Introduction
These instructions may seem lengthy but I have tried to cover everything.
This documentation is heavily biased towards windows - if you have experience of installing this on UNIX or Mac please let me know and I will update these instructions.
Download the zip file and unzip it to the desired location. If you want to create a shortcut the simplest way to do this is to right click on the vmc.jar file in windows explorer, select `Create shortcut' from the drop down menu, then drag and drop this where you want. If you want a shortcut on the quick launch bar simply drag and drop your newly created shortcut on the quick launch bar.
Configuring the server
In the directory where you extracted the file you will see a directory called config. Within this directory there is a file called server.xml - open this file in notepad (right click on the file and choose open with > notepad).
If you don't have any experience with xml, don't worry - it's quite simple if you take your time.
Once changes have been made to the server.xml file you will need to start and stop the server for the changes to take effect.
Server
The basic server configuration
e.g. <server port="8000" skin="default" transferbytes="51200">
Unless you are changing the skin then I see little point in changing these values. If you are running a web server or something similar you may have a conflict on port 8000.
Attribute |
Values |
Description |
port |
8000 |
The port that the server listens on. |
skin |
default |
The skin that the server uses. |
transferbytes |
51200 |
The size of the buffer when transferring data from the server to the PS3/Wii. |
filesystemicon |
yes (default), no |
Whether VMC uses the file system icons. Set to no when using Unix, not confirmed working on Mac yet. |
Directories
The directory entries are used to display a single directory on your PS3/Wii.
e.g. <directory name="Random stuff" path="c:\" allowdelete="yes" textfilter="" regexfilter="(^*\.mp4|^*\.mp3)" replacespaces="no" />
Directories can have none or many directory entries. Unlike folders, directories do not show sub folders.
Attribute |
Values |
Description |
name |
|
The name of the directory this is displayed on the home page of the server and does not need to match the name of the directory. |
path |
|
The path to the directory. e.g. c:\ |
allowdelete |
yes, no (default) |
Whether to allow the users to delete files from this directory. |
textfilter |
|
The text filter limits the files that are displayed in the directory list. The entry is a semi-colon (;) delimited list. e.g. mp4;mp3 will only display files that contain the words mp4 and mp3. |
regexfilter |
|
Similar to the text filter but uses regular expressions instead. E.g. (film\.*|^*\.mp4|^*\.mp3) this will only display files that begin with the word film and end with mp4 and mp3. |
Folders
The folder entries are used to display files and sub-folders on your PS3/Wii. You can fully navigate from the folder set here.
e.g. <folder name="My Videos" path="C:\my videos\" allowdelete="yes" textfilter="" regexfilter="" replacespaces="no" />
Folders can have none or many folder entries.
Attribute |
Values |
Description |
name |
|
The name of the directory this is displayed on the home page of the server and does not need to match the name of the directory. |
path |
|
The path to the directory. e.g. c:\ |
allowdelete |
yes, no (default) |
Whether to allow the users to delete files from this directory. |
textfilter |
|
The text filter limits the files that are displayed in the directory list. The entry is a semi-colon (;) delimited list. e.g. mp4;mp3 will only display files that contain the words mp4 and mp3. |
regexfilter |
|
Similar to the text filter but uses regular expressions instead. E.g. (film\.*|^*\.mp4|^*\.mp3) this will only display files that begin with the word film and end with mp4 and mp3. |
last.fm
The last.fm entries link to the last.fm website with the similar artist set and automatically starts to play (not tested on Wii).
e.g. <similarartist name="green day" />
lastfm can have none or many lastfm entries.
Attribute |
Values |
Description |
similarartist |
|
Music
The music entries allows you to play mp3 music playlists directly on your PS3 (not tested on Wii).
<playlist name="Some album" path="C:\music\playlist.xml" />
Music can have none or many playlist entries.
Attribute |
Values |
Description |
name |
|
The name of the playlist. |
path |
|
The full path (including the filename) to the playlist file. E.g. C:\playlist.xml |
An example playlist file is included in the music folder in the root of the archive (the zip file).
Create a track entry for each track in the playlist. Each track must have at least a title, a creator and a location. Changes to the playlist happen straight away all you need to do is refresh the page.
Attribute |
Values |
Description |
title |
|
The name of the track. |
creator |
|
The artist. |
location |
|
The full path (including the filename) to the playlist file. You must include /file/ at the beginning of each of the locations. e.g. /file/C:\playlist.xml |
Favorites
These entries are used to link to favorite URLs on external websites.
e.g. <favorite name="google.com" url="http://www.google.com" />
Favorites can have none or many favorite entries.
Attribute |
Values |
Description |
name |
|
The name of the favorite. |
url |
|
The link to the external website. Must start with http:// |
Starting the server
Double click on the vmc.jar file or the shortcut. A small window will be displayed. Click Start Server to start the server and Stop Server to stop it!
You can pass a parameter to the vmc.jar file if you want to have multiple server.xml files.
e.g. vmc.jar /location/server.xml
Displaying the page on your PS3 and Wii
I will add the instructions for the Wii once I have it confirmed that it works!
Step 1 Make sure the web server is started.
Step 2 Find out the IP Address of the PC where Vilvic Media Center is installed.
To find out the address of your PC press the Start button, then click Run. (again windows instructions)
A small window will appear, type cmd into the box in this window then hit enter. This will open a command prompt window, type ipconfig /all into this then enter. A whole load of information should be returned at this point the line you are interested in will look something like the following (although the numbers might be slightly different);
NOTE: if you have more than one network card (for example a wireless card and a normal wired network socket you may have multiple IP addresses pick the one which seems most likely or resort to trial and error).
IP Address........... ; 192.168.1.1
Step 3 Start the Playstation 3 and then go to the web browser (it's about time Sony prevented games from auto starting just like you can on the PSP). Press the start button and enter the address of the web server.
http://<IP Address>:<Port Number>/
e.g. http://192:168.1.1:8000/
The first part is you IP Address of the server, the second part is the port number. If you have changed the port number in the server configuration then you will have to change this number to match that one.
Voila! Vilvic Media Center will now be displayed!