Database Users

[PRJ] Open-source project: PC Movie List

After all these new applications coming up these days, i had a thought of something really important to me as an application and maybe nice for the rest of you who like watching movies from your pc using your big tv.
Well i always love to watch a movie at night after a working day, i have a couple of discs full of them. in order to choose a movie or something, i need to have a mouse near me, or a remote control in order to find a movie away from my pc.
i know there are some applications out there that control media center, but to my taste they suck because media center's video management sucks too.
so i thought of having a new application on our pda, that will allow us to check our movie folders, like the picture i made below.
I would love to develop this on my own, but i have no idea how to create nice flow animations. so if anyone has time and wants to develop something like this i would be grateful
How it should work.....
1) it needs to connect to a server side (since it is a client-server side app), using wifi, maybe bluetooth too
2) i should be able to choose which application will open as default the chosen movie. i like to use Neuview player for my videos, but someone else would like powerdvd or vlc, etc
3) i should be able to choose from which folders i want the application to show movies
4) the pda should definately display the picture of the movie (it will read from the pc the picture from the movie's folder which is called "folder.jpg"
5) from the pda i should change the volume up , volume down, and skip forward or backward.
6) maybe some other features that u might think, like shutting down the pc from the pda too.
here is the picture of how i imagine this (it doesn't need to be a manilla plugin , i just used the people tab, because i like the way it displays things. This is how i imagine the application would look like too.)
hope i see people getting interested on this. GRemote doesn't help because you can't choose a movie from there. and i hate using Media center.
thank u for ur time. and sorry for any text mistakes... i am very tired

This seems legit! And if you made it into a very good today plugin, i could use it with MTP on tf3d2

no idea how to make it as a today plugin i need someone's knownledge on this thing and for the animation. propably .net is not the language for this, and i don't know something else that i can develop this.

I'm working on something similar (though not as a today plugin).
TeDeV said:
How it should work.....
1) it needs to connect to a server side (since it is a client-server side app), using wifi, maybe bluetooth too
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It connects via Wifi
TeDeV said:
2) i should be able to choose which application will open as default the chosen movie. i like to use Neuview player for my videos, but someone else would like powerdvd or vlc, etc
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It doesn't do this Windows Media Center only...
TeDeV said:
3) i should be able to choose from which folders i want the application to show movies
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is categorised and created via metadata stored on the server pc with a local cache on the phone containing virtual directories.
TeDeV said:
4) the pda should definately display the picture of the movie (it will read from the pc the picture from the movie's folder which is called "folder.jpg"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It shows the picture, along with the synopsis of the film.
TeDeV said:
5) from the pda i should change the volume up , volume down, and skip forward or backward.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can do all of the above, along with show current progress of the currently playing media, and move around to various screens within Media Center.
TeDeV said:
6) maybe some other features that u might think, like shutting down the pc from the pda too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can't do this one as yet...
Have a look, it's called TouchRC. I'm currently writing the browsing of the metadata at the moment, so this will be in the next release of the app.
~evorgevol

can u plz mind to inlcude, no mcp video play?
it sucks. seriously. i have a lot of episodes with seasons etc. the stupid media center creates a virtual folder in the movie list for each episode, and it drives me crazy!
i will check your application, but since u tell me that it only works with mcp, it's out.

+1
I'd be willing to donate to the cause if it was omnia(240x400) compatible.

i had a little time yesterday, and i kinda worked a bit with the graphics and so on.
as you can see i have added a "mirror" effect under my movies, but i don't know how i can make a transparent - gradient image in vb. can someone help me with this?
here is a pic of how it looks like

Map networked drive?

Is there anyway to map a networked drive on a local network?
I was hoping I could connect to my home wifi and then stream videos from a shared drive on a PC.
Any way this is possible?

There is a SMB File Sharing app in the market. I never used it but it should work.

have you looked into gmote or aFile?

I was searching for the same thing a while back. What I finally did was download Gmote on my phone and Gmote server for my home computer. I set it up to allow me to connect to a Media folder over the 3G network (I'm with Sprint). I had to forward the port on my router at home and add an exception to my firewall. I also had to get a static IP for my router by using No-IP.
Once all that was done I could open gmote on my phone, pick my media folder on my home computer and start streaming my mp3s. Since it's over the 3G network I can be anywhere! The sound quality is great as well and I like the simple VLC player. My only complaint is that I wish the player would show album art in the background instead of just in the lower corner. I think it will do that over wifi but not 3g.
It takes a little bit of setup but the results are well worth it!

xdarkfluxx said:
There is a SMB File Sharing app in the market. I never used it but it should work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm seeing that it copies file... but is there a way to stream?
I'll test it out when I get home.

watzone69 said:
I was searching for the same thing a while back. What I finally did was download Gmote on my phone and Gmote server for my home computer. I set it up to allow me to connect to a Media folder over the 3G network (I'm with Sprint). I had to forward the port on my router at home and add an exception to my firewall. I also had to get a static IP for my router by using No-IP.
Once all that was done I could open gmote on my phone, pick my media folder on my home computer and start streaming my mp3s. Since it's over the 3G network I can be anywhere! The sound quality is great as well and I like the simple VLC player. My only complaint is that I wish the player would show album art in the background instead of just in the lower corner. I think it will do that over wifi but not 3g.
It takes a little bit of setup but the results are well worth it!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This sounds awesome. Luckily, I have a couple of servers running on the PC already so I just need to configure the software.
Will it work for videos?

If you are just streaming Media, try out ORB. Its cool, download a server app on the home computer, it scans for all your media then login to the website and pick your song that you want to play or video, what ever. Ironically i just posted this on another thread too....

fatkitty420 said:
This sounds awesome. Luckily, I have a couple of servers running on the PC already so I just need to configure the software.
Will it work for videos?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I haven't had much luck but, then again, I only tried one video.

Can't get remote desktop to work... I guess I need to check the settings. I'll go home and set up both servers and test both apps out. Hopefully everything will go smoothly.

[Guide] A little guide to Galaxy S to latop via DLNA

[Guide] A little guide to Galaxy S to latop via DLNA
Updated 08/17/2010
A Little Guide to The Galaxy S DLNA
Note: This is not meant to be a comprehensive guide, but rather a starter's guide to get you on your feet. If you want to add more contents to this thread, feel free to do so. If you want to post this guide somewhere else, also feel free to do so, but do give credit where it is due.
Wikipedia's definition of DLNA: The Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) is a non-profit collaborative trade organization comprised of more than 250 member companies[3] in the mobile, consumer electronics, PC, and service provider industries. Alliance members have stated the common goal of using standards-based technology to make it easier for consumers to use, share and enjoy their digital photos, music and videos.
What this mean is that DLNA allows you to stream videos, pictures and music across multiple platforms without the need to actually transfer the file itself. Streaming between hardwares that comes with the DLNA label is easy. However, if you do not have a wifi capable TV, the next best option would be to stream to a computer screen instead. And here is what you need:
A Galaxy S (or a Captivate for our dear U.S. buddies)
A wifi capable computer - which can be a laptop or a computer connected to a wifi router.
Windows Media player 12 (Windows 7 only) or XBMC.
PC Share Manager is no longer necessary for streaming to Galaxy S. Hurray
Samsung PC Share Manager. Download HERE. Click on Software.
Streaming to computer
Step 1 :
Connect both computer and Galaxy S to the same wifi network router. If you are using a Desktop, plug it into a wireless router, and then connect the Galaxy S to the router. If you are using a laptop, either connect wirelessly to the router or plug it in, and do the same for the Galaxy S. (Windows 7 Only You can also connect the Galaxy S to your laptop directly using Connectify. In practice, this works the best for streaming large videoes. )
Step 2 :
Launch DLNA on your Galaxy S. Wait for it to finish loading. (when the spinning circles stop.)
Step 3 :
Launch Windows Media Player 12. Go to library. You should see Galaxy S under "Other Libraries". Choose whatever you want to stream from your phone, and it should work.
Alternative:
Launch XBMC. Now this is a little more tricky. You will have to add the folders yourself. E.g. Go to video -> add source -> Browse -> UPnP Devices -> Galaxy S. Here you see 3 folders with messed up names. You will have to figure out which is which by trial and error. On my laptop, the first one is picture, the second is video and the 3rd is music. Yours might be different. Once you have added the folders in, you can play them normally.
Streaming to Galaxy S
Step 1:
Unfortunately, neither WMP nor XBMC supports this. Instead, you will have to use Samsung PC Share Manager, which you can download above. Download and install it.
UPDATE:
c2k from AndroidForums and ssj4Gogeta1 from xdaDevelopers found a way to browse media files through WMP 12. Thank you guys.
Open Network and Sharing Center.
Click on "Change Advanced Sharing Settings" in the left pane.
Expand "Home or Work"
Make sure Network Discovery and File Sharing are turned on. I've also turned off password protected sharing, don't know if it makes a difference.
Click on "Media Streaming Options" on that page.
Make sure your phone is connected to your computer via a network. The network type should be set as "home" ("work" should work too), not "public". Streaming only works on home networks.
Select "All networks" from the "Show devices on:" dropdown list.
My phone was listed as "unknown device". Select "Allow" next to it. (You need to turn to DLNA on your Galaxy S first, and it might take a while for your PC to detect the phone. Patience, my young padawan.)
Now open Allshare on your phone. Select "Play file on a server through my phone", select the server (your computer), and you should be able to browse your music library.
If you want to push songs from your phone to WMP, you can open WMP and from the "Stream" menu select "Allow remote control". You can then push songs/videos/pictures from your phone to WMP by selecting the "Play file from my phone on another player" in Allshare.
If you can't set "Media Streaming Options" on your computer, you probably have "Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service" disabled. You need to set it to Automatic start. Open start menu, type in "services.msc", hit enter. Find the service and set it to automatic by double clicking on it.
For some reason I still can't push songs from WMP to my phone using the "play to" option in WMP, even though I have "upload from other devices" set to "always accept" in Allshare settings. Browsing the computer's library in Allshare works fine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Step 2 :
Launch Samsung PC Share Manager. Use the left panel to select the folders you want to share, then press the icon with a “tick” on top of a folder to share the folder. Once you have added all the folders you would like to share, go to share, set device policy. If your Galaxy S is connect t the same network as your laptop, you should be able to see it here. Click Accept.
Step 3 :
Restart PC Share Manager.
Now you should be able to browse the folders on your Galaxy S.
Q & A
Q. Can I choose what to play on my laptop by browsing through my Galaxy S, instead of through WMP or XBMC?
A. No. For some reason this doesn’t work on a laptop/computer. However, there is sort of a work around for XBMC. I will explain this later in a different thread.
Q. Apart from WMP and XBMC, what other programmes can I use?
A. Check this page for details. I haven’t had time to try the rest yet. But do know that XBMC supports its own android remote app natively without the need to install another server app on your computer, and can be run at the same time as DLNA.
Q. Help! Some of the files cannot be played on my computer.
A. No idea. Try using another program.
Q. Help! Some of the files won’t appear on my Galaxy S
A. Files that cannot be played on your Galaxy S (as in if you have the file in the phone) won’t appear.

nice guide, this should be part of the FAQ or stickied

So that's something wrong cuz I can browse and play files from my laptop using galaxy s and I don't need samsung pc share.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk

No need to use PC Share Manager.
Open Network and Sharing Center.
Click on "Change Advanced Sharing Settings" in the left pane.
Expand "Home or Work"
Make sure Network Discovery and File Sharing are turned on. I've also turned off password protected sharing, don't know if it makes a difference.
Click on "Media Streaming Options" on that page.
Make sure your phone is connected to your computer via a network. The network type should be set as "home" ("work" should work too), not "public". Streaming only works on home networks.
Select "All networks" from the "Show devices on:" dropdown list.
My phone was listed as "unknown device". Select "Allow" next to it.
Now open Allshare on your phone. Select "Play file on a server through my phone", select the server (your computer), and you should be able to browse your music library.
If you want to push songs from your phone to WMP, you can open WMP and from the "Stream" menu select "Allow remote control". You can then push songs/videos/pictures from your phone to WMP by selecting the "Play file from my phone on another player" in Allshare.
If you can't set "Media Streaming Options" on your computer, you probably have "Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service" disabled. You need to set it to Automatic start. Open start menu, type in "services.msc", hit enter. Find the service and set it to automatic by double clicking on it.
For some reason I still can't push songs from WMP to my phone using the "play to" option in WMP, even though I have "upload from other devices" set to "always accept" in Allshare settings. Browsing the computer's library in Allshare works fine.

Wow thanks. Would never have figured that out on my own. That's pretty amazing.
Too bad that WMP doesn't support all video types. One of the main reason why I wanted to use DLNA is to stream youtube files I downloaded on my phone to a larger screen. So for now I am still sticking to XBMC, which by the way has an amazing remote app.
I will add your instructions to the guide later (together with your name of course).

@ssj4Gogeta1
This is amazing!
Works beautifully over wifi connection.
Thank you!

But it does...!
I know this is too late and you might have already found a solution, but you can use shark 007 windows 7 codec pack to enable WMP to play almost all media types. Give it a go! It's free and works flawlessly for me! I know this sounds like an advert but I'm pretty impressed. I even uninstalled VLC after installing this pacl. It's THAT good!
http://shark007.net/win7codecs.html
snapper.fishes said:
Wow thanks. Would never have figured that out on my own. That's pretty amazing.
Too bad that WMP doesn't support all video types. One of the main reason why I wanted to use DLNA is to stream youtube files I downloaded on my phone to a larger screen. So for now I am still sticking to XBMC, which by the way has an amazing remote app.
I will add your instructions to the guide later (together with your name of course).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Subsonic on EVO 4G

Just thought I'd make a quick post as I haven't seen much dicussion on Subsonic. I have Subsonic installed on my server with about 100+ Gigs of music.
I installed Subsonic for android on my 4G today and connected it to my server. Setup was easy. Works great. 100Gigs of music in my pocket anywhere I get a cell connection! Connect to the aux in the car for 34 days of commercial free music.
What's not to like!!

I'm surprised more people aren't talking about this. Subsonic is simply amazing.
Install software on your desktop PC to set up web access to your music. You get a very nice web interface. And an Android app.
www.subsonic.org

I'm also using Subsonic and really enjoy it. I had a little trouble initially with the server side setup, but once I figured it out and got a connection to my EVO, it's worked great for the most part. I do have an occasional pause in the playback, but I think that's more related to signal strength than anything else, because it always starts back up where it paused.

We also had Subsonic set up to stream movies a while back. A soon as I get some time I'm gonna try and see if I can use it to stream video to the EVO.

GaryJ51 said:
Just thought I'd make a quick post as I haven't seen much dicussion on Subsonic. I have Subsonic installed on my server with about 100+ Gigs of music.
I installed Subsonic for android on my 4G today and connected it to my server. Setup was easy. Works great. 100Gigs of music in my pocket anywhere I get a cell connection! Connect to the aux in the car for 34 days of commercial free music.
What's not to like!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey, thanks for this. I never heard of this... works perfectly!!! Much appreciated!

First time hearing of this. I am downloading now.
/edit
I downloaded it..but i don't get how to set it up? I have the desktop client downloaded..
sent from your stolen evo

Thank you this is what i have been looking for ever since I got my EVO.

I was a frustrated HP Media Smart Home Server user who finally gave up on the HP crapware, and went the DIY WHS route. That's what led me to Subsonic as a substitute for the HP software.
A way better choice. This program actually works without tying up the server doing indexes and hogging CPU cycles like the HP Twonky Media software did.
Access to your entire music library, and it doesn't even store anything on the SD card!
My next project will be to get it working with MP4's so I cantake movies with us on the road.

I'm setting up a server just to use this. How is the UI on the app? Is it usable as a primary music app?

It is really just designed for streaming from your server. There may be a way to use it as a music app but I haven't looked into that yet.

I just checked, you just select Offline for the server. Works fine.

GaryJ51 said:
It is really just designed for streaming from your server. There may be a way to use it as a music app but I haven't looked into that yet.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wait, so how does that work...I'm going to check their website to see if I can reformulate this post with an actual question lol.
EDIT: OK, I think I phrased the initial question wrong. Would the experience of picking a song be similar to using any other music app as if music was stored locally? I'm not going to have anything on the phone, everything will be streamed.
EDIT2: Ignore what I said up there, here are some screen shots and video of the UI: http://www.subsonic.org/pages/screenshots.jsp
Does the app work in landscape mode?

Ok guys, you can download the Subsonic app from the Market and connect to their "test" server to see how the app works.
It works in the landscape mode. Has no widget, unfortunately. But song/file browsing, and playback is VERY functional.
If you need help installing this on the desktop side, read this: http://www.subsonic.org/pages/installation.jsp
You should note that while the desktop app is 100% free, the use of mobile apps is limited to 30 days at which point you have to "donate". The donation can be any amount, and you will be provided with the unlock key which you use inside the web interface of your server.

Well I installed the desktop client but can't seem to open the webpage no matter what.

Comrade P said:
Well I installed the desktop client but can't seem to open the webpage no matter what.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you trying to open it from the desktop or the phone?

Am I the only one using subsonic for video too? The music/app are great, but having streaming flash access to my video library anywhere is the best. Has to be done through the browser for now though.
Instructions here:
http://www.hackourlives.com/cross-platform-music-and-video-streaming-with-subsonic/
I'm trying to work out a way to encode/stream my live TV signal through my tuner card kinda like a slingbox. I'll post if I have some success, but I don't have much time to work on it these days.

Thanks for the link!
We had video streaming set up to our laptops, but hadn't tried setting it up on the cell phones yet.
I turn over all the details to my 15 yr old who is much faster than I am at doing all the setup. We'll get started once he gets a break at school.
We did have it set up to open whatever Media Player we wanted to use. If my son remembers what he did I'll try to get him to post the instructions.

Should be no need to play it in an external player on the evo - just switch to landscape and it will go to full screen. If you really want play it in an external player, FLV player (from the market) might work. Or if you want to download the video before playing (so you don't get any skipping while you're on 3G), you can download the file from either the app or the web interface, and play it with FLV Player.
Subsonic wants you to make a donation of 10 Euros to continue using the subdomain they have you sign up for during setup. But if you like rolling your own, sign up for a free subdomain an use a DNS updater (built in to some routers or available for any platform) to make sure the reference to your IP stays up-to-date.
For DNS updaters and more free subdomains than you can shake an iPhone at:
http://freedns.afraid.org/

this is great ! thanks for suggesting it. I was looking for something similar, tired of having to carry around the ipod just to hook up in the car. I'm going to test it out for a few days, but I think I'm going to donate for sure!

hungry ghandi said:
Subsonic wants you to make a donation of 10 Euros to continue using the subdomain they have you sign up for during setup.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wrong. The denominations under donation menu are merely suggestions. You are welcome to donate ANY amount you CAN ($2 worked for me) to get your license. Just manually send a payment through PayPal to his email (you can get the email from the forums somewhere, do a search for donation).

Kid friendly movieplayer

Hi,
On longer trips I want to use my Xoom as a movieplayer in the car for the kids. I'm looking for a kidfriendly-way to display the movies (large icons or something like that) so they can easily navigate and start a movie. My oldest is 6 years.
Any suggestions ?
Thanks in advance !

Moboplayer
I'm a big fan of mobo player. You can set it to check certain directories as default and it displays thumbnails to choose from. My just turned four year old can navigate it no problem. The other cool thing is that while a movie is playing you can hit the menu button and it will lock the screen until you hit menu again.
Best of all its free. Load up the app in the market and the first time you start it it will prompt you to download device specific files.
One more thing - if for some reason the hardware decoding isn't playing a file just hold down the file and it will give you a prompt to play it with software decoding. If it becomes a constant problem you can set software decoding as the default.

I use MovieBrowser HD as the front end, and Mobo player with its codecs (that it will download when you first launch it) to play the movies back. I have a 32gig uSD card loaded up with movies convered via DVD Catalyst 4.
My 3 year old can turn on my Xoom, unlock it, connect my Logitech BT stereo head set, find MovieBrowser HD app (no matter if I have an icon on the home screen, or he has to go to the app drawer), and launch whatever movie he's in the mood for. He even goes up to my room to grab it when he wants to watch a movie.
When I hang it over a "seat back protector/organizer" in the car it becomes my "rear seat entertainment center" for him. Glad I didn't spend the money on the rear seat DVD system option in my car (would have been an added $3000). He just reaches out and does what he needs to, and he's happy.
Unfortunately, I rarely get to use my Xoom now

I found it easier to use the stock video player. Spent $30 on any DVD converter for android it converts the files and optimizes for Xoom. Then I did not need to worry about codecs and why it won't play an MKV file today. Also found it kid friendly with big pictures from the beginning of the movie so most of the time they can identify what it is without having to read the title.

Mizuu?
/10 char

MX Player !!!
Just yesterday I installed the newest MX Player again to see what kind of feature set it has. And I don't even know how new it is but it actually has two separate "Kid Lock" modes.
So, in the Settings->Player->Touch Controls->Lock Mode
There are two options:
1) Kids Lock - locks out the screen and buttons (except for power and volume at least on my Galaxy Nexus)
2) Kids Lock (+ Touch Effects) - Same as kids lock, except it adds ToddlerLock style screen effects.
I hope this helps!

piotrusc said:
Hi,
On longer trips I want to use my Xoom as a movieplayer in the car for the kids. I'm looking for a kidfriendly-way to display the movies (large icons or something like that) so they can easily navigate and start a movie. My oldest is 6 years.
Any suggestions ?
Thanks in advance !
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. Go to the screen where you want to place the movie shortcut.
2. Find your ES File Explorer App. And open it.
3. Find your folder that has your digital movies and open it.
4. Find the movie you want to create a shortcut with and long press it.
5. Next you will see different options, chose the one that says “Shortcut” it will automatically place it on the screen.
6. Now back all the way out of ES File Explorer until you get to the desktop.
7. Long press the shortcut you just made, and choose edit.
8. You will see a box pop up along with the keyboard. Type the name you want to call it or just delete the file extension example (mp4, etc)
9. Next tap the big icon to change it and choose select picture, then Gallery, then you should see the movie Icon you have downloaded select it then hit OK.
To find the movie icons just do a Google search for the movie (Example: Fast and the Furious 2 icons)
http://www.fanpop.com/spots/the-fast-and-the-furious-movies/images
I always use Fanpop.com and once you get on the movie page there is usually a movie banner at the top of the page and to the left of the banner there is a picture of the movie. Just long press and chose view image, it will open up to a small picture in the upper left hand corner. Long press and choose “Save Image”. It should place it your gallery folder. You should probably do this first before you create shortcuts for your movies.