Streaming video over home network

UnitedWeFall · May 23, 2010

Hey guys,

i've done a bit of searching but haven't really turned up much..

Basically I just want to know if there's any apps available that will allow me to watch video files on my Desire over my home WiFi network.

Thanks in advance for any info.

Cheers.

AT_01 · May 26, 2010

Hi United,

If your home network is UPnP/DLNA, you need at least a UPnP client on your hand held. I have really not done much research so I am not aware if there are any free/open source clients. There seems to be atleast one called TwonkyMediaServer. Review: TwonkyMedia Server Mobile | Google Android Blog . If I find anything more on this I will let you know.

AT_01

AcumenProbitas · May 28, 2010

I think Twonky lets you play media from your phone on another device, but not the other way around. I also want my phone to be the client, not the server.

munkytown · May 28, 2010

AcumenProbitas said:
I think Twonky lets you play media from your phone on another device, but not the other way around. I also want my phone to be the client, not the server.

Actually, a bit further down in the article it says that you can play to and from your mobile device. I may give this a try in the near future. I've been trying Orb but it seems to still be very buggy.

jasperwill · May 30, 2010

munkytown said:
Actually, a bit further down in the article it says that you can play to and from your mobile device. I may give this a try in the near future. I've been trying Orb but it seems to still be very buggy.

what does Orb do exactly???

also yes this program allows you to do both directions but only if you buy the computer app for 40$

what i didnt see mentioned was if this is being done over 3G or wifi.
if its over 3g then maybe the 40$ would be worth it. but if it only works over wifi then i can find and implement other options for the few times i cant use my tv to watch videos from my computer HDD.

munkytown · May 31, 2010

jasperwill said:
what does Orb do exactly???

also yes this program allows you to do both directions but only if you buy the computer app for 40$

what i didnt see mentioned was if this is being done over 3G or wifi.
if its over 3g then maybe the 40$ would be worth it. but if it only works over wifi then i can find and implement other options for the few times i cant use my tv to watch videos from my computer HDD.

I didn't know about the $40. Bummer! Even if it does work over 3G, that's a hefty price for a streaming app/program in my opinion. Orb (when/if it works) allows you to add folders of your media that are on your computer to the Orb program which you download for free and then access from Orb on your phone also for free. Works over 3G and WiFi. But like I said, that is when and if you can get it to work correctly. It has huge potential and its like all the pieces are there for it to be a great program but I don't know, its like they have gotten lazy or all but given up on getting it to work just right for Android. There are free and paid apps on the market for it too. Different ones do different things but I couldn't tell you specifically right off the top of my head. Look them up and see what you think and maybe give it a try. You may have better luck with it than some. I will say this, when it has worked, I was very pleased with the playback quality even on 3G.

jasperwill · May 31, 2010

Installing orb now. Will test it out and report back what i find.

munkytown · May 31, 2010

jasperwill said:
Installing orb now. Will test it out and report back what i find.

Good luck. I'll post a couple tips later on if you're interested that I learned from another forum on how to supposedly get it to work better. Even that is hit or miss though lately.

jasperwill · May 31, 2010

Was using it today.
Good:
Was able to connect and play video analysis music.
Found a free orb app by a 3rd party
Bad:
Sometimes lists didnt load correctly at all.
Apps on the market cost 10$ each?
Ugly:
Sound and video became out of sync quickly.
No organizational scheme means my 16000 songs are a single list. (probably the free apps fault.)

Half of my negative comments are the free apps problem but the out of sync audio that I'm blaming on the desktop application is a huge issue and I don't think I would pay for just using it to stream music. I can probably setup a better solution with some more research and time. I hope the free app gets better. I will keep it installed just to wait for updates and maybe email the developer.

munkytown · Jun 5, 2010

Here is an update for you. I've been playing around with settings some more and seem to have gotten it to work. You do not need any Orb apps on your phone for this to work and give you access to all of your files for free but you do still need the free one on your PC. Give this a try:
First off, I'm using a Samsung Moment so results may vary depending on your phone. When you go to www.mycast.orb.com use the stock browser instead of Skyfire. This brings up a different looking Orb site once you log in which, in my opinion, is easier to navigate. Once you log in, go to settings and then stream and select 3gp-AAC/RTSP format (.3gp) then save and exit Whenever you make a selection it should ask you which browser you want to use. I always select the stock browser until I get to the actual video I want to play. When you select your video if it asks you to choose a browser again, it shouldn't matter which one you choose at this point. I've tried the stock and Skyfire and they both play the videos.
Using Wi-Fi the videos play very nicely on my phone. 3G quality should be pretty decent if you have actual 3G. I have 2G or whatever it is and videos are choppy but I have gotten them to play before on it. Good luck and let me know if you try this and if it works OK for you.

munkytown · Jun 5, 2010

Also, I can access my webcam from my phone too which is pretty cool and if you have a TV tuner card in your PC you should be able to watch TV too. Not sure how that part works since I don't have a tuner in mine.

jasperwill · Jun 5, 2010

I tried using the site o. My pbone and had issues. Maybe i need to switch to mobile view for it. I always use desktop as the browser type. That maybe why u are having better luck with the default browser. The default browser has a default of mobile mode where I think skyfire is defaulted to desktop mode. Skyfire has a button to change that setting easier than the default browser does though.

lolbug · Aug 27, 2010

As of right now, August 27, 2010, the only app that can play from a media server on android is uMediaPlayer and based on the reviews, it does not work most of the time. Why there are no clients but umpteen million servers, I do not know.

As an alternative, you can use TVersity and then use the flash interface they made through your phone browser (Froyo+ only, requires flash support). This is much easier to do if you have a trackball phone, as using the flash interface with a touch screen is difficult at best. You can also try Orb, but for video it does a poor job compared to TVersity through browser.

universaljoint · Aug 30, 2010

This proved to be a pretty tricky problem to solve, but I did manage to get native XVID/DIVX files to play over wifi from my NAS, and here's how I did it:

I first tried using Astro's SMB functions to load videos with Rockplayer. This didn't work for me. The videos seemed to open with a different program, and there didn't seem to be any way to make Rockplayer the default.

The solution that worked ended up being much more technical, though it was a bit easier because I had already rooted my phone.

What I ended up using was a custom Froyo ROM with both CIFS support and a CIFS manager baked in. (My phone is an HTC Desire, and I used Leedroid mod 1.9a)

The CIFS manager (an app that appears after installing the custom rom) enabled me to mount the network share in an empty folder on my SD card (/mnt/sdcard/videos). After doing this, I could launch RockPlayer, which was able to see the files on my network share as if they were stored on the sd card.

I suspect this technique would probably work with other players, too.

mrhawks · Dec 18, 2011

You need es file explorer
And maybe rock player installed from market

1 share files on pc/nas
2 open file explorer
3 click on local in top left
4 ad a server from menu
5 enter ip address of pc or nas and any other details you may need
6 this should give you a list of shared files
7 select you vids/music and open
You can also copy and paste files between both locations

elbaroark · Dec 30, 2011

Download and install VLC Media Player to your computer and then download and install both apps: VLC and VLC Direct Pro, which can be found on the Android Marketplace. I use this on a daily basis to stream my videos and my music from my computer to my phone and Vice-versa and it works wonderfully on my home network

tropic_slice · Jan 1, 2012

Just my 2 Cents. I have a Synology NAS on my home network and i use BS Player to stream video over wifi to my Galaxy Tab. BS Player has a 'LAN Mode' function and once i add my NAS IP address i can stream my videos. I have yet to test all my video files as there are alot but i have been able to watch everything so far.

Loey Lee · Jan 12, 2012

Wow, Nice thread! This info should come in handy later on. Kudos.

jikhead · Jan 12, 2012

You can also use Motocast/Zumocast that is supposed to be only on *wink* Motorola phones. If you can't find the apk file to install on your phone, let me know.

*harbinger* · Jan 14, 2012

after trying some of the stuff i found in this thread and some other threads, i have settled into using bubbleupnp & moboplayer. the server side is running xbmc with the webserver enabled and so far its working great.

The one thing thats bugging me is that bubbleupnp just randomly lists whats in my folders on the media server rather than putting it in any sort of order at all.... wish i could figure out how to get it to at least go alpabetically...

appreviews · Jan 17, 2012

I'm currently trying out Skifta and it seems to work pretty well interface is nice and clean to, and it can play to any dlna device, it can also read from any smb network share, so it will work with just about any NAS or network share.

jikhead · Jan 17, 2012

appreviews said:
I'm currently trying out Skifta and it seems to work pretty well interface is nice and clean to, and it can play to any dlna device, it can also read from any smb network share, so it will work with just about any NAS or network share.

I tried it two, for a few months before switching to Zumocast. I had a lot of issues with Skifta; only streaming my music. It's ability to locate files/folders seemed mostly broken; as it mostly gave me messages that it couldn't locate any media. It would never locate or stream pics or videos. Zumocast is much more reliable than Skifta, in my opinion.

junklist · Feb 17, 2012

I use Air Playit. It works for me.

Nova5 · Feb 17, 2012

*harbinger* said:
after trying some of the stuff i found in this thread and some other threads, i have settled into using bubbleupnp & moboplayer. the server side is running xbmc with the webserver enabled and so far its working great.

The one thing thats bugging me is that bubbleupnp just randomly lists whats in my folders on the media server rather than putting it in any sort of order at all.... wish i could figure out how to get it to at least go alpabetically...

You need to get a server software package that will do that. I use MediaMonkey, it organizes both my music and video in a controllable structure (gotta have clean tags!) MM then can be told to host a DLNA server which makes the media collection available to DLNA/UPNP devices in a nice organized manner. You can also use MM to play the files locally on the PC running the software. If you set up the software right you can install MM on mutiple PCs and access the same collection through a single shared database.

aeroskippy · Feb 22, 2012

I've been round and round with this issue (Win7 + Acer A501), tried all sorts of streaming solutions without much success. However, here is a solution that works simply, seamlessly, and is a breeze to set up.

- MX Video Player with the right codec pack for your processor
- ES File Explorer (which is an all round must have anyway)

On your computer enable sharing of whatever you want. Add your computer to ES's LAN list. Browse. Play. Set MX as the default player.

Brilliantly simple, and it just works.

Cheers.

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