freeform goodness

The GameShark Media Player for PS2 is an interesting oddity. It’s a client/server application (the client piece runs on an ethernet-enabled Sony Playstation 2, the server is supported on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux [though it should be usable on any platform with a modern Java VM]) which streams digital media over your wired or wireless network.

I’ve been interested in something like this for quite a while. Like many people, I’ve invested a fair amount of time and effort storing audiovisual content on my home computer network. I have tens (soon to be hundreds) of gigabytes of (legally licensed, mostly) music, video, and digital photographs stored on my network. I have media organizing tools on my workstation that I can use to store, categorize, archive, and share this content. All of these tools are centered around the computer, the “dogital hub”, as it were. That happens to be the problem. Watching a movie, listening to music, or viewing digital vacation snapshots on a computer means sitting at a desk, in a straightbacked chair, two feet or so from a small screen and small, cheap computer speakers. Wouldn’t it be nice to enjoy this content while relaxing in a den or family room setting, reclining on a couch or a comfy chair or even in bed, while looking at a large screen and listening via decent speakers? Wouldn’t it be great to make use of another paid-for piece of equipment to do this? My thoughts exactly.

I already owned a PS2 (with a sadly underutilized network adapter), attached to a decent television and an OK stereo in my bedroom. When I initially read about the GSMP (neé QCast Tuner) it sounded like the ideal solution. (the product is developed and maintained by BroadQ and marketed and distributed by MadCatz as part of their GameShark line of products.) In practice, it’s a flawed but largely worthwhile product that I can recommend, if not unequivocably, to people who already have a PS2 and a lot of digitized media.

Tested configuration

• GSMP v. 2.0.11
• Sony Playstation 2 (model SCPH-30001)
• PS2 Network Adapter (model SCPH-10281)
• Mac OS X 10.2.8, Mac OS Runtime for Java 1.4.1 (stream server)
• 100Mbps switched ethernet LAN (Linksys BEFSR41 router)
• Mac OS 9.2 personal filesharing (music and video storehouse)

The initial setup was pretty simple. The package includes 2 CDs: a server disc (for the computer) and a client disc (for the PS2). The server disc simply contains a zip file which you uncompress on the machine you plan to use as your stream server. You invoke the installer (depending on your platform and JVM) by double-clicking the installer or running it from the command line. The installer prompts you for a CD Key and an email address, connects to BroadQ’s servers, and downloads the latest version of the server application. BroadQ mails an unlock code for the application to you at this point, so you need to use a real address. This leads into my first concern about the product — it does a whole lot of “phoning home”, connecting back to BroadQ’s servers for many functions. More on this later. After you enter the unlock code, the installer sets up the server software, then prompts you to set up a (local) user account and create network media shares (which can be optionally passworded — I didn’t bother.) This happens in a completely unremarkable but functional Java Swing GUI. This setup tool then launches the server software itself. (obGeeknote: looking at the software installed on the server, it looks like they’re using the Apache Project’s Xerces and XML-RPC libraries)

The PS2 client piece requires that you have 700kb free on a memory card. Presumably this is where your network configuration and any diffs between the CD-based playback software and the current, updated code are stored. On first boot, the software reads your PS2 network settings (assuming you already configured the adapter to work previously with your game software) from your memory card. My PS2 simply grabs an address by DHCP, and I’ve never had a problem with it. Sure enough, GSMP had no problems talking to the network and quickly showed me a list of available media servers on my LAN (I wonder what they’re using as a discovery protocol?). There was only one, the Mac I’d set up above, but it appears the client can talk to any number of media servers on a given network, which might be fun in a dorm setting. The only real negative in the console setup problem was the boot disc itself, which made the most unpleasant series of noisy seeking noises to emit from my PS2. It sounds like the console was really struggling to load the disc, which worries me (more on this later.), and a full load from power-up to initial menu screen takes at least a minute and a half.

Post-configuration, the software presents a screen from which you can select Playlists, Video & Music, and Pictures. Apparently you can import .m3u (Winamp-compatible) playlists (which lots of programs will export), but I haven’t tried it. I didn’t have any photos shared yet, so I went directly to the Video and Music option. The next menu presents you with a list of your shares, which you can navigate to using the PS2 controller (or the cool little remote) Selecting a share causes the software to present you with a list of subdirectories and a filtered list of files (based on extension, apparently) to choose from. Here I ran into some bugginess. The directory lister is rather slow in the best of circumstances. Even for small directories, there’s a lag of several seconds between a button press and directory traversal. Large directories present a bigger problem: at a certain size, large directories cause the software to freeze up entirely, requiring that you reboot the PS2 to continue. Considering the noisy, slow, boot process, this is unfortunate. I haven’t quite found the maximum size directory that the software can handle, but I do know that my iTunes library, with 380 artists at its top level, is more than it can deal with. I’ve managed to work around this by creating a dummy share stocked with (alphabetical) symbolic links to artist directories. Once you’ve successfully navigated into a directory, you can add items (music and video) to an ad-hoc playlist either one-at-a-time or via an “add all” link. You can toggle between the directory and playlist views using the L1 and R1 shoulder buttons. In the playlist view, hitting the x button starts playing the playlist (which has shuffle and repeat options, naturally) starting with the selected file.

With videos, you get a brief (2-3 second) loading screen and then the playback starts. The visual quality is quite good, depending on the source material. I tried various MPEG 1, MPEG 2, and Divx files. Frame rates were solid and visual artifacts were minimal on well-encoded files. Occasionally the video was a little “soft” but I attribute that to the various codecs tradeoffs. It seems they do some sort of “sweetenening” pass applied to the video. One thing to be aware of is that the GSMP doesn’t support some high-bitrate encoded, hi-res Divx files. Due (apparently) to processing limits imposed by the PS2’s CPU, some of the higher-res files can’t be supported. Informal testing using videos I had on my server and a few things (cough) borrowed (strictly for testing purposes, I swear!) via BitTorrent found this not to be a problem with most current-generation movies you’re likely to aquire online or digitize with your own hardware.

Sound files give your a very basic but functional display of elapsed time and a few ID3 tags. It would be a natural to bring all the beefy 3D hardware in the PS2 to bear on flashy visuals to accompany the music, I would think, but this release doesn’t support any visual modes. The audio sounds fine, as good (or as poor) as the MP3 encodes you throw at it. There don’t seem to be any (practical) bitrate restrictions — I tried everything from 24kbps OTR shows to music encoded with LAME’s --preset insane setting.

In summary, the player does great with the audio (MP3, OGG, AIFF, WAV) and video formats it supports. Unfortunately, that support misses a great many file formats you likely have laying around on your drives: Quicktime, Windows Media, Real, AAC. I believe the application’s architecture means that additional format support can be added via “over the wire” updates, and these formats would be great to have.

As mentioned earlier, the application “phones home” (for updates) on every launch. I haven’t busted out the packet analyzer to look at exactly what data goes back and forth over the wire, but a media player that does this is a potential case for concern, given the fanatical litigiousness of the subpoena-happy Copyright Cartel.

On tbe server end, the overhead of running the Media Server seems pretty minimal. The application uses very little RAM and doesn’t seem to use much CPU, even when actively serving content. Also, BroadQ’s engineering staff seems to be very accessible. They hang out on the support forums and are pretty upfront when answering questions, acknowledging limitations of the project, and soliciting requests for improvements. They have indicated that improvements for some identified issues are in the pipeline, though they’re careful not to overpromise. As I understand it, the product is currently available for North American NTSC systems, though they’re working on a PAL version. Overall, if you already have the hardware and a media library worth sharing around the house, the GSMP’s a pretty good product. It’s not as polished as it could be, but the price ($49) is reasonable and it’s already made a big impact on the way I use my personal media library.

:: Dave Walker 21:19 (EST/EDT) [+]

:: [/tech/gadgets]
:: tags: gadgets

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