The PlayStation 4 is not only a video game console from Sony Computer Entertainment, it can also act as a powerful home media center to stream photos, music and videos to HD TV for playing ans sharing. From the services available, to hacks that can enhance your PS4 movie watching experience, including tips on how to improve picture quality or get more content. In this guide, we will show you three steps for play local movies with PS4 via Media Player, Media Server and use the Top PS4 Mac Video Converter.
Tips for PlayStation 4 users: PS4 Column | Blu-rays to Plex | DVD to Plex | iTunes to Xbox via Plex | Plex Problems & Solutions |Best Video Settings for Plex | Yify Videos to Plex |
Part I: Play Local Media Files and Movies on PS4
There are several options to play local media files on your PS4. The Media Player has limited functionality but is very straightforward. For more advanced use cases, better compatibility, and in general if you have a huge movie library, you’ll want to give a try to a Media Server.Play Local Movies on your PS4 with the PS4 Media Player
Sony released the PS4 Media Player, an app that lets you play local video files, and connect to Media Servers. It supports the following file formats:
- MKV
- Visual: H.264/MPEG-4 AVC High Profile Level4.2
- Audio: MP3, AAC LC, AC-3 (Dolby Digital)
- AVI
- Visual: MPEG4 ASP, H.264/MPEG-4 AVC High Profile Level4.2
- Audio: MP3, AAC LC, AC-3 (Dolby Digital)
- MP4
- Visual: H.264/MPEG-4 AVC High Profile Level4.2
- Audio: AAC LC, AC-3 (Dolby Digital)
- MPEG-2 TS
- Visual: H.264/MPEG-4 AVC High Profile Level4.2, MPEG2 Visual
- Audio: MP2 (MPEG2 Audio Layer 2), AAC LC, AC-3 (Dolby Digital)
- AVCHD (.m2ts, .mts)
In addition to movie files, the PS4 Media Player can display photos and play mp3/aac music. It lets you play music in the background while playing video games.
The Media Player on the PS4 has limitations on what types of files can be played, the format of your usb storage device (FAT only, no NTFS support). It is also not great at organizing your files (unlike a tool such as Kodi or Plex, for example). More details on the PS4 Media Player.
Part II: Play Local Movies on your PS4 with a PS4 Media Server
The PS4 Media Player’s limitations might prevent you from watching your favorite video files. Although the PS4 is a great media device when it comes to Streaming services, it falls short on the “local file” use case (poor compatibility with local movies files, DLNA support missing,…). But fear not, there is a solution, and that solution is PLEX PS4 Media Server.The idea is that you will be hosting your Movie files on your local computer, and connect your PS4, through its web browser, to your local computer. The computer will encode the content on the fly for you to watch movies on PS4 in the browser. This gives you 100% compatibility for any file format that you can think of, present and future.
Playing videos in the web browser is also much more user friendly than the word might suggest.
Here is a full guide on setting up Plex Media Server (both on your PC and your PS4) to watch your local movie files on your PS4. Check the video below to see the result:
Part III: Stream unsupported Movies (HD Videos, Blu rays & DVD) to PS4 via Mac
In order to successfully play various Videos files on PS4 via Mac, a widely used solution is to convert Any Videos to PS4 recognized formats. Here, we strongly recommend Pavtube PS4 Mac Converter to help you convert Videos to PS4 on Mac to solve “PS4 won’t play AVI” “cannot play mkv on ps4 via mac” issues. Here is the review.
Here, Pavtube iMedia Converter for Mac is a very easy-to-use video to PS4 converting program which comes with flawless video quality and quick conversion speed. It is an all-in-one converting program, and it features outputting 3D (Side-by-Side, Top-Bottom, Anaglyph) in H.265/HEVC/MP4/MKV/AVI/MOV/WMV formats. It even helps to convert PS4 unsupported audio like FLAC, OGG, Apple Lossless ALAC M4A, M4R, CAF, M4B, AIFF, APE, DTS etc to PS4 supported MP3, WAV or WMA as well as other devices supported formats. You can reach the Windows version here:Pavtube Video Converter Ultimate.
At first, you need to free download this Top PS4 Converter for Mac/Win:
Then, just follow the Mac tutorials about converting MP4 videos to PS4 friendly format on Mac Yosemite. Or refer to the Windows guide about stream HD Videos to PS4. After that, you can follow the guide about use PS4 as a Media Streamer without DLNA.
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