s it! We’re all set-up!

Go to your PS3 and you should see the PS3 Media Server Listed in a similar position to the screen shot of the PS3 above.

To access your media, you click on the icon, and the folders you now get on the PS3 are the same as on your computer. So to get to My Documents you will have to go into C:\Users, click on your username, and then My Documents, Music, Videos, and Pictures should be listed here. You can change this if you wanted, so only certain folders are shared in case you didn’t want everything on your PC on show, but this is how it is set up as standard.

To make it so only certain folders are shown on the PS3 follow the instructions below:

• Click the “Navigation/Share Settings” tab
• At the bottom you’ll find a “Shared folders” section.
• Remove where it says <All Drives> by clicking the Red X
• Click the folder with a green plus to add a folder.
• Once you’ve added a folder to this list, it will show on the PS3.

The other really good thing about PS3 Media Server, is that it converts while you watch. This means that files which normally wouldn’t play on a PS3 because it’s not a file type the PS3 can usually play are changed into files that will play, as you’re still watching them! This is done automatically, and it usually doesn’t require any additional loading time too so just select the file you want to play.

Notes:
1. The transferred videos have to be in your “Video” folder.
2. Your PC and your PS3 might have to be on the same internet connection for this to work well.
3. Make sure the transferred files are supported by the PS3.

Alternatives

There are other programs out there which will do the same thing, so don’t feel like this is the only answer. I personally love PS3 Media Server as it is so easy to set up and use, while other software such as Plex work just as well after being set up. It has to be said, both PS3 Media server & Plex can stream to more than just videos to your PS3 so this guide is really only scratching the surface.

After this simple set up, you will be able to stream content to your PS3 without hassle, just keep your PC turned on, but don’t forget the most important step: relax in front of your TV with the popcorn and drinks! Bring on Baseketball.

For Mac

How to Stream Video from Mac to PS3?

1. Download and install PS3 Media Server

Download the Mac version of PS3 Media Server. Then drag it to the Applications folder and it will automatically install it onto your Mac.

2. Connect PS3 with the Media Server

Open your PS3 Media Server, and make sure it is connected to the internet on the same network. Then the PS3 Media Server will detect your console and a picture of the PS3 will show up in the main window. If it doesn’t show up after a minute or so, navigate to the video tab and choose “Search for Media Servers” to ensure your Mac and PS3 are connected.

3. Set up PS3 Media Server

Now do some settings to choose the folders which contain the files you want to stream. To so this, select the “Navigation/Share Settings” tab. Click the green plus icon underneath the Shared Folder heading, select as many folders as you want and click “Save”. The content in the folders will then be directly streamed to your console.

Tip: There are other options you may find useful, such as a tick box that says “Show iTunes Library”, which will automatically shows your iTunes library on the PS3, although it will take longer to load the files.

4. Start streaming

Look under Video section of your console, and you will see the shared folders that you specified. Simply clicking a file to initiate the playback, and reverse, rewind, pausing and chapter skipping are all supported. Subtitles also work, but they are pretty buggy, which will disrupt the overall viewing experience.

Method 4: How to Stream Unsupported Video Format from PC/Mac to PS3

According Sony PS3 can only play MP4, AVI, AVCHD, WMV video. If you want to move H.265/HEVC, MKV, VOB, Tivo, DAT, XviD, M4V, TS, M2TS, MXF, RM, RMVB, ASF, 3GP, 3G2, F4V, FLV, SWF, MPV, MOD, TOD, QT, MOV, DV, DIF, MJPG, MJPEG, TP, TRP, WebM, etc. video files to PS3, what you should do first is download an app on your PC that will change the format of the videos to match the format that the PS3 accepts. You could easily find something if you Google it. Otherwise, after you have changed the format just insert the memory card, go to the card on the XMB under the videos section and then press triangle and display all, the copy them to your HDD and you should be good to go.

If you haven’t install any video convert app on your computer, you can try the Wondershare UniConverter (Originally Video Converter Ultimate). It’s the best PS3 video converter on the market. And the latest version also included a powerful plugin called “Media Server“, which helps you stream any video to PS3 effortlessly.

Plus, the Wondershare Video Converter Ultimate is really fast and easy to use for convert your any video/audio files to PS3 or PS4. It’s also include various pre-define format setting for Games, web, portable devices, VR Headsets, TV and NLE etc. Which assist you convert directly your requited video instead of using manual setting for a specific device like PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Wii or PSP. Each device and platform have its own specific codec, making the conversion much easier and efficient.  If you are on Mac OS X, UniConverter for Mac is the alternative to aid you stream any videos to PS3 video format on Mac.

In the following section you can see how to convert unsupported Video/Audio into PS3 supported formats in a few clicks by using Wondershare Video Converter Ultimate.

Here let’s see how it works.

How to convert unsupported Videos to PS3 Supported formats? 

Step 1. Adding various video files as input

• Install and open “UniConverter” on your system.
• When it’s appear please make sure you are in Converter menu.
• Then Click on “Add Files” icon (or)
• You can simply “Drag” and “Drop” your file into the software
• After pressing “Add Files” the following window will be appeared

Step 2. Choose PS3 as Output Format

• After select your file
• You can choose an output format for your videos
• Select “Output Format”
• From dropdown menu, Click on “Device”. After this
• Please select “Game” option
• And from Game select your game console type( as in this case PS3)

Step 3. Convert Video files to PS3 Supported format

• At last tap on the Start All option at the bottom of the screen to convert the format of the files all at once. Or you can tap on the Convert option right in front of the files.
• By clicking on File Location you will find an output file.
• This Output file is fully combatable with the PS3 console.
• You will simply copy this file into portable memory like USB and simple play it.

Now, you can keep the converted video file in PC and stream it through wireless router in PS3. DLNA / UPnP is becoming smart to play your media through your PC into any stream supported device. So if you have huge amount of video data, you can watch on big TV screen with your PS3 from your PC using Wondershare Video Converter Ultimate. Wondershare UniConverter turns your PC into a Media Server.

Following steps guide:

How to stream videos to PS3 via Wondershare Media Server

Step 1. Connect PC and PS3 on same network

Before we go for further details there is one important thing that you should make sure that your PS3 and PC are located in the same network, so that Wondershare Video Converter can automatically detect your devices.

Step 2. Launch Wondershare Media Server

• Here you will Launch “Wondershare Media Server” from your “start menu” under “Wondershare”
• You can also open it from “Wondershare Video Converter Ultimate” by clicking on “Media Server”

Step 3. Add your video files to Media Server

• First Click on “Import” and
• Select your file which you want to stream on your PS3
• Now click on “Open” button
• Here your file will be appeared in window

Step 4. Start streaming

• Now the following screenshots from “PS3”.
• After step 3 now check your PS3 and find Wondershare Video Converter Ultimate under “Video”
• You will select Wondershare Media Server

The above and following screenshot from TV screen to show options on PS3.

• After select Wondershare Media Server, select the folder where you import the file
• You will select your file
• Now enjoy your videos form your PC to your big TV screen without connecting any cable.

Additional Tips: Top 5 Recommended Video Converter Ultimate Tools

There are so many different video converters out there. How are we going to know which one would work best for us? Honestly, it’s very subjective. Some people only need a simple and quick conversion of the file’s container (i.e. from an H.265 to MP4), whereas others might require more complicated adjustments (i.e. to change the frame rate, bit rate or codec).

Hence, I’ve compiled a list of Top 5 Recommended Video Converter Ultimate Softwares that can hopefully aid you in making your decision of a best video converter. The factors that were taken into consideration ranges from the pricing to operating system’s compatibility; the ease of use based on the system’s interface; user’s reviews; range of supported output formats, speed, quality and etc.

• Hot Search: Top 5 DVD Ripper Reviews | Filmora Video Editor Review | Torrent Video Converter Review | 4K Video Converter & Downloader

If you’re not new to video conversion and are looking for a video converter that offers a little bit of everything, my best recommendation would be Wondershare UniConverter. It’s also worth mentioning that Aimersoft Video Converter Ultimate is slightly easier to navigate, and it can also backup Blu-ray/DVD movies. Both of the software is rated ‘Medium’ based on the user’s review.

However, if you require a wider selection of output choices for your video conversion, strong user’s review as well user-friendly interface; your best option would be either Wondershare UniConverter or Tipard Video Converter Ultimate. Once again, the downside of Tipard compared to Wondershare is that it doesn’t support Wi-Fi Transfer, Download Online Video, Stream to TV or Set-top Box as well as Built-in Media Player. Now, it’s up to you!

Editor’s Recommendation:

• Stream DVD to Plex Media Server for watching or sharing
• How to Set Up Plex on Roku and Rip DVD to Roku for watching via Plex?
• Upload DVD Library to Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, iCloud or other cloud storage