Transcoding settings

The "Transcoding settings" tab allows you to specify how content will be transcoded. PMS uses external programs to transcode and stream content to your device. Some of these programs overlap in what kind of media they can transcode. On this tab you can specify which order of preference the programs have when PMS determines how to transcode media. For each media type there is a list of programs, sorted by preference. The topmost program is most likely to be used. If it cannot transcode the media, the next program on the list is used, and so on.

This tab also allows to set the details of transcoding for each program. Below is a list of the settings on this tab.

Common transcode settings

General settings

Transcode buffer maximum size: This value is about how much temporary space should be used for buffering a video before sending it to PS3. Default value is 400.
Number of cores used for transcoding: This value is bout how many CPU cores should be used for transcoding. The maximum value depends on the physical available count of "real processor cores". That means hyperthreading virtual CPU cores do not count! If you are not sure, analyze your CPU with the free tool CPU-z on Windows systems. On Linux have a look at the virtual proc-filesystem. In the file /proc/cpuinfo you will find more details about your CPU. You also get much information about CPUs from AMD and Intel from their Wikipedia-articles. Regardless, PMS should be able to detect and set the correct amount of cores.
Chapters # Transcode # folder support / interval in minutes: enable automatically creation of chapters every x minutes in virtual folder

Audio settings

Number of audio channels: If you have a surround AV-receiver or amplifier connected to your PS3 select 5.1, otherwise 2 channels stereo.
AC-3 audio bitrate (in kbits/s): Here you set the quality of digital audio sound. Your AV-receiver or amplifier has to be capable of playing this quality. Default value is 384.
Keep DTS audio in stream: This enables playback of DTS digital surround sound via optical digital audio output (toslink) of your PS3. Keep in mind that this increases network traffic. Your AV-receiver or amplifier needs an integrated DTS-decoder for playback.
DTS/FLAC - LPCM-remux: This enables playback of DTS digital surround sound via HDMI output of your PS3. Keep in mind that this increases network traffic. Your HDMI connected device (TV or AV-receiver or amplifier) needs an integrated DTS-decoder for playback.
Remux when audio track is AC-3: Transcoding of audio will be avoided when it is AC-3 (Dolby Digital). The AC-3 digital audio track will muxed into a PS3 compatible container if necessary. This should be activated if your PS3 is connected to a TV or AV-receiver or amplifier which has an integrated Dolby Digital Decoder. This feature is not supported when using AviSynth based transcoding engines.

Video quality settings

Maximum bandwidth in Mbits/s: This is some kind of network throttle. One may think it is a brilliant idea to reduce network bandwidth in order to get HD videos streaming via WLAN. Experience shows that it does not work as expected. You need lots of CPU power for transcoding. If that is not a problem you will get really poor video quality when stream HD videos on low network bandwidth. So better leave the default value 0. You should also note that this setting won't affect muxed videos. You may have to enforce transcoding by choosing another transcoding engine.
Mpeg2 Video quality settings (dropdown): If PMS is not able to stream directly or mux the audio/video to a PS3 compatible container it will transcode to MPEG2, which is PS3 compatible. This costs lots of CPU power. This also will increase the network traffic because MPEG2 compression is not very good for HD videos. You will need a 100MBit/s LAN or DLAN for playback of transcoded HD videos - WLAN won't work (maybe some 720p videos will do). You are able to control the quality settings of MPEG2 encoding which corresponds to needed network bandwidth. So there are some parameters available to control MPEG2 quality. Keyint means keyframes, keyint=3 means that every third frame is a keyframe which is a complete picture. In between there are two pictures which only contain differences to the predecessing picture. A high value for keyint will result in a lower network bandwidth but will also cause bad quality in fast action scenes in movies. There are also so called quantizer values (vqmqx, vqmin, vqscale). High values result in low quality. Try out some of the values available in the dropdown.

Misc options

Disable subtitles: Displaying subtitles will automatically enforce transcoding. If you want to avoid transcoding and definitely do not need subtitles enable this feature.
Skip transcode for following extensions: Enforce direct playback for certain filetypes.
Force transcode for following extensions: Enforce transcoding for certain file types.

Video Files Engines: MEncoder

Video/Audio decoder settings for MEncoder engine only

Use multiple CPU cores: Enable usage of special multicore version of MEncoder tool. This will improve performance on multicore systems.
Skip loop filter deblocking for h.264: Disable deblocking filter for h.264 HD videos.
A/V sync alternative method: If video and audio get out of sync disabling this might help.
Use video scaler / Width / Height: Usually the TV or PS3 is used to upscale the video to optimal video resolution. MEncoder is also able to do that for you which will cost additional CPU power.
Force framerate parsed from FFmpeg: If framerate isn't recognized correctly (video is running too fast/slow) change this setting.
Deinterlace-filter: Enable deinterlace filter which will usually is done by your PS3 or TV.
Switch to tsMuxeR when video when H.264 video is PS3 compatible: Enable this! When MEncoder transcoding engine is used and PMS recognizes a PS3 compatible video it will switch to transcoding engine tsMuxeR. The video will then be streamed directly or muxed but not transcoded! This setting will dramatically reduce the need of transcoding. Matroska video (mkv) for example aren't supported on PS3. Mostly the contained audio and video stream is PS3 compatible. So tsMuxeR creates a PS3 compatible m2ts container which contains the original audio and video stream and the PS3 is able to playback. This feature reduces both network traffic (because of better compression as MPEG2) and CPU power needed for playback.
Expert settings: Codec-specific parameters: Press the button to change MEncoder parameters for certain codecs
Custom options: Add specific commandline options for the external program MEncoder
Audio language prority: Fill in the abbreviation of your native language so that PMS will automatically select the right audio track.

Subtitle settings

Subtitles language priority: Fill in the abbreviation of your native language so that PMS will automatically select the right subtitle.
Audio/subtitles language priority: Language selection specific for DVD playback.
Subtitles codepage: The codepage should match the codepage setting on your PS3. cp1252 should be default.
FriBiDi mode: Enable FriBiDi GNU implementation of Unicode algorhithm
Specify TrueType Font (for Asian languages): Select a specific font for Asian languages
Alternate Subtitles Folder: Select the folder on the filesystem that contains alternate subtitles
ASS/SSA Subtitles: Check the checkbox to enable support for the ASS/SSA subtitle format.
Fontconfig/Embedded fonts: Check to make use of the embedded fonts.
Use ASS default style: Check to use the ASS default style for subtitles.
Subs color: Click the button to select the color for subtitles.
ASS font settings / Font scale / Font outline / Font shadow / Font sub margin: Properties for ASS subtitles.
Default font settings / Font scale / Font outline / Font blur / Font sub margin: Default subtitle font settings.
Autoload *.srt/*.sub subtitles with the same file name: Support for SRT subtitle format
DVD/VOBsub subtitle quality: Quality of the subtitles, from 0 to 4. Higher means better quality. Default value is 3.

Video Files Engines: TsMuxeR

Video decoder settings for TsMuxeR engine only

Force FPS parsed from FFmpeg in the meta file: If framerate isn't recognized correctly (video is running too fast/slow) change this setting.
Mux all audio tracks: Enable it in order to get all audio tracks muxed.

FFmpeg DVR-MS remux

Alternative FFmpeg path: This feature is for users of Microsoft Windows Mediacenter Edition. If you have recorded some TV shows and want to watch the DVR-MS files with PMS/PS3 you need a special version of FFmpeg. Download and unzip this file in your PMS installation directory and restart PMS.