Adding Files to your PS3 Using USB Drive

The PlayStation 3 can be connected to your home network via the Ethernet port, and while you’ll definitely want to do this for online play, you may not fancy the hassle of setting up access to your computer. If you want to watch a movie or TV show on your PS3 that you’ve downloaded on to your computer then there is a simple alternative: use a USB flash drive. You could also use an external hard drive, as long as it has a USB cable it will work just as well. You may also want to transfer music and photos onto your PS3 or perhaps even a downloaded save game. They can all be transferred in the same way.

One of the great things about the PS3 is the fact that it supports a wide variety of files. Here’s a complete list of supported file formats on the PS3:

Images

• JPEG
• TIFF
• BMP
• GIF
• PNG

Music

• MP3
• ATRAC (Memory Stick Format)
• MP4
• WAV
• WMA

Video

• MPEG-1
• MPEG-2
• MPEG-4 (H.264)
• AVI
• AVCHD
• WMV
• DivX Codec

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Here is a simple step by step guide for watching or transferring movie files onto your PS3 using a USB flash drive or an external hard drive.

1. First of all you’ll need a USB flash drive or an external hard drive.
2. Plug it into your computer and copy over the movie files that you want to watch on your PS3.
3. Plug the USB drive or external hard drive into one of the USB ports on the PS3.
4. Navigate to Video on the PS3 XMB menu and find your device.
5. Hit triangle to view all contents.
6. Select the file you want and either copy it to the PS3 hard drive or just play it directly from the connected device.

The process for copying music and photo files is exactly the same.