PS3 displays very poor quality video from Windows Media Centre

[NY]

My PS3 displays very poor quality video when reading video files that are
shared from my Windows 7 Media Centre PC. The picture is pixellated and
overlaid with a dithered speckly pattern which is most noticeable when there
is movement in the picture. It is as if the video has been compressed much
too far. There is also some stuttering and jerkiness on the video, as if the
picture pauses briefly at regular intervals of about 1 second.

The PS3 has been set to search for Media Servers on the network and finds my
Windows 7 PC which has Media Centre installed for recording TV. When I
access that PC from the PS3, either from the Video | "All media" section or
the Video | Folders section and then follow the shared folders, programmes
play but are corrupted.

If I copy a recording to a pen drive (having overcome the hurdles of
formatting the pen drive as FAT32 rather than NTFS and having created a
root-level folder VIDEO) and play it from there, the recording plays
perfectly. OK so it's not precisely the same file because Windows Media
Centre will only see WTV and DRV-MS files (and not MPG, MP4 or WMV files) in
its Recorded TV folder, whereas the PS3 cannot see WTV or DRV-MS and can
only see MPG, MP4 or WMV on the pen drive.

These are SD (not HD) recordings at 704x576 ("PAL resolution" rather than
"NTSC resolution") and they play faultlessly on the PC using various player
software such as Windows Media Centre, Windows Media Player and VideoLAN
VLC.

Evidently there is something about the act of playing the videos over the
LAN from Windows Media Centre which is corrupting the display. The PS3 and
WMC PC are connected by Ethernet (not wireless). The bandwidth is sufficient
to play the videos perfectly over the LAN on a Windows 7 laptop (using
Windows Media Centre, Windows Media Player or VideoLAN VLC) by directly
accessing the shared folder that is on the WMC PC (ie not using the
streaming capabilities of Windows Media Centre).

Here are photographs of the same screen, fed firstly from the PS3 and second
from the Windows Media Centre PC, displaying similar frames from the same
.WTV file, firstly using the PS3's video playing app and secondly using the
Windows Media Centre app. I've left the photos very large so fine details
such as the pixellation and compression artefacts on the PS3 version are
visible.

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Any suggestions? I'd hoped that the PS3 would be able to be used to watch
recorded TV that is saved on my PC, but I may have to revert to the
alternative plan of using a Win7 laptop for playing them - with it connected
by HDMI (as the PS3 is) to the TV.

I've experimented with Display Settings on the PS3 to remove 1080i, leaving
just 576p and 720p, but this makes no difference.

[Ross Ridge]

Post by NY
My PS3 displays very poor quality video when reading video files that are
shared from my Windows 7 Media Centre PC. The picture is pixellated and
overlaid with a dithered speckly pattern which is most noticeable when there
is movement in the picture. It is as if the video has been compressed much
too far. There is also some stuttering and jerkiness on the video, as if the
picture pauses briefly at regular intervals of about 1 second.

Sounds like PC is transcoding the video on the fly. Windows will do
this if it thinks the file is too high of a resolution or if the client
doesn't support the video or audio format used. You can try converting
the files into a format the PlayStation 3 does support, or you can try
using different UPnP AV (DLNA) server software.

Ross Ridge