Installing Playstation Media Server (PMS) on a Synology NAS (411j)

So I’ve recently acquired a Synology DS411j, which I hoped would have flawless built-in DLNA compatibility with my PS3. I should’ve known it was too much to ask for proper transcoding.

There’ve been plenty of discussion regarding how to get the PS3 media server, something I’ve been using on my Windows PC, installed on a Synology NAS. The most complete guide I’ve found is here on Mark in the Dark. I followed it, but I had to do a few things differently and additionally to get it to work proper.

In the end, transcoding was horrifyingly slow on the 411j’s processor. I could barely get the first frames off a 720p movie. But for those who have more powerful units and would like to try anyway, here are the modifications to the original guide. Props to Mark and synops for the original guide. My DSM version is 4.0-2197.

1. Install nano via ipkg. It’s much easier than vi for the purpose of editing files.

   ipkg install nano

2. Follow the guide all the way till after updating ‘/etc/profile’. At this point in time, the java version is 1.6.0_30, so adapt accordingly.
3. Install git via ipkg.

   ipkg install git

4. Now we install mplayer.

   mkdir /opt/local/mplayer
   cd /opt/local/mplayer
   svn checkout svn://svn.mplayerhq.hu/mplayer/trunk mplayer
   ./configure
   make
   make install
   

   During one of the steps above, it’ll ask you to include ffmpeg from git. I just did it just to continue.

5. Continue following the guide till after the libpthread section.
6. Now we install libzen, libmediainfo, and the mediainfo CLI, in that order. Instead of copying the lib files, I created symbolic links. I didn’t have to do copy/link the libmediainfo files.

   cd /volume1/@tmp/
   tar zxvf MediaInfo_CLI_0.7.51_GNU_FromSource.tar.bz2
   cd /volume1/@tmp/MediaInfo_CLI_GNU_FromSource/ZenLib/Project/GNU/Library
   ./configure –enable-shared=yes
   make
   make install
   ln -s /usr/local/lib/libzen.so.0.0.0 /usr/lib/libzen.so
   cd /volume1/@tmp/MediaInfo_CLI_GNU_FromSource/MediaInfoLib/Project/GNU/Library
   ./configure –enable-shared=yes
   make
   make install
   cd /volume1/@tmp/MediaInfo_CLI_GNU_FromSource/MediaInfo/Project/GNU/CLI
   ./configure -enable-shared=yes
   make
   make install

7. We install libffi, again using symbolic links instead of copying. make install worked for me.

   cd /volume1/@tmp/
   wget ftp://sourceware.org/pub/libffi/libffi-3.0.9.tar.gz
   tar zxvf libffi-3.0.9.tar.gz
   cd libffi-3.0.9/
   ./configure
   make
   make install
   ln -s /usr/local/lib/libffi.so.5.0.10 /usr/lib/libffi.so
   ln -s /usr/local/lib/libffi.so.5.0.10 /usr/lib/libffi.so.5
   ln -s /usr/local/lib/libffi.so.5.0.10 /usr/lib/libffi.so.5.0.10

8. Download and install PMS as per the guide. At this point of time it’s version 1.50.1.
9. Add libjnidispatch to the jar file. gjar needs to be run in the PMS folder to preserve the relative placement of the .so file within the jar file.

   cd /volume1/@tmp/
   wget http://ftp.nl.debian.org/debian/pool/main/libj/libjna-java/libjna-java_3.2.7-4_armel.deb
   ar vx libjna-java_3.2.7-4_armel.deb
   tar -xzf data.tar.gz
   mkdir /opt/local/pms-linux-1.50.1/com
   mkdir /opt/local/pms-linux-1.50.1/com/sun
   mkdir /opt/local/pms-linux-1.50.1/com/sun/jna
   mkdir /opt/local/pms-linux-1.50.1/com/sun/jna/linux-arm
   cd /opt/local/pms-linux-1.50.1
   cp /volume1/@tmp/usr/lib/jni/libjnidispatch.so com/sun/jna/linux-arm/
   gjar uf /opt/local/pms-linux-1.50.1/pms.jar com/sun/jna/linux-arm/libjnidispatch.so
   chown -R admin:users /opt/local/pms-linux-1.50.1/

10. Link a few more library files for mencoder to work.

    ln -s /opt/lib/liba52.so.0.0.0 /usr/lib/liba52.so.0
    ln -s /opt/lib/libbz2.so.1.0.6 /usr/lib/libbz2.so
    ln -s /opt/lib/libbz2.so.1.0.6 /usr/lib/libbz2.so.1
    ln -s /opt/lib/libbz2.so.1.0.6 /usr/lib/libbz2.so.1.0
    ln -s /opt/lib/libfontconfig.so.1.4.4 /usr/lib/libfontconfig.so
    ln -s /opt/lib/libfontconfig.so.1.4.4 /usr/lib/libfontconfig.so.1
    mencoder

    Last line is just to check if mencoder is still looking for anything. Link accordingly.

11. Follow the remaining part of the guide.

That’s it. I hope you’ll have better luck than me. Let me know if you’ve any improvements to the steps that may allow us 1080p transcoding on the NAS. 🙂

Finally, I didn’t bother doing this, but you should be able to have PMS autorun by adding the following lines to the end of ‘/etc/rc.local’:

cd /opt/local/pms-linux-1.50.1
nohup ./PMS.sh &

If you try it let me know if it works. 😛