Guide: Apple TV Rips via Ubuntu Linux and a PS3 Blu-ray Drive!

229w ago - 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. Hardware/Software needed:

1. Sony PlayStation 3
2. USB keyboard & mouse for PS3
3. Windows XP/Vista PC or Mac with Parallels (100GB free space)
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 (above) 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