How To Watch Your DVD Collection On PS3

Have a PS3? Have an extra external hard drive laying around? Want to be able to watch your entire DVD collection with a couple clicks of the X button? Have the patience to rip all of your DVD's to your hard drive? If you answered "yes" to most of the questions above, this how-to will teach you how to!

Note: This is not a how-to in video piracy. Only back-up videos that YOU own!

Rip DVD's. This is the time consuming part. Use the software of your choice, but the file has to be less than 4GB and in .mpeg when finished. I recommend using Handbrake, it has a PS3 setting to take all of the post-rip conversion out. Handbrake takes a little bit longer to process your movies, but makes it much easier.

Keep in mind that there is a 4GB cap on files that the system can read. If your files are larger that 4GB, compress them as little as possible to get them under the cap. The upscaling qualities on the PS3 should render the compression not noticeable.

Set up your external drive. The PS3 will only read your hard drive if it's converted to the FAT32 system. OSX users will have to partition either a section of the HD or the entire thing for this to work.

PS3 has a specific folder system that has to be used in order for this to work. Movies have to be in a folder titled "Video", photos is "Picture", games is "Game", and music is "Music". Create a separate folder for each. All of your movies HAVE to be saved in the Video folder!

Move your movies from your hard drive to the external drive. Another time burglar, I know!! Make sure that they land in the Video folder. 

Eject the external drive and plug it into the USB port on your PS3. The drive (with your movies) will now be available under the Video tab on the XMB.

As stated above - This is not a how-to in video piracy. Only back-up videos that YOU own!