Google plugs YouTube into Playstation 3 To the surprise of no one, Google is now offering software that streams video, photos, and music from your PC to your television. "In the old days, we used to watch a simple device called a television. Nowadays, all the stuff worth watching and listening to tends to be stored on or accessed through a computer," writes software …
None of the others have 'Google' in the name, silly! Thats why this version is so much better...
Seems that since it only runs on Windows... it's actually quite a lot less useful than some of those 'open sauce' apps out there, though I haven't exactly found one that I really like yet.
...I've been watching YouTube videos on my PS3 for quite a while now via the PS3's built in browser; I think Sony updated it to handle them at around firmware 2.0. It even opens them in a full screen window if you ask it to.
Add that to upgrading the internal HDD to a 320GB device (there are instructions on the web, it's safe and simple to do) and I see exactly no point in this offering from Google. Music, Video and Photos can all be stored on the PS3 itself or on any wireless NAS running UPnP software (which is most of them) and accessed via the PS3.
The only advantage that Google's offering may have is that the PS3 doesn't handle YouTube playlists (yet).
When i first came across this article I thought "great"! Google has finally done a built in PS3 app to view you tube content. And wouldn't it be great if it had some kind of upscaling? Minutes later, I realise that they've added themselves to an already exhaustive list of upnp software. Hardly news shattering stuff.
btw TVersity is definitely the best windoze upnp software. My preference is media tomb on Ubuntu.
The hard drive upgrade on a PS3 is actually documented in the manual that comes with the console so there is no question about it being any kind of hack, I agree too that we can already watch YouTube through the PS3 browser and WMP can handle any media sharing you might want anyway. That's only Windows but so is this!
In the real world there are two candidates for the job Mediatomb and Twonkyvision. Twonky seems to work OK except it doesn't do transcoding which means the ultra picky PS3 will not play the vast majority of movies including some h264 jobbies. Twokyvision will also kill your network if you have it scanning large directories (even on a tiny 320GB drive).
Mediatomb will use VLC to transcode on the fly to a suitable format. So they say. To set it up, especially to install it on a NAS is erm quite fiddly.
I'm happy enough with my XBMC on an XBox for the moment but without doubt PS3 and HDMI is the better solution, just not quite yet. This google thingy may be the solution but until it transcodes and runs on linux/osX it won't be a killer solution. Still it does give Google Desktop a reason to exist.
Does it have to be UPnP?
UPnP goes nowhere near my network. Somehow I have an issue with a system that can open up holes in my network without my knowledge.
Other than that, it's a shame it's on Google Desktop. Huge resource hog and despite trying it a few times thinking it's a neat idea, I've really never had any use for it that justifies the resource hogging. The gadget novelty wears off very quick too (makes me wonder what Mac fans love about their gadget stuff or is it just more eye candy without a purpose).
Sean, as a couple of others have mentioned, if you want a good media server (free) for your PC, try TVersity. It does transcoding and I've not had any issues with it murdering the network.
For others, it also works much better for general browsing as it properly supports the standards for media servers (I cannot remember what it is called - I think it is DNLA) whereas Windows Media Player for example, does not. Personally I found that this caused WMP to crash itself when I was trying to browse files and access file properties (and thumbnails) through the PS3.
It may be that this Google tool offers some additional functionality but then I personally find that Youtube videos are such poor quality on a HDTV that I prefer to just watch them on my laptop. Besides which, I'll never install Google Desktop as long as I still have control of my limbs.
My preference for streaming from PC to PS3 is TVersity as it is free, regularly updated to keep up with PS3 firmware updates and it also does transcoding for the filetypes that the PS3 sticks its nose up at. On the face of it there doesn't seem to be anything particularly special about this Google version. Heck even Windows Media Player includes a DLNA server (albeit without transcoding).
To agree with a few others, WHY???
I guess it's in keeping with the Google tradition of doing stuff that others already do but really, there's a browser on the PS3, you can watch YouTube on it. So unless this will be a integrated app with it's own indexing /playlists/faves type thing then I don't see the point. That I'd be reasonably pleased about, as the browser is a pain to use really.
Regular updates for TVersity??? They have only just released their first update this year and its July (almost)!
RC1 - Which also has this beauty; "We are also including in this release a web surfing toolbar from our partner Ask.com"
That said, it is the best of a bad bunch.. though I've not installed RC1 yet :s
It constantly messes up on my xbox360, the PS3 is actually more reliable using WMP11 than the MS Xbox360!!
The most annoying thing is I when i got my xbox years ago, i converted all my videos to WMV format so the xbox could play them, and it never seems to be able to find the PC
Then I get my PS3 does it perfectly, but no decent WMV support!
What I meant was that they tend to update pretty quickly if a PS3 firmware update changes the streaming behaviour and/or causes issues with TVersity. There haven't been many major PS3 firmware updates this year and most of them seem to have been just stability tweaks for particular titles.
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