The PS3 does not natively support reading and playing MKV encoved HD video file.

The following types of files can be played under  (Video) natively on the PS3

• Memory Stick Video Format
• - MPEG-4 SP (AAC LC)
• - H.264/MPEG-4 AVC High Profile （AAC LC）
• - MPEG-2 TS（H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, AAC LC）
• MP4 file format
• - H.264/MPEG-4 AVC High Profile (AAC LC)
• MPEG-1 (MPEG Audio Layer 2)
• MPEG-2 PS (MPEG2 Audio Layer 2, AAC LC, AC3(Dolby Digital), LPCM)
• MPEG-2 TS（MPEG2 Audio Layer 2, AC3（Dolby Digital）, AAC LC）
• MPEG-2 TS（H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, AAC LC）
• AVI
• - Motion JPEG (Linear PCM)
• - Motion JPEG (μ-Law)
• AVCHD （.m2ts / .mts）
• DivX
• WMV
• - VC-1（WMA Standard V2）

So how do you play HD MKV movies via your PS3 on to your lovely HD TV?

Well the solution is to stream and encode MKV movies in real time from your PC, you will need to install the PS3 Media server in order to do this.

1. Go to http://code.google.com/p/ps3mediaserver/ and download the latest build of PS3 media server

2. Install Jave virtual machine runtime 6 onto your Windows PC

3. Install PS3 media server

4. Setup the options to read MKV files from your movie directory

5. Connect your PC to your PS3 via LAN cable, do not use WIFi its too slow for MKV streaming

• Ready to launch and play. No codec packs to install. No folder configuration and pre-parsing or this kind of annoying thing. All your folders are directly browsed by the PS3, there’s an automatic refresh also.
• Real-time video transcoding of MKV/FLV/OGM/AVI, etc.
• Direct streaming of DTS / DTS-HD core to the receiver
• Remux H264/MPEG2 video and all audio tracks to AC3/DTS/LPCM in real time with tsMuxer when H264 is PS3/Level4.1 compliant
• Full seeking support when transcoding
• DVD ISOs images / VIDEO_TS Folder transcoder
• OGG/FLAC/MPC/APE audio transcoding
• Thumbnail generation for Videos
• You can choose with a virtual folder system your audio/subtitle language on the PS3!
• Simple streaming of formats PS3 natively supports: MP3/JPG/PNG/GIF/TIFF, all kind of videos (AVI, MP4, TS, M2TS, MPEG)
• Display camera RAWs thumbnails (Canon / Nikon, etc.)
• ZIP/RAR files as browsable folders
• Support for pictures based feeds, such as Flickr and Picasaweb
• Internet TV / Web Radio support with VLC, MEncoder or MPlayer
• Podcasts audio/ Video feeds support
• Basic Xbox360 support
• FLAC 96kHz/24bits/5.1 support
• Windows Only: DVR-MS remuxer and AviSynth alternative transcoder support

 Founder of GamertechTV, and EIC, executive editor of GamertechTV Read more from this author

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