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Guide - Use PS3 Blu-Ray drive for Apple TV rips

hitekalex

hitekalex

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Feb 4, 2008
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Chicago, USA
(Last Update: Dec 24, 2008)

This guide is an addendum to 'Blu-Ray to Apple TV' guide. It explains how to use your PlayStation 3 Blu-Ray drive to transfer BD movies onto a Mac or a PC for subsequent ripping & Apple TV encoding. The primary purpose here is to avoid the expense of a computer-based Blu-Ray drive for movies rips. If you already have an internal or USB-attached Blu-Ray drive, you can skip this guide and go directly to the 'Blu-Ray to Apple TV' thread.

Hardware/Software needed:

1. Sony Playstation 3
2. USB keyboard & mouse for PS3 (this only needed for install purposes - any PC keyboard/mouse will do)
3. Windows XP/Vista PC or Mac with Parallels (100GB of free disk space recommended)
4. CD-RW or DVD-RW blank disk
5. Gigabit Wired Network
6. SlySoft Virtual CloneDrive (free PC app)
7. SlySoft AnyDVD HD (commercial PC app, ~$100, 21-day trial available)
8. Ubuntu 8.10 for PS3 (free open source)

Guide:

1. You have to install Ubuntu Linux onto your PS3. Those who are intimidated by this step or Linux in general - don't worry! Installing other operating system on PS3 is fully supported by Sony, unlike say "patching" Apple TV. Also, installing Ubuntu is a very simple process even if you'd never touched Linux before.

a. Download latest Ubuntu 8.10 PS3 ISO and burn it onto a blank DVD

b. Prepare PS3 partition for Ubuntu. In PS3 game menu, go to [System Settings] > [Format Utility]. Select "Format Hard Disk" and click [Yes]. Choose [Custom] and [Allot 10GB to the Other OS]. Select [Quick Format] and confirm with [Yes]. It will take a few seconds, press 'X' on your game controller to restart the PS3.

c. Insert the disk you burned into the PS3, connect the keyboard & mouse. Go to [System Settings] > [Install Other OS]. Select "Other OS" and hit "Yes" to restart the system.

d. Go to [System Settings] > [Default System] and switch from PS3 to "Other OS". With the Ubuntu disk inserted and Other OS activated, start up your console, and wait for the installer to begin.

e. From here on, the Ubuntu installer will start its thing, just follow all the prompts. It will ask you for few basic things like system name, your user-id/password, time zone, etc. Please ensure that your PS3 is connected to Internet via wired cable. The whole install process should take about 1 hour.
​

2. Now you need to login into Ubuntu UI and install a few pieces of software. Login into Ubuntu using USB keyboard/mouse, with previously specified user-id & passwiord. Open a Terminal window (Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal), and execute two commands listed below. Note your PS3 has to be connected to the Internet.

a. Install SSH so that you can remotely login into PS3 (after completing this, you can disconnect PS3 keyboard/mouse and do the remaining steps from your main computer thru SSH session into PS3):
sudo apt-get install openssh-server openssh-client​

b. Install SMB package - this enables Ubuntu mount Windows shares:
sudo apt-get install smbfs​

3. Mount your Windows or Mac SMB share. Note that I have my iMac acting as a SMB server, but it should work the same with XP or Vista:

a. Make a local directory to act as a mount point (replace 'username' with yours)
mkdir /home/username/netshare​

b. Mount your SMB share: (replace username/password below with correct values, as well as your server IP and share name):
sudo mount -t smbfs -o username=username,password=password "//192.168.1.10/NetShare/" /home/username/netshare​

c. If you want the above share to mount every time you boot your PS3 Ubuntu, add the following line to the end of /etc/fstab file:
//192.168.1.10/NetShare /home/username/netshare smbfs auto,username=username,password=password,uid=username 0 0​

4. Now, insert your Blu-Ray disk into the PS3 drive, and dump its contents onto the Network Share folder. The copy process should take about an hour over Gigabit network (I emphasize that a wired Gigabit network is essential for this step):
sudo dd if=/dev/cdrom of=/home/username/netshare/bd-movie.iso​

5. On your Windows PC or Parallels machine, install and run Virtual CloneDrive. Then right-click on the bd-movie.iso file you copied in the previous step, select 'Open with' and 'Mount Files with Virtual CloneDrive'. At this point, the movie ISO should show up as a "virtual" local disk.

6. Open AnyDVD HD and let it do its magic. Follow the Blu-Ray to Apple TV thread for the remaining instructions on how to produce an Apple TV compatible movie file.

Note: to boot your PS3 back into Game OS, issue this command:
sudo boot-game-os​
 
northy124

northy124

macrumors 68020
Nov 18, 2007
2,293
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One question, is it possible to use an Ext. HDD instead of a network? (Does it see HFS+? if I can use an Ext.HDD)
 
hitekalex

hitekalex

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Feb 4, 2008
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Chicago, USA
northy124 said:
One question, is it possible to use an Ext. HDD instead of a network? (Does it see HFS+? if I can use an Ext.HDD)
Click to expand...

It's possible, but there are a few issues. PS3 will read only FAT32 or EXT3 formatted partitions. Problem with FAT32 is that it imposes 4GB max size file limit.. so your BD rip will end split in bunch of small chunks, which you will later have to stitch back together before you can decrypt.

EXT3 has no file size limitations, but it isn't natively readable by Windows. There's an open source EXT3FS driver out there; I haven't tried it myself, others have reported mixed results with that.

So copying over the network is the easiest/fastest method in my opinion..
 
chenks

chenks

macrumors 65816
Oct 23, 2007
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UK
have just tried to install the 2 packages, but they don't seem to exist.

error received on both is

package smbfs is not available, but is referred to by another package. this may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted or is only available from another source.

E:package smbfs has not installation candidate
Click to expand...

any suggestions ??
can access internet via firefox in ubuntu so network is fine.
 
hitekalex

hitekalex

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Original poster
Feb 4, 2008
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Chicago, USA
chenks said:
have just tried to install the 2 packages, but they don't seem to exist.

error received on both is



any suggestions ??
can access internet via firefox in ubuntu so network is fine.
Click to expand...

Check to make sure that you have the proper repositories enabled:

System>Administration>Software Sources

All of the sources need to be checked in the first tab.
 
chenks

chenks

macrumors 65816
Oct 23, 2007
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UK
are they enabled by default?
i installed everything as per the instructions on here.
 
G

guywoodman7

macrumors member
Jan 28, 2008
85
1
New York
hitekalex said:
(Last Update: Dec 24, 2008)


4. Now, insert your Blu-Ray disk into the PS3 drive, and dump its contents onto the Network Share folder. The copy process should take about an hour over Gigabit network (I emphasize that a wired Gigabit network is essential for this step):
sudo dd if=/dev/cdrom of=/home/username/netshare/bd-movie.iso​
Click to expand...

I got up to step for with few issues but when I issue this command it says "dd: opening `dev/cdrom': No such file or directory

I know very little about the command line but I'm great at following instructions so please excuse my lack of knowledge here.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

EDIT** So I tried changing the bd-movie.iso part of the code to the actual name of the bluray disk I'm trying this on. Terminal seems to accept this code, however doesnt do anything after that. I'm just sitting at a blank line now without the command prompt.

Nothing SEEMS to be copying over to my SMB folder as well. Is there supposed to be any sort of progress bar or indication on the copy process?

EDIT2** Well now I see whats going on for the most part. However I think my problem lies in my SMB setup. When I issue the command to dump the disk, it dumps it locally and fills my Ubuntu drive. For some reason I can't get Ubuntu and my Mac to see each other nicely. I've googled and googled but haven't found anything to help. If anyone has some good instructions for me I would be very appreciative
 
hitekalex

hitekalex

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Feb 4, 2008
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Chicago, USA
Well, sounds like there may be an issue with your SMB mount or write access issue. Before you attempt dumping BD disks - make sure your PS3 can see your mounted computer share and you're able to copy files onto it. Copy a random small file from your PS3 to your share, i.e

cp /etc/hosts /home/[username]/netshare/newfile

And make sure you can see this file on the computer. Yes you need some basic Unix command line familiarity to figure out the issue :)
 
G

guywoodman7

macrumors member
Jan 28, 2008
85
1
New York
I appreciate the help so far, but for some reason I just cannot seem to get my SMB folder to mount in Ubuntu as a local folder.

Let me explain what I've done on the mac side.

I'm running 10.5.6, popped into system prefs, went into the sharing section, I have File Sharing checked off, and in the options section, I have 2 options checked off, share with AFP and SMB.

I gave read & write permission to all the users for the shared folder (which isn't probably necessary, but figured it would be the easiest way for SMB to work being I don't know exactly what I'm doing)

So that is all I have done on the mac end.

On the Ubuntu end...

I excute this command:

sudo mount -t smbfs -o username=username,password=password "//192.168.1.10/NetShare/" /home/username/netshare

I also changed the 2nd occurrence of "username" and the 2nd occurrence of "password" to my username and password for my SMB share on my mac. I also changed the IP address and the folder name to the appropriate values.

When I execute this command however terminal gives me a very long winded explanation of mounting devices. The message starts with this...

Usage: mount -V : print version
mount -h : print this help
etc...

Then the next part says

"So far the information part. Next the mounting.
The command is 'mount [-t fstype] something somewhere"

This goes on for another 40 lines or so. Is this happening because I am inputing the wrong code or is this supposed to happen?

This is the weird thing...in the Ubuntu Finder window (not sure what its called) if I type my smb path in the location bar, I AM able to mount my Mac shared folder. I can read and write to it on the mac AND ubuntu. My problem lies in making the local ubuntu folder (I am using netshare as well) act as the mount point.

Please help, I've invested many hours into troubleshooting this and I would really like to succeed here.

Thank you!
 
G

guywoodman7

macrumors member
Jan 28, 2008
85
1
New York
Disregard the last post! I FINALLY got past mounting my SMB shared folder as a local folder.

To be honest I'm not sure what I did different. I think mounting the smb directory first, and THEN issuing the command to use it as a local folder did it, but I could be totally wrong.

Either way I am dumping my first disc over to my mac, and so far all is looking good.

Lets just hope the next few steps don't gimme issues.
 
B

BrittQ

macrumors regular
May 23, 2007
235
0
Thanks for the guide. Will try it this weekend.

(Be sure to check back to answer all my questions ;) )
 
stlredbird

stlredbird

macrumors 6502a
Feb 24, 2009
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584
I'm really excited about doing this but apparently I'm a complete idiot.:D
Needless to say I have a few questions.

Using a PowerMac for this btw, but also have a PC with XP. Both PowerMac and PS3 are hardlined into a router.

I get up to step 3 fine but then I'm apparently getting confused.

1. Are all the terminal commands for when you're logged into the PS3 or for some do you need to be logged into your mac?

2. I'm also confused when I should be using the PS3 IP or the PowerMac IP.

3. and finally, for all instances where you have to enter your username and password do you use your PS3 Ubuntu L/P or your PowerMac(server) L/P? And I guess to add to this one, is the username=username different from the uid=username?

Thanks in advance. At least I got Ubuntu installed. ;)

Also, I know the PS3 can see my MacBook Pro and my Windows PC b/c I can mount them both just going through the normal network program (not terminal). However, my MacBook can't see my PS3 Ubuntu.

Thanks again.
 
twoodcc

twoodcc

macrumors P6
Feb 3, 2005
15,307
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Right side of wrong
i'm trying this, and i have both my ps3 and mbp running vista hardwired, and it has been copying for over 8 hours and has copied 24 GB so far. what is going on?
 
northy124

northy124

macrumors 68020
Nov 18, 2007
2,293
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twoodcc said:
i'm trying this, and i have both my ps3 and mbp running vista hardwired, and it has been copying for over 8 hours and has copied 24 GB so far. what is going on?
Click to expand...
It takes time as the disk's are 25/50GB, but 8 hours is excessive. What is it your trying to rip? has it finished and you just haven't noticed?
 
twoodcc

twoodcc

macrumors P6
Feb 3, 2005
15,307
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Right side of wrong
northy124 said:
That is far to long you have done something wrong.
Click to expand...

i have my ps3 running ubuntu. i ran the updates for it, then installed the software just like this thread says.

i have vista running on my late 2006 macbook pro.

i have both directly connected to my airport extreme (gigabit)

is it possible the the ethernet cables i'm using are bad or something?
 
twoodcc

twoodcc

macrumors P6
Feb 3, 2005
15,307
26
Right side of wrong
twoodcc said:
it is still going! it's spiderman 3. it's been almost 19 hours now!
Click to expand...

it ended up taking just under 24 hours to copy 48 GB. i'm trying another movie now, but it's still taking forever. i'm not sure what is going on here. i switched out the Ethernet cable that was hooked up to the ps3, but still the same speeds.

on my mbp with vista, it says the connection is 1.0 Gbps, so i thought that wire was good.

any ideas?
 
V

Volante

macrumors regular
Feb 8, 2008
205
0
twoodcc said:
it ended up taking just under 24 hours to copy 48 GB. i'm trying another movie now, but it's still taking forever. i'm not sure what is going on here. i switched out the Ethernet cable that was hooked up to the ps3, but still the same speeds.

on my mbp with vista, it says the connection is 1.0 Gbps, so i thought that wire was good.

any ideas?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure if this applies to Vista. But Windows XP Pro and XP Home used different samba-implementations. Home was much slower than pro...
 
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