ctrl.altered.mind

Especially motivated by the recent firmware update rolled out by Sony, I spent most of my available time this past week trying to get a robust media server running on my home network, and it was not quite the simple task as I had hoped it would be. Hence, I felt the need to document some of my learnings and findings here (so someone else trying this setup can hopefully save a few minutes).

All of my photo, audio and video media files live on an external hard drive connected to a Macintosh, which is not in the same room as the TV and PS3 - hence the primary need for a wireless media server. The Mac has yet to be graced with a single full-function UPnP server utility that is easy to setup and configure - this is just a matter of time, however, as I hear that Nullriver is working on developing a PS3 version of their very popular Connect360 program (which plays excellently with the XBox 360).

I have tried pretty much every available Mac/PS3 interconnect solution out there, at least the ones I could try first before buying (which ruled out EyeConnect). I did find reasonable success with Twonky Media Server (30-day demo, $40 license), although this (rather detailed) post is all about MediaTomb - a free, open-source UPnP server application that meets most (if not all) of my needs as far as a wireless media server are concerned.

In order to get things up and running, you will need the following setup preconfigured:

• A Macintosh running OS X 10.3 or newer (I use 10.5)
• An installation of XCode
• An installation of fink (optionally with Fink Commander)

XCode should be available on your Mac OS X installation disc (or you can get it from Apple’s site - free registration required). I didn’t want to get into the installation details here as there are much better tutorials online (such as this one), but felt that I should anyway, since I had some extra steps to endure because things didn’t work out without tweaks and patches. One note here is that a pre-built fink binary is not yet available for OS X Leopard, so you will have to install fink from source using bootstrap mode (which is why you need XCode).

Installing Fink in Bootstrap Mode (for new Fink users on OS X Leopard):

1. Download fink v0.27.8 here, and save it to a convenient location.

2. Fire up Terminal, navigate to the point where you saved fink, and unzip the downloaded package ($ indicates the terminal prompt):

$ tar xzf fink-0.27.8.tar.gz

3. Change to the unzipped directory:

$ cd fink-0.27.8

4. Here, you should find the perl script that enables bootstrap installation. Run the following command (note the preceding period):

$ ./bootstrap

5. For root privileges, choose ’sudo’ and follow the instructions. For the rest of the installation, choosing default values should work just fine (the only customization you might want is for a different installation path, if at all).

6. Lastly, make sure you update fink:

$ sudo fink scanpackages

$ sudo fink selfupdate

This process should get you up and running with fink.Optionally, you could download Fink Commander, which is a graphical frontend application for your new fink installation.

Installing and Configuring MediaTomb:

Using fink (or Fink Commander), download the source for mediatomb. You will have to add the unstable source library to the fink configuration file for this. Using Terminal, navigate to the fink installation directory and type the following commands:

$ sudo open -a TextEdit /sw/etc/fink.conf

This should open the configuration file in TextEdit (replace this with your favorite plain text editor). Locate the following line:

Trees: local/main stable/main stable/crypto

and change it to:

Trees: local/main stable/main stable/crypto unstable/main unstable/crypto

Save the fink.conf file, and proceed to fetch the source for mediatomb. Now, here’s the issue - I had a problem with the direct installation of mediatomb on my Leopard machine, and hence had to locally patch the source files to get it to compile and build. Until this is resolved by the mediatomb source owners, I shall assume you have to do the same (try installing first by running the install command below).

$ fink fetch mediatomb

The mediatomb source code will be fetched and placed in the fink directory. Navigate to this directory at:

$ cd /sw/src/

Unzip the downloaded mediatomb tarball and switch to its directory:

$ sudo tar xzf mediatomb-0.10.0.tar.gz

$ cd mediatomb-0.10.0/src/

In this src directory, you might need to patch the string_converter.cc file. Open this file in a text editor via the following command:

$ open -a TextEdit string_converter.cc

In this file, locate the following preprocessor lines and comment out the #if construct so only the #else case applies, as follows:

// #if defined(HAVE_LIBICONV) || defined(SOLARIS)
//    ret = iconv(cd, (const char**)input_ptr, &input_bytes,
//            output_ptr, &output_bytes);
// #else
   ret = iconv(cd, input_ptr, &input_bytes,
            output_ptr, &output_bytes);
// #endif

Once this is accomplished, roll back the unzipped files into the tarball (first delete the originally downloaded file):

$ cd /sw/src/

$ sudo rm mediatomb-0.10.0.tar.gz

$ sudo tar cf mediatomb-0.10.0.tar.gz mediatomb-0.10.0/*

Now, let’s try installing this patched copy of mediatomb. Run the following command:

$ fink install mediatomb

Obviously, the signature from the downloaded file will not match as the downloaded file was patched. Fink will complain about this (to protect you), but go ahead and authorize the installation anyway.

Mediatomb should be installing now - this will take a while, so try keeping up the anticipation as I had to. Once done, mediatomb will be installed in your home directory (under a hidden folder called .mediatomb).

The mediatomb configuration by default is not set up for PS3 compatibility - this is easily resolved by adding the following line to the mediatomb configuration file:

$ open -a TextEdit ~/.mediatomb/config.xml

Insert the following line after the <server> tag in this file:

<protocolInfo extend="yes" />

You can now run mediatomb by a Terminal command, as follows (the -d switch runs the program as a daemon):

$ mediatomb -d

If you’re still with me at this point, hold on for a few more seconds, for we’re almost there! At this point, you should be able to see the MediaTomb server from the XMB menu on your PS3 (that is, unless you face some of the issues that I did). At this point, you should be able to browse to the MediaTomb web menu by accessing the http://<IP Address>:<Port>/ via your web browser. In my case, this address is at: http://192.168.1.2:49152/

Here is my config.xml file for reference. You will need to edit the IP address tag in this file to the one used by your Mac.

The MediaTomb webpage provides options to add media files to your newly established media server and should be fairly intuitive. If you face problems, please let me know in the comments.

Issues I Faced with MediaTomb:

Incorrect IP Address:

The default IP address for the MediaTomb server in my case was not being assigned correctly - it seemed like the server configuration was picking up a random IP address similar to the one used by VMWare Fusion for the virtualized Windows instantiation. Therefore, I had to add an IP address override command in the config.xml file. In the config.xml file that we edited previously, you can add the following line (replace the IP address with the one that your Mac is currently using):

<ip>192.168.1.2</ip>

The IP address can also be supplied while running the mediatomb program from the command line, as follows:

$ mediatomb –ip=192.168.1.2

Additional Media Types:

The following tags need to be added to the config.xml file within the <extension-mimetype> flags in order to add support for additional media types. Note that the last line is particularly suited only for DivX AVI files, and will only work on a PS3 sporting the 2.1 system update.

<map from="mpg" to="video/mpeg"/>
<map from="m2v" to="video/mpeg"/>
<map from="mp4" to="video/mp4"/>
<map from="png" to="image/png"/>
<map from="jpg" to="image/jpeg"/>
<map from="gif" to="image/gif"/>
<map from="m4a" to="audio/m4a"/>
<map from="avi" to="video/x-divx"/>

Port Issues:

Finally, if you encounter poor bandwidth issues, network congestion (lagged streams), or port mapping issues, try accessing your home network router and enable UPnP support (most routers should have a UPnP configuration option). I did not need to open up the port used by MediaTomb (49152/49153) to be mapped directly to the Mac, but this may be one more option to try in case things are not running quite smoothly.

Finally, if you run into trouble getting this stuff to work, let me know in the comments and I shall try and answer questions to the best of my ability. Good luck!

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 23rd, 2007 at 9:48 pm and is filed under Digital Lifestyles, Gaming, OSX.