Have you ever wonder how can you Stream HD Videos (up tp 1080 depending on your PC specs) to a Smart Device so you can watch the video files residing in your HDD from the comfort of your bed in your iPad, iPhone, iPod, Galaxy Device, that gorgeous 55″ Smart TV or simply your HD TV connected to a PS3 or XBOX 360? Well even if you haven’t I have jeje and I already went through all the messy investigation plus the trial and error phase for you and want to tell you all about it so you can try it yourself.

The First thing you’ll need is the PS3 Media Server, it’s a free program developed by a bunch of programmers at PS3 Media Server org (If they would have been so kind to let us know who they are I would have credited them in a more proper manner) that is designed to be able to set up a Media Server on a PC and stream Media content to a Smart Device, I’m mostly interested in Video Files but you can share and Stream Images and Music Files aswell. Those guys are so awesome they support every major PC OS, so you can find all versions!

Well I have tried the Windows Version, all you have to do is Download the File and Install it, up to that point it is pretty straight forward, but then you need to understand some things to get it to work:

• You’re about to set a Media Server, so logically you’ll need a PC to run as a Media Server.
• All your Smart Devices and PC you’ll set as Media Server must be in the same Network.
• Of all the devices that’ll support connection to a Media Server, only another PC (Desktop or Laptop) and Video Game Consoles will support an Ethernet Cable Connection, so you’ll need a Router to the connect the other devices.
• The Router must have at least 300 MBs per Second of transmission speed, lower than that is almost certain to not play fluently on your device.
• Almost all and any Antivirus Software have a Firewall so will your OS, so you’ll have to find out how to allow your server to not be filtered or firewalled by it.
• You can play almost any Video, Image and Music File on your PC by setting a sharing folder, you can even create a remote drive to map a network place like a folder in another PC different from the one that the Media Server is set as long as it is in the same Network and allows connection to the Server (not necessary to allow Smart Devices to connect to it, the Media Server will do the work).
• Smart TVs and Video Game Consoles most likely will support natively the Media Server function, for Smart Devices such Tablets and Phones you’ll need to get an App, for iOS I strongly recommend AirPlayer.
• The higher the resolution of the video you’re playing, the higher the specs of your PC must be, also the Smart Devices may also be limited to its capacity to play the content and HD content might not play well, Smart TVs and Video Game Consoles have more tan enough power to play HD Videos fluently via streaming.
• It’ll support subtitles in the form of .SRT files as long as they’re in the folder you set in the settings and as long as the Video File and have the very same name.

Let’s set this thing then!

Status Tab

After the installation you’ll see a small icon in the Windows Status Bar (Next to Time and Date), double-click it with the Mouse Left Button and you’ll see something like this:

If you don’t see a Media Render listed as I do you probably have your Media Renderer turned off or you’ll need to set up your Firewall to allow free Network Traffic In and Out the Ps3 Media Server Application.

General Configuration Tab

The settings can play with here unless you know what you’re doing are:

• Language, if you’d like to choose a different language from the English it has as default.
• Start Minimized, check it if you want the application to start directly in the Status Bar.

• Install as Service, this will let you run the application at any time in the background while you’re using Windows OS.

• Check for Updates, well it’s self-explanatory.

• Prevent OS from sleeping while streaming, this one is very useful and you should check it, if your PC goes to sleep while streaming it’ll cut the feed and the video will stop playing.

Navigation /Share Settings Tab

Here is where you’ll need to tell the Application where are the Files you want to share just press the Green Plus Symbol and type the directory, easiest way to do this is open the location via Windows Explorer or navigating from My Computer Icon, then Copy and Paste the path from the upper bar. Note that I have in my screenshot I have 3 examples, the first 2 are different folders in the same PC I set as Media Server, the first one is a Drive where I mapped a Folder from a second PC in my Network, I don’t recommend to mess up with the rest of the settings here. Tip you can set up Blu-Ray drives from your PC or Laptop to play Movies on your TV if you map that Drive aswell, it’ll look like the first example of this screenshot.

Transcoding Settings Tab

Finally you can set up all your decoder settings for Audio, Video and Subtitles, it’s too extense to talk about each and every one of the settings so I’ll let that part for you to investigate jeje, I did already all the work to set up your server and get it running, you can look for and play to tune it for the best result tat suits you. However I’ll help you with one last tip that costed me a lot of time to figure out, remember when I said earlier something about having to set up a Subtitle Folder, here it is, just be sure the names in the Video and .SRT files are identical, for Example GOT_S05E10.mkv must go with a GOT_S05E10.srt file for the Subtitles to work, check for your device compatibility aswell, I own a Samsung Smart TV and these don’t support Subtitles in 720 Resolution for I reason I’ll never comprehend jeje.

I hope this will help you and that you’ll have fun using this very nice tool, enjoy!