Watch Hulu on your PS3!

[Giantsfan]

Hi all. I don't post much (more of a lurker), but this one is too good to not share.

There's a new beta program out called Playon which allows streaming video such as Hulu and Youtube to be watched through your PS3. Netflix compatability is on the way also! There's also video from CNN, CBS and ESPN

Your milage may vary depending on the speed of your PC and broadband connection. After a quick registration, download and setup was quick and painless, and the PS3 recognized the server immediately. Video and sound quality are surprisingly good. :up:up. I've been having a blast with this

One thing though is that this is a 60 day trial. After that there is a one time fee of $30.00. From what I've seen so far, I am sold (especially if they get Netflix working).

Here is the link http://www.themediamall.com/playon

 

[Zookster]

I'm very interested in this, especially if they add Netflix to the list.

Does the interface allow you to browse all the videos available on Hulu and YouTube, or does it just present you a small selection?

Also, are you fully able to select, FF, RW, Pause, etc. the programs with the remote like any other content streamed from a PC to the PS3 over a DLNA network?

Thanks!

 

[Giantsfan]

Hi Zookster. The menu is typical PS3, the same as when you are browsing PC media. The Hulu folder expands to browse by genre, popular videos, highest rated, newly added and all TV shows (alphabetical listing). I don't see movies that Hulu offers, but compared with the site on the PC, it looks like they have all the TV shows covered.

Youtube folders include top rated, most popular, featured etc. You can't search, but in the program settings on the PC, you can create Youtube user names, by which you can add their videos for streaming (shown in a "users" folder on the PS3).

Using the PS3 remote, I can pause, stop and resume, rewind (10x, 30x and 120x) and fast forward (1.5x with sound, 10x, 30x and 120x). There is some slight buffering delay when fast forwarding, but that's expected and its nothing too bad.

I watched several old episodes of Lost in Space on Hulu last night, and honestly felt like I was watching broadcast, standard def TV. No dropouts or stuttering, though I have a fast connection, which plays a big part (20/5 fios). I'm a classic TV show buff, so I am very pleased. I hope this mini review helps. Let me know if you try it and what you think.

 

[Zookster]

That's good to hear. Thanks for all the details. I'll have to give it a shot and hope the stuttering I get when watching Hulu on my laptop doesn't happen when streaming to the PS3 in spite of my 10 MB download speed. I also noticed Hulu now has a (very) small handful of HD titles available. Have you checked those out yet?

 

[Giantsfan]

10MB is more than fast enough. Have you done a speed test to verify you are getting what you pay for? Could be a CPU or memory issue. What specs does your laptop have? I haven't checked out the high def yet. Any good? I don't see those as being offered for streaming either.

 

[Neutron]

How do you get it?

 

[meStevo]

PlayOn! | MediaMall Technologies

Might want to edit it into his first post if it will let you, he wasnt over the spammer post limit so couldnt post a link.

 

[Giantsfan]

I've been able to post the link in my original post now. Have fun!

 

[AriesGodofWar]

Thanks for posting that. I just downloaded the program, installed it, and think it is frakkin awesome. Not only can you view like every TV show known to man, you can also stream any of your Windows Media Files, ie. you can stream any .mp3 on your computer in the audio section. This goes a long way toward making the PS3 an entertainment hub. I have my theater in the basement with the pool table/dart board and such that I put in. How nice would it be when I entertain to have a selection of say 500+ songs from my PC at my immediate disposal without having to rip and store the CDs to my puny PS3 40 GB hard drive? This seems to be one awesome program! For $30.00, I will definitely be purchasing. Too bad Sony did not develop this first.

ETA:One note on install, you will need to disable the Duplicate File Rejection (Allow All) if you are using TrendMicro Anti-Virus on your PC, or you will get a failure message everytime you try to play a video file, audio will work regardless, but you will get a message saying file cannot be found. May have been deleted from Media Server. Either change your settings in TrendMirco, or just turn it off. I happen to like not having viruses, so I amended the settings and was golden.

 

[meStevo]

Keep in mind i think there are free programs to stream your video/audio, this just brings to the table the other video feeds.

I expect that to be available via free apps (or just supported natively) at some point as well...

 

[Zookster]

Yes the PS3 has always been able to stream media from your PC using Windows Media Player. And others have used media server software like TVersity. My problem is that when it comes to audio files, the PS3 plays the tracks on the CDs residing on my hard drive in alphabetical rather than track order. It does the same when connecting an HDD or flash directly to the PS3. Perhaps, PlayOn! will enable it to stream in track order. Can anyone attest to that? I'll probably wait until this weekend to download and experiment with PlayOn myself.

 

[Zookster]

ETA:One note on install, you will need to disable the Duplicate File Rejection (Allow All) if you are using TrendMicro Anti-Virus on your PC, or you will get a failure message everytime you try to play a video file, audio will work regardless, but you will get a message saying file cannot be found. May have been deleted from Media Server. Either change your settings in TrendMirco, or just turn it off. I happen to like not having viruses, so I amended the settings and was golden.

Thanks for the tip. You've saved me a huge amount of aggravation.

 

[AriesGodofWar]

Thanks for the tip. You've saved me a huge amount of aggravation.

No problem, only took me an hour and a whole bunch of cursing to realize. I quickly found out if I disabled Trend it would work, however, I would like to keep both set up and running simultaneously so I do not have to deal with turning AV back on. When you try and connect to the video servers, Trend gives you a pop up msg that appears for like a half millisecond. Problem was, I was at my PS3 in teh basement and not my computer, so was not seeing it. I finally caught a fleeting glimpse and realized is was the blocking of the duplicate file creation from the "Prevent Unauthorized Changes" Tool that was the issue. Set "Duplicated System File" to Always Allow.

 

[Zookster]

10MB is more than fast enough. Have you done a speed test to verify you are getting what you pay for? Could be a CPU or memory issue. What specs does your laptop have? I haven't checked out the high def yet. Any good? I don't see those as being offered for streaming either.

It's a very small selection of HD on Hulu. Clips mostly. Hopefully this will be augmented in the coming months: Hulu - High Definition Videos Gallery

Speed tests show I'm getting 8 to 15 MB download speed, my laptop (running XP) has an Intel Dual Core (T5600 @ 1.83 Ghz), 1 GB RAM, with 128 MB dedicated video memory card, and my wireless connection speed to the router is 56 Mbps. Go figure. Perhaps the VGA connection to the monitor is the culprit for the stuttering since I only see in full screen mode.

 

[blueaurora]

what makes this better than Tversity? which is free

 

[Giantsfan]

what makes this better than Tversity? which is free

I'm honestly not too familiar with TVersity. Sorry for the noobish questions, but what can you do with it? I thought it was just another media server, ala Windows Media Player. Can you gain access to streaming sites such as Hulu using it? How about Netflix access?