Wireless network and the Playstation 3: Stutter City!

So I’ve got a Playstation 3 hooked up to my wireless network. When I’m watching a media file streaming from my PC, the sound will cut out. Then the video will freeze while the sounds plays “catch up” over a frozen picture. Then it all carries on, only to do it again later. This is incredibly annoying and is pretty much killing the PS3 in terms of a being a streaming media player (although this doesn’t happen with music).

I thought it might be my router, so I recently replaced the router with a LinkSys Wireless N Gigabyte router. Is there some sort of setting I should fiddle with to made sure larger files transfer better? There are a lot of advanced settings in there and I’m convinced one of them is the magic button I need to press!

Any ideas?

-Tom

As a new PS3 owner, this is something that I’d like to know too. The wireless connection seems to work really unreliably, so that I can’t e.g. get stuff downloaded from PSN since it’s so slow and disconnects constantly. I have a Wii next to the PS3 that works fine and my laptop shows “Excellent” signal, so the PS3 wireless chip just seems bad.

So, I’m basically asking the same thing as Tom. Do e.g. some wireless channels work better than other? Does using WEP/WPA make a difference? Googling finds several people with the same problem, but no definite solution (except for buying a separate, external wireless antenna for the PS3).

Wireless is just unreliable for streaming in general, it seems. I can’t even reliably stream a measly 2Mb/s video to my laptop, even though it’s only a tiny fraction of .11g’s capacity.

I’ve seen recommendations that using .11a will generally have less interference and might get you more reliable streaming, but you’d need both a router that supports it and an adapter for the PS3, since it doesn’t support it natively.

Ive never run into this streaming on my 60gb model, I use a Linksys Draft N router with WPA2. Its seen more than a little use too because I always watch shows with it while I work out.

Which is even more odd considering my PS3 seems to have a fetish for disconnecting me 4 minutes or so after I log into LBP.

Sorry that I can`t help any more than that.

There is: string an Ethernet cable between your PS3 and router - problem solved!

Or, less glibly, try Powerline networking instead: they’re up to 200Mbps and cost about $100 - $150 for a pair of adapters.

I could never stream WMV-HD on the 360 over wireless, either. If you’re doing video streaming, wires are still where it’s at.

I’ve never been able to connect to any online game through the PS3 with the wireless connection; it just doesn’t see the PS3. It also take about 15-20 hours to download a HD rental through the online store (6 g/b); a Mac that sits next to the wireless router downloads 1mb/2-3seconds.

OTOH, the connection has always been stable - i’ve never had the connection drop.

We had this issue, and I vaguely remember the other half doing some research online and mumbling about UPnP (whatever that is) causing issues with disconnects, changing settings and it got better but didn’t go away altogether. So now we just copy whatever file it is to the PS3 hard drive, then watch it off there instead.

Out of curiosity, is it a Mac? For some reason, both our Macbook and iBook just outright refuse to stream video from a network share without severe hickups. My old XP laptop on the other hand streams the same videos flawlessly (all using the same wifi access point).

I’ve had my PS3 for a while, and I’ve been consistently undewhelmed by its WiFi speed (although, the ping’s been decent enough to play UT3 without hitches). I just installed powerline networking (pair of Netgear 85Mbps 4-port switches, $120 on sale at Frys) in the living room, and it works well. Since my net connection maxes out at 6.7Mbps, net access isn’t an issue.

But yeah, any media streaming over WiFi will be subject to inconsistency, microwaves, lamps, neighbors’ stuff, or just people moving around the house can all affect your signal. Streaming woud likely be improved with a wired bridge.

If you want to keep it cheap, Frys has Homeplug 1.0 compatible single-plug units from Airlink for $25 apiece (at least that’s the price in Dallas). Get a pair, see if you get good results, upgrade if you like them. As far as I can tell, any Homeplug device will talk to another one, I’ve got an Airlink talking to the Netgear units just fine for the kids’ PC.

Or copy it to a USB thumbdrive, they play just fine over the USB connection.

Homeplug 1.0 maxes out at 14 Mbps: good enough for most broadband connections, but slower than 11g wireless and probably a bad choice for streaming media, which is what Tom wants. I would go with the 85Mbps adapters, at least.

I don’t have a PS3 but I gave up on wireless for streaming video a long time ago. It is just a bad idea. Some people can get away with it, but it tends to fail too way too often, especially if you live in a populated area where many of your neighbors are also using wireless.

Use Powerline Ethernet (I’ve used PLE200s from Linksys with good success) or coax routers (like the Motorola NIM100s) or just run an ethernet cable if you can do it without too much mess.

I used to have this problem with my PS3 sometimes too. It would come and go. Buying a beefier computer actually seemed to help some, so at least some of it was TVersity struggling with the transcoding.

The final solution was just to copy the media locally to the PS3 (triangle button instead of play) and play it that way.

This is the correct answer! Admittedly I have the advantage of an unfinished basement to drop and then run my ethernet through, but still!

I’m not about to buy more hardware, so I was hoping someone would just say “Set the foolze entry to value x” and I’d be good to go. :( And, yeah, I know to copy stuff to the PS3 to avoid this. I guess I’ll just keep copying.

The weird thing is that this is absolutely distinct to the PS3. My Xbox 360, which sits not four inches away from the PS3, never suffers this problem. I can stream a big fat file over the very same wireless network and it won’t skip or stutter or fuss. But given my history with dying Xboxes, I’d just as soon not use it on any longer than I have to. Every minute spent streaming media to the 360 is just one minute closer to the next RROD!

-Tom

I’m able to stream movies off of Netflix wirelessly to my PS3 with no stuttering with a regular Netgear router, but I’m not sure what resolution I’m getting (looks about DVD-quality to me, though).

attach a windsurfer to your router antenna?

Your wireless is ghetto, Tom… fix it!

Wireless is odd, sometimes it’s fine, other times it dies constantly. Some cards work much better than others however.