Outputting for Play Station 3 playback?

Hi I am trying to find the best way to output my edited footage for playing on my PS3 from its internal HDD. My Samsung 50" Plasma plays 30fps nicely so I am leaving it at that. I can worry about 25fps later if I need it.

My workflow so far is.
1) Convert 5D2 RAW footage into Apple ProRes422

2) Edit this ProRes stuff on the timeline.

This is where it goes off a bit.

3a) I export the timeline usinf File->Export->Quicktime Converter and set it for H.264 using current frame rate and automatic keyframes and datarate. I then use Quicktime Player to "Export" with "passthru" to get the MP4 out of the .mov container. This MP4 plays on the PS3 perfectly. The only problem is, the initial exporting from FCP is really slow. Throat slittingly slow.

Because it's slow I tried the next method,

3b) Export the timeline to a Quicktime Movie. Use "current settings". This works very quickly and appears to output a file in Apple ProRes. Still looks good. Because it's so fast I am guessing it's not doing much.
3b.1) I then used Compressor to convert this into an MPEG4. I was quite pleased that this final conversion to MPG was faster than realtime. 8 minutes to convert an 11minute clip.

The only problem is, the PS3 does not like this format It says it's unsupported. Clutching at straws I used Quicktime player to again export using Passthru. This did something so I presume even though my file from Compressor said .mp4 it was still inside a .mov. The resulting .mp4 was slightly shorter.

On the PS3 if I look at the info on the one file it likes it says it's MPG4 AVC, the one it DOESN'T like it just says Mpeg 4.

Are there any output formats in Compressor that will work directly with the PS3 or will I have to make a custom one?

Not sure if this helps but I render to run m2t files on PS3 and they look nice.

I find that for optimal results I'm using MPEG2 for the PS3...

Thanks for the replies.

I tries mt2 from compressor, but everytime the progress bar gets to about 7/8 the way across then stops, and the time left to finish gets more and more.

I can output easy enough from FCP to H.264 which looks nice enough but it's slow to export

I find that for optimal results I'm using MPEG2 for the PS3...

MPEG2 1080p?
Can you elaborate (exact settings)?
Thanks

I use the ps3 setting from handbrake (freely available for mac/linux/windows) and it works great.

>I use the ps3 setting from handbrake (freely available for mac/linux/windows) and it works great.

OK, downloaded Handbrake v0.93 and converted a 100 MB testfile (with PS3 preset) output was 5 mb MP4 file
PS3 can't play the file -> error code: 80028801

Second test with PS3 preset only now with 100% constant Quality Output was 80 MB MP4 file
PS3 can't play the file -> error code: 80028801

PS3 does recognise the files (normally PS3 says corrupted data, this isnt the case here) but just cant play them

I'm doing something wrong?

Trying these settings now, just to make sure I'm not insane, but I've already converted dozens with the basic and my super high bandwidth settings before.

Picture 3.png (163.56 KiB) Viewed 854 times

This is the only real way we can view them on our Panasonic commercial plasma monitor as it does not have HDMI. We use the hd component outputs from the PS3 to view our family movies.

I'll let you know when it's done.

Ok, the key is in picture settings.

Make sure your cropping is set to automatic, so your video size is 1920X1080.

Picture 5.png (64.04 KiB) Viewed 866 times

The Canon 5DII outputs video at 1920X1088, which is mildly retarded. The PS3 will not play this non-standard size.

Ok, the key is in picture settings.

Make sure your cropping is set to automatic, so your video size is 1920X1080.

Picture 5.png

The Canon 5DII outputs video at 1920X1088, which is mildly retarded. The PS3 will not play this non-standard size.

Yes, I converted with automatic 8 pixels crop, so it must be something else. Maybe its a bug in Handbrake Windows version...


Thanks rrusso!