Database Users

[Q] Best way to watch videos from a windows share?

I have a network share on my win7 machine that has videos in divx and xvid.
What is the best way for me to access those files from my tf101 so I can watch them directly from the pc without copying it onto tf101 first?
Also, what media player could play them?
Thanks

I was just messing around but I watched vids from my TF that were located on my laptop via the "my cloud" app on the TF....it's the sub app called "splashtop" and it worked just fine....

upnplay app with moboplayer. Set up media streaming in windows7's media player. There should be instructions if you Google it.

Ive used plex and it seemed to play most of my videos fine.

transceiver said:
upnplay app with moboplayer. Set up media streaming in windows7's media player. There should be instructions if you Google it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is the combo I use and it works a charm, however plex,splashtop etc will work also. Try them all because its down to preference...
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using XDA Premium App

here's another discussion on the topic. B-)
forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1093861

Very few videos will play correctly due to honeycomb issues, but cifs works well. I suppose you could set up real time transcoding if you had a comp with enough power. Includinb dgnvdec somewhere in the decoding chain would work well for those with nvidia cards - as that would perform all resizing/decoding/deinterlacing via gpu, freeing up cpu to handle the smaller encode. I'm pretty sure the default movie player can handle many different transports.

File Manager HD can be networked with your home network and then I stream and play with Moboplayer. Works pretty good.

Plex will play videos that won't stream, like FLV files.
Splashtop will play netflix but with crappy quality.
UPNPlay has the best quality since it plays the original file but only the standard formats like avi and MPG.

I ran them directly using es viewer
Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk

ThaiM said:
File Manager HD can be networked with your home network and then I stream and play with Moboplayer. Works pretty good.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
seems like it has to load the whole video before u can "stream" it??? takes a long time to serve up a 2gb file

Has anyone found a good way to play ogm files?

jerrykur said:
I ran them directly using es viewer
Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
how ??
tried that and it says no player (i have moboplayer etc installed). if i then choose 'open as' and video is starts copying the whole file across ??

File Manager HD downloads the whole file, it doesn't support streaming AFAIK.
I use GMote and Moboplayer (for vids). Audio can be played directly in GMote. Works great.

Whats the best way to steam? Both ES and FileHD makes me download to cache which defeats the purpose of networking. If I use N speed would the download be faster?

transceiver said:
Plex will play videos that won't stream, like FLV files.
Splashtop will play netflix but with crappy quality.
UPNPlay has the best quality since it plays the original file but only the standard formats like avi and MPG.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Plex will actually only transcode if it needs to, if it doesn't it'll simply stream the original media AFAIK. I use it and love it. It's probably one of the easiest ways to get this set up, especially if you want remote access from outside of your intranet.

For .mpeg/avi streaming:
File Expert -> Dolphin Browser HD -> VPlayer
Can use MoboPlayer or RockPlayer instead of VPlayer, but seeking with VPlayer is better imho. Other file types may work...

mounted my network share in CIFS and play natively with mobo.... for the files that aren't supported by hardware playback, you can long press the file in mobo and use software decoding.

what is CIFS?

eb50 said:
what is CIFS?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://linux-cifs.samba.org/

[Q] xoom videoplayback via smb

Im new to xoom guys. I used to play video files with opening them in astro file manager with smb. Seems smb is not working in astro, tried also on desire hd, but on my hd2 with core droid works fine. The other file managers are preferching the files to my tablet, so takes a long time to watch even a few hundred megs movie... how could i mount my network shares onto my xoom?
Another issue is with mkvs, no sound, onli the movie, moboplayer, factory video player either... any ideas for the above issues? Tks in advance guys.

Drop SMB and go with splashtop HD. Well worth the five dollars. Your desktop does the processing and streams the video and sound to the xoom.

LITHALE said:
Drop SMB and go with splashtop HD. Well worth the five dollars. Your desktop does the processing and streams the video and sound to the xoom.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unf, i can only have SMB, no other options.......
Tks.

Ok, in th meantime i found the best video player, named dice player. 3 bucks, but this worths. No need to convert your hd movies anymore. Matroska + ac3 is working very well. Just tap on any mkv file and will pla it smooth. The video encoding is done by the hw and sound by pure cpu, but with dual core it's working fantastic.
Still no info on any smb program which wud work without prefetching... any ideas?

AndrewBoy said:
Ok, in th meantime i found the best video player, named dice player. 3 bucks, but this worths. No need to convert your hd movies anymore. Matroska + ac3 is working very well. Just tap on any mkv file and will pla it smooth. The video encoding is done by the hw and sound by pure cpu, but with dual core it's working fantastic.
Still no info on any smb program which wud work without prefetching... any ideas?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you paid for something which moboplayer/Mv player does for free...

Kippui said:
you paid for something which moboplayer/Mv player does for free...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think he said that he couldn't get mobo to play MKV's over the network without either copying the whole file to the Xoom first, or not getting audio.
You can use cifsmanager to mount network shares. Also, Astro has a module to read SMB shares. It's a separate download in the market.

Cifs is the way to go. It'll treat the shares as local folders and open the files accordingly without buffering.
Do a search around here for the cifs.ko and instructions on how to use it.
Also, I'm going to check out Dice player to see if it'll play high profile mkv.

I tested Dice Player last night with some HP 720 mkvs. Some minor hiccups on a few files but it played great. I play all my media off of twonky server on a linux machine.
I'm definitely thinking of buying the full version. I wanted CorePlayer to come out, but seems like that isn't going to happen. Wasn't impressed with moboplayer or rockplayer, and mx player didn't even register to open mkv's for me.

Baka no Kami said:
I think he said that he couldn't get mobo to play MKV's over the network without either copying the whole file to the Xoom first, or not getting audio.
You can use cifsmanager to mount network shares. Also, Astro has a module to read SMB shares. It's a separate download in the market.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Astro smb is working only on froyo, not on gingerbread or honeycomb.

Kippui said:
you paid for something which moboplayer/Mv player does for free...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mobo and others cannot handle ac3.... so now i dont have to convert my regular shows into mp4..

I checked these cif managers. I dont want to root my device..... i dont want to wipe my data and restore everything

AndrewBoy said:
I checked these cif managers. I dont want to root my device..... i dont want to wipe my data and restore everything
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well... I think you're out of luck then unfortunately. If you NEED this to be SMB and can't use a media server like Twonky or a streaming option like Splashtop then you'll need to root I think.

ES File Explorer recently added SMB streaming capability. Works fine on my Xoom, I can browse to a WHS network share via ES, and when I tap a video file, it asks me which video program I want to play it back through... Works great for AVI's for me, but I was having trouble getting MKV's to work right. I'll have to try this Dice player.

Tried es file explorer both on my xoom and sensation. On the phone es file exp offers the possibility to choose player or set one as default. On my xoom the factory player starts but nothing happens since cannot handle mkvs. I cannot chose dice, not even with open as video or other stuff. How can i delete default video player from my xoom? I cannot even find any factory playback **** in application manage(((

Maybe clear data for ES on the xoom or failing that uninstall and reinstall?
Sent from my Xoom using XDA Premium App

uninstalled astro, now working fine finally can watch mkvs from my server tks guys!

[TIP] Streaming video solutions for your home network

I have a gigantic media server, over 10TB, mostly video (my music collection, while huge, just doesn't take much space comparatively).
While there are a variety of approaches/solutions to distributing this media around the home via a network, I've found that the easiest means for me is to simply mount server share(s) on playback devices when possible, rather than using solutions like TVersity and ORB.
Windows shares (a.k.a. CIFS) are simple to set up, provide full-resolution / quality playback of the material, and for whatever reasons (there are many), is more broadly compatible as a means of streaming. I've run into too many files that AllShare balks at, yet will play just fine when the file is streamed directly.
So what's the point of this thread?
Two-fold. 1) stimulate discussion on technology and methods used for streaming video on a LAN to get the best results, and 2) share my own solutions.
Here's what I've found:
CifsManager is Da Bomb. It does a great job of adding a system-wide Windows Share mounting and access capability to an Android device. Once a share is mounted on your phone, it looks just like any other mounted filesystem to any app, so files can be access on the shares as if they were local.
x264 encoded video plays very nicely on the stock video player. It's obvious that it has been optimized to take maximum advantage of hardware acceleration. I use the stock player to play HD content from a share over my network, which almost always means something in a mkv or mp4 container.
HOWEVER: The stock player can't play AAC encoded audio. This is a problem for mp4 -- these days, many people encoding for mp4 use AAC, so I find I have to demux, transcode audio (usually to mp3), and then remux. This is a PITA, but I haven't found any other solution... None of the third-party alternatives I've tried (most of them) can play x264 HD content and keep up. None.
To make things worse, for some reason hardware acceleration doesn't seem to have been implement for the Divx/Xvid (h263) default codec, so xvid video (usually SD format in avi containers) plays haltingly, and locks up frequently when streaming over CIFS. Oddly, copying a file over to local storage makes this problem go away with the stock player. My theory is that the network processing load combined with the CPU effort necessary to decode h263 without hardware assist just overwhelms the processor. Regardless, the stock player is not an acceptable solution here.
After trying many different players, the one that works best for "avi" files (almost always xvid encoded) is arcMedia (market, free). Close to flawless playback of this type of media streamed via CIFS. Unfortunately, arcMedia is completely useless for h264 (mkv, mp4 containers).
Streaming the direct source media, rather than going through a streaming server that will transcode, gives you the best possible quality and experience. While the above may sound complicated and involved, it really isn't -- in fact, it's the simplest:
Share your media library files in the usual way using the "Sharing and Security..." context-menu item on your windows media server.
Install CifsManager from the market.
Install arcMedia player from the market.
Mount your media shares on your phone with CifsManager.
Using your favorite File Manager, browse your media shares the same way you would your local SD card filesystem. To play an HD media file encoded with h264, click on it and play it in the stock player the same way you would if it was on your SD card.
For h263 encoded media (divx/xvid, virtually always avi container), run arcMedia and use its built-in file browser to navigate to the media file, then play it.
There are many, many advantages of convenience and ease-of-use in this approach over streaming with servers like TVersity, ORB, etc. On a LAN, where bandwidth isn't an issue, this approach works really well!

By the stock Video Player, did you mean on Android? Or Windows?
If Android:
Vital Player
If Windows:
Media Player Classic.

always looking for good info, and this is good stuff. Going to try it out when i get home and see if i have better luck than i've been having getting xvid and mkv's to stream from my network shares...

If you use GB rom, try diceplayer.
diceplayer can play 720p MKV+DTS with full HW acceleration.

I wish we had a thread like this for over the net streaming. If I'm at home I just use upnplay with rockplayer from my mediatomb box which is set to transcode anything ps3 can't play natively.. Haven't had any problems yet.
Cd's or tapes?

I use this:
http://www.serverelements.com/?target=NASLite-M2_x64
I have a dual core tower with 2 250 gig drives but want to add 5 1 tb drives with 8 gig of ram. This OS runs off a 8 gig jump drive with NO issues. I use UPNP to my Xbox and laptops. I haven't tried on my phone yet but I don't see why this wouldn't work.

schnowdapowda said:
I wish we had a thread like this for over the net streaming. If I'm at home I just use upnplay with rockplayer from my mediatomb box which is set to transcode anything ps3 can't play natively.. Haven't had any problems yet.
Cd's or tapes?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Check or something called Plex its great, I used orb for years and was never happy with playback...Plex is amazing and the android app is awesome.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk

see, my whole thing is I don't want to run some extra server software just to have this work. I've got a networked media box (Patriot Box Office) and it plays everything over my network flawlessly from my NFS and SMB shares, and I want to be able to do the same thing from my Epic and Tab (mostly Tab with the bigger screen.) Working on some dev stuff with my Tab so it's not fully setup, but once i've got it back to normal I'm going to test Cifsmanager and see if it's the missing link to the issues I've had with getting mkv's to stream.

pvtjoker42 said:
see, my whole thing is I don't want to run some extra server software just to have this work. I've got a networked media box (Patriot Box Office) and it plays everything over my network flawlessly from my NFS and SMB shares, and I want to be able to do the same thing from my Epic and Tab (mostly Tab with the bigger screen.) Working on some dev stuff with my Tab so it's not fully setup, but once i've got it back to normal I'm going to test Cifsmanager and see if it's the missing link to the issues I've had with getting mkv's to stream.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cifs works with samba. Don't know if you knew that or not.
Cd's or tapes?

pvtjoker42 said:
see, my whole thing is I don't want to run some extra server software just to have this work. I've got a networked media box (Patriot Box Office) and it plays everything over my network flawlessly from my NFS and SMB shares, and I want to be able to do the same thing from my Epic and Tab (mostly Tab with the bigger screen.) Working on some dev stuff with my Tab so it's not fully setup, but once i've got it back to normal I'm going to test Cifsmanager and see if it's the missing link to the issues I've had with getting mkv's to stream.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
schnowdapowda said:
Cifs works with samba. Don't know if you knew that or not.
Cd's or tapes?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, and with ordinary Windows shares.
CifsManager is one of the best pieces of software I've put on my Epic. And I have A LOT of stuff...

Shinydude100 said:
By the stock Video Player, did you mean on Android?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Android, Samsung player that comes with the Epic.
For windows, I swear by CorePlayer. I'd buy it all over again full price if they'd add Android to their platforms (with HW acceleration, of course).

formula84 said:
Check or something called Plex its great, I used orb for years and was never happy with playback...Plex is amazing and the android app is awesome.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm going to find it and try it out right after I finish posting this.
I've been using Orb for years, and it has always had its issues. With Android, it became a major PITA because they only transcode to WM9 as of 6 months or so ago -- and WM codec support on Android is scant.

Great thread. Love this type of info. I've been messing with streamin off and on to my epic and this just pretty much sums up what I've been trying to do. Gonna go try that now...
Thanks!
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

Do I need to be rooted to mount my shares with cifs?
Also, can you recommend a tutorial or software for ripping my dvd collection to my storage server?
As a side note I am pretty happy with twonky for music dlna solution.
Thanks
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA Premium App

Does anyone know how to play mediacenter tv recordings in my htpc on epic?
Tried orb but didn't like the quality.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk

PlayOn is amaaaazing. But it's 70 bucks to get it forever. You can stream out of your network over 3g/wifi to your Android and it look great! Even does subtitles. For my PC or PS3 I love PS3 Media Server. It's pretty much perfect and streams HD over WIFI G even.

sethlo said:
Do I need to be rooted to mount my shares with cifs?
Also, can you recommend a tutorial or software for ripping my dvd collection to my storage server?
As a side note I am pretty happy with twonky for music dlna solution.
Thanks
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, Cifsmanager requires root AND a cifs compatible kernel

I run Windows Home Server .v1 and have tried multiple combinations of players/clients without a whole lot of success.. until recently. Movies are in .mp4 and .mkv format. I use UPnPlay for access and MoboPlayer for streaming playback; the combination works great! I have tested on a rooted Nook, rooted Hauwei Ideos S7, Evo Shift (Not rooted.. Darn 2.3.3!), and my rooted Epic.

[Q] Do you convert your movies to play on the N7?

I have a few DVD and Blu-ray rips stored as ISO or mkv on Windows. Is it worth converting them to a smaller file size for storing and playing on the N7? If yes, what format for video/audio should I use and can you please recommend a good an easy to use Windows conversion program? Thanks!

sirxdroid said:
I have a few DVD and Blu-ray rips stored as ISO or mkv on Windows. Is it worth converting them to a smaller file size for storing and playing on the N7? If yes, what format for video/audio should I use and can you please recommend a good an easy to use Windows conversion program? Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
MX player (and many others) should play mkvs and avis just fine. Try it first, it doesn't take long to copy a video onto the device.
If you encounter problems with said formats, try converting to H.264/mp4, this should be natively supported by android (any many others - its like THE codec to use nowadays )

issak42 said:
MX player (and many others) should play mkvs and avis just fine. Try it first, it doesn't take long to copy a video onto the device.
If you encounter problems with said formats, try converting to H.264/mp4, this should be natively supported by android (any many others - its like THE codec to use nowadays )
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks! Limited space on the device is of concern too. Any recommendations for a free converter program for Windows 7? A Google search comes up with a bunch of paid and what looks like scam converters.
If H.264/mp4 is *the* video codec, what is *the* audio codec to pair it with and *the* free Wnidows conversion software to generate these?

sirxdroid said:
Thanks! Any recommendations for a free converter program for Windows 7? A Google search comes up with a bunch of paid and what looks like scam converters.
If H.264/mp4 is *the* video codec, what is *the* audio codec to pair it with and *the* free Wnidows conversion software to generate these?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
All my movies were ripped using Windows Media Player. They came in as .avi files.
Those play directly on the Nexus 7 without conversion.
I hated converting movies for cell phones... this is a lot better.

Try Handbrake,
It's converted all the dvd's I've thrown at it recently

sirxdroid said:
Thanks! Limited space on the device is of concern too. Any recommendations for a free converter program for Windows 7? A Google search comes up with a bunch of paid and what looks like scam converters.
If H.264/mp4 is *the* video codec, what is *the* audio codec to pair it with and *the* free Wnidows conversion software to generate these?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
mpeg4aac, ac3
Usually when you select the desired codec (or profile in some programs - for Android for example) it chooses audio codec automatically, the one that's usually used with chosen video codec.
I recommend xilisoft for converting, it's not free, but it's really hard to get a good free converter. You might wanna try it on linux, just install Ubuntu in a virtual machine, I'm sure there's some freeware converters made for linux

I use BSplayer, it woks on everything i tried and you get subtitles.
/cazrack

cazrack said:
I use BSplayer, it woks on everything i tried and you get subtitles.
/cazrack
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Caz is right, do not convert your movies it is time consuming and unnecessary use BSplayer and VLCplayer they will play anything you throw at it with subtitles and time stretching if needed, VLC supoprts more formats but BS will do for the majority.

Conversion will save storage space on your Nexus. I use HandBrake set to H264, AAC, in an MKV (or MP4) container. With the proper settings a 90 minute DVD takes about 400MB. It takes about 30-40 minutes to convert the original DVD file on an average PC (Intel i3 or i5).

ripbot264 is a great free tool although it requires you install a few other bits of software first, avisynth, ffdshow etc as its basically a front end gui for x264. Once done though it will give you a decent compromise between power and simplicity and works on 64 bit for a small % speed increase on video.
The other option for space limited devices is streaming over your own network using DLNA or upnp which is what I do

DrEzkimo said:
The other option for space limited devices is streaming over your own network using DLNA or upnp which is what I do
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This works OK at home, not so much offline, e.g. the kids using the tablet in the car. I suppose an OTG USB dongle with a big flash drive would do the trick, but I'd like to keep it simple and have the movies on the built-in storage if possible to shrink them and fit more of them. I think the kids care a lot more about enjoying the content than some potential playing artifacts introduced by shrinking, unlike their dad

jinx100 said:
Conversion will save storage space on your Nexus. I use HandBrake set to H264, AAC, in an MKV (or MP4) container. With the proper settings a 90 minute DVD takes about 400MB. It takes about 30-40 minutes to convert the original DVD file on an average PC (Intel i3 or i5).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Could you please post the "proper settings" you are using? Thanks.

I am using VLC and never had to convert videos. its working just fine for me.

vibraloop said:
I am using VLC and never had to convert videos. its working just fine for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Playing any file type is fine, the problem is the limited storage. If a DVD ripped straight to mkv is about 3-4GB, you can't fit much on the device. Not sure what the shrunken target size for such a DVD should be so the quality doesn't suffer too much when played on the N7.

sirxdroid said:
Could you please post the "proper settings" you are using? Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I use HANDBRAKE, just like at least one previous poster, and I've encoded 500+ movies for viewing on both Tablets (N7 and GTab) and smaller PC screens.
I target around 700mb for ~480p, 1gb for ~720p, and 2gb for ~1080p video; but I find -1gb works best for streaming (and I mostly stream via WIFI),
If you're worried bout quality over file size, set the "quality" target to no less than 1000 avg bitrate (kbps), on the "Video" tab. Even a 2700kbps file can get choppy on an N7, so there's no need to aim too high... but it's your call.
Otherwise there should be a "Presets" list on the right side of the main Handbrake window, the "Normal" setting, under regular should be good to start with.
-Then drop in a video,
-check the "Picture" tab to make sure the resolution and cropping are alright
+ I usually use "keep aspect ratio", and no anamorphic, with a modulus of "2"
-read through the "Video Filters" tab to see if any of those might be a good idea (not usually needed)
-make sure the "Video" tab shows H.264 for codec, you can either use the lower standard frame rate (23.976), or the one from the original video, and set your target file size or quality on the right (as described above)
-then hit the "Audio" tab, and choose appropriate audio (i use AAC, Pro Logic II, and 128kbps, with "auto" sample rate)
-add subs if needed on "Subtitle" tab (burn them in to the image if you arent using a Android player that lets you choose subs while viewing)
-then check and see where the file is being outputted, change location/name if needed, and ensure it's being outputted as an MP4, or MKV (nothing odd)
-then either "Preview" the video, "Start", or "Add to Queue"
When you find settings that work well for you, you can "Add" a preset to the presets list, and make it your default... If I remember correctly I had to do this a couple times cause a few of the settings didn't take, so check your preset by closing Handbrake, reopening it, and droppping a file in before you just assume it's all set and ready to go.
You can also skim through the preferences and set default output folders and such.
After you have things the way you want them you should be left to pretty much drop files in, enque them, and then hit start and walk away.
And if you're on linux, holler, I have dual boot with Handbrake on both Ubuntu and Win7, so I can walk ya through either.

I use Freemake
I use Freemake (http://www.freemake.com/) to convert my MKV and ISO files. Just choose the Android mp4 format.

Personally I haven't converted a movie since I moved to android from an iPhone. Personally I just have a 64gb usb on my keyring (which cost about $30), and plug into my N7 with a USB OTG cable when I want to watch movies. The usb connection isn't perfect, but it works, and will save you a lot of time converting movies. On my N7 I use MXplayer and highly recommend it. Great piece of software for free.
If you want to keep them on your N7 then it would be necessary to convert to keep a reasonable amount though.

@rckoegel - Thank you VERY much for the tips. I will have to go back and read your post a few times.

sirxdroid said:
Could you please post the "proper settings" you are using? Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
These are always changing but setting the video quality fairly low is the biggest help for small file size. The quality still appears quite good when viewing.

Another converter that is very handy is XMedia Recode. I use the portable version.
Painless setup:
Set input for DVD or Movie
Drag and drop video or Open DVD/File to convert
Set Output Format Profile to Google and Google Nexus 7
Set output folder
Right click video to encode->add job
Encode
You can tweak the output settings to anything you wish. It is a piece of cake to convert videos and twice as fast as HandBrake.

Streaming 1080p videos from PC to Android device

Hello,
I've tried to search but didn't find an answer.
I'm looking for a way to stream 1080p videos from my PC to android device (Nexus 10 in my case), both on the same wifi lan using N-type router.
I have set a user and password on the PC windows 7, and I can connect to it with my tablet (ES/solid explorer) through the wifi, and stream videos. The problem is this connection type is not fast enough for streaming 1080p videos, so the videos on my tablet lag, shutter, etc.
Any ideas how to solve it? Can I setup a different type of connection/protocol, which will be fast enough for streaming 1080p vidoes?
Any help is appreciated!

Try Plex media server. The android app is $4 (I think) and the PC software is free. The beauty of it is that you can connect to your server from anywhere. I've watched episodes of modern family from the comfort of the bathroom at work without any issues. For high quality video you're going to need to be on Wi-Fi, but you can get great quality video through plex.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 4

Thank you.
Meanwhile I have found another solution:
- Installing XMBC on my pc and enabling uPNP on it.
- Installing MediaHouse app on my tablet.
uPNP is much faster than the normal Windows SMB, so I can now stream high quality videos without any issue over my wifi.
The only problem is uPNP doesn't support streaming srt subtitles file along with the mkv movie. So I have to copy the srt it locally to the Tablet or embed it to the MKV.

My favorite streaming tool is Emit. www.emitapp.com
They have an Android client, iOS client, and web streamer, and it's a decent-quality transcoder. Totally free.
I have no problems transcribing on an i5-750 that is also a Hyper-V host for 3 VMs, and is running torrents 24/7. It's a dedicated box with a gig connection though, so I have tons of throughput. No problems streaming over LTE on my S4 or over my home connection (50MB comcast)

phishfi said:
Try Plex media server. The android app is $4 (I think) and the PC software is free. The beauty of it is that you can connect to your server from anywhere. I've watched episodes of modern family from the comfort of the bathroom at work without any issues. For high quality video you're going to need to be on Wi-Fi, but you can get great quality video through plex.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 4
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks for this man..

TTT. Figured I'd rez this rather than starting a redundant thread.
I gave Plex a shot; I downloaded the Windows App, installed, opened it, but once I tried to navigate to the "Channel Directory" I got this prompt:
Plex Media Server
Waiting on Response...
It never connected to the PMS. I tried some Googles to figure out the problem, but couldn't find anything relevant. So screw Plex.
For now, what I've done is create a Homegroup, and I use ES File Explorer to navigate the Homegroup in the LAN tab. However, there are two things I don't like about this:
The speed is limited. I guess this is an SMB problem. Separately, as a test, I've connected an i5 laptop to this homegroup, and it won't play a 16GB mkv I have of The Avengers over the Homegroup. It's handled any video files I've thrown at it under 5GB, but past that, it appears that the data bandwidth becomes an issue because the video stutters. This couldn't be a shortcoming of the laptop because it could play the files from its native hard drive without issue. Thus, the problem must be the rate of data transferred wireless over the router. So I'm attracted to the uPNP servers.
On Android, it only works for yet smaller files. I'm only able to watch videos that MX Player can handle using SW decoding. This has limited me to low bitrate 480p video. My goal is to be able to watch all my videos and movies on my Xoom or my Droid X. Unfortunately, the Tegra 2 and the ARM V8 processors in these devices aren't very powerful, and the mkv's/mp4's I have aren't specifically encoded for their chipsets. Also, most of my movies are 1080p, and the Xoom is only 1280x800, and the Droid X is 854x480, so there is the additional workload of downscaling. One solution is that I can convert any video I have using a program called "DVD Catalyst", but the conversion rate is ~125% on a minute-per-minute basis, so this is very time consuming. I'd rather that I was able to use my PC's CPU/GPU to decode the video in real time as I watch the video, and stream this over the Homegroup to my phone/tablet. In other words, in principle, I want to use the PC's hardware to do the heavy lifting while the Android device displays the product of that work.
What's the best way to do this? The OP mentioned he uses XMBC and MediaHouse. Is this optimal, or is there a better method for my goal?

Of course SMB is slow, I wrote it on the first post - this was my main problem. It's ok for 720p but not for 1080p.
You can use XMBC and MediaHouse - it will work but will not stream the .srt subtitles. There are other free uPnP options I've found that work with external subtitles, if you're interested.
Anyway, if you have resolution scaling issues that your android device cannot handle on the fly, I suggest you to re-encode the video offline on your PC.

Animor said:
Of course SMB is slow, I wrote it on the first post - this was my main problem. It's ok for 720p but not for 1080p.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I suppose I didn't make it clear, but it's because of what you wrote that I was presuming that SMB was my issue. Still, I can play most 1080p content over the WLAN to the laptop; just not the 1080p content with a really high bitrate.
You can use XMBC and MediaHouse - it will work but will not stream the .srt subtitles. There are other free uPnP options I've found that work with external subtitles, if you're interested.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you found desktop server software and an Android app that you prefer to these? Please elaborate if you have.
Anyway, if you have resolution scaling issues that your android device cannot handle on the fly, I suggest you to re-encode the video offline on your PC.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In part #2 of my post I described why I already use this as an option, but I would prefer not having to do this. This gets to the heart of what I'm trying to learn. Is it possible to play the desktop files on the tablet/phone without offline conversion? I can conceptualize two theoretical ways, but I have no idea- assuming they are even possible- if there is software that would enable me to do this:
(1) Streaming conversion.
Without creating a new, converted file from the source 1080p video, I'm wondering if there is a program that will convert the desktop 1080p video in real time while streaming that over the network to the Android device. Perhaps it wasn't clear, but my PC is powerful enough that most video converts in the DVD Catalyst software at a minimum 1.25x rate (meaning that 5 minutes of video will convert in about 4 minutes). Thus, a real-time conversion stream seems possible since it would take less time to convert a movie than it would take to watch it. This kills the waiting period and also storage issues. Using offline conversion, I have to decide what I want to watch, convert it, then play the converted file (which takes up additional space on my hard drive). If I could convert-in-stream, then I could simply pick whatever video I wanted to watch, and play it without having to wait for it to convert, and I wouldn't have to worry about extra space being used.
(2) Display mirroring.
The PC plays the video as it would on itself in VLC, and somehow mirrors this image (like with NFC) over the network. No conversion; only downscaling, and this shouldn't be a problem because my PC can easily downscale 1080p to 720p on VLC without stutter. Ergo, in this scenario, the Android device becomes basically a computer monitor that is receiving the data stream over a network rather than from an HDMI/DVI/VGA cable. This seems like the simpler option. Anyone know if it's possible?

Hi,
As for your question, I have found a way to stream external srt subtitles along with the movie, using free uPnP.
Apparently, only some uPnP media servers and clients support it. In addition, only some movie players can extract this information when streamed through uPnP. I've found several such uPnP media servers, but most of them require payment after a trial period. However, I've managed to find one that doesn't
So, in order to stream videos with external srt, you need the following:
1. Serviio on you PC.
2. BubbleUPnP on your android device.
3. MX player on your android device.
4. The srt file should have the same name of the movie file, and they have to reside both at the same directory in your PC.
If you want to check your system under heavy or moderate bit rate, you can use this:
http://www.auby.no/files/video_tests/
"birds" is quite heavy. If you get it to work, you won't have any problem with 1080p movies.
Perhaps the term "1080p" movies is not accurate. What really matter is the bitrate. Naturally, 1080p movies requite higher bitrate. So even if you manage to play small-size 1080p movies through smb, I guess that as you wrote yourself, it's because of the lower bitrate.
If you want to make sure where is your bottleneck, copy the movie to your android device and run it locally. you can use "birds" or any other movie you want. If the movie stutter when run locally, then your bottleneck is your android hw. However, don't use SW decoder, use hw decoder. On MX player I use HW+, and on BS player I use the "experimental hw decoding" feature. On my Nexus 10, this is the only way I can handle high bitrate movies.
Regarding what you asked about: I'm sorry, but I am not familiar with a proper way to mirror a high quality video from the PC to the android device. You can try screen sharing/mirror softwares like VNC or TeamViewer, but I don't think they will work with adequate fps for displaying a video.

You're the man, Animor. This is exactly what I needed, and although Servio doesn't "mirror", it does do #1. The word I was searching for there was "transcoding", and their software does just that because I am able to stream all of these 1080p videos flawlessly on my tablet using the Servio + BubbleUPnP (which has a gorgeous UI, btw), and I know for a fact that MX Player-- even with ARMv7 codec support and running H/W+-- couldn't play these files without stutter even when I'd copied them to its local SD. So it's definitely using my PC's processing power.
This is just so amazingly *****ing. I feel like Doc Oc in Spider-Man 2:
"The power of my PC...in the palm of my hand."

I'm glad I could help you
Please note that transcoding on Serviio doesn't run on Generic DLNA profile. So if you are using the generic profile, that's not the explanation for your device able to play the vidoes.

Animor said:
I'm glad I could help you
Please note that transcoding on Serviio doesn't run on Generic DLNA profile. So if you are using the generic profile, that's not the explanation for your device able to play the vidoes.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Indeed. I spoke too soon forgetting that my "Android Optimized" folder with the movies I'd converted specifically for the Tegra 2 chipset was a subfolder of my greater folder. I tested four movies, and by sheer serendipity, they were all from that subfolder. So I tested the unconverted movies, and, yeah, same problem. MX can't play them using HW/HW+; it's forced to use SW decoding for playback, and it's just too much for the Tegra 2 to handle.
How do I enable a profile that will allow the transcoding that I'm after?

You can choose a profile on one of the tabs on serviio settings. I think it was library.
However I'm not sure you'll find a suitable profile for your device.
Sent from my Nexus 10 using Tapatalk 4

I have used many applications for streaming. 1080p is dream.I even bought a new wifi router for stream. Now i have 1Gbit lan an 300Mbit wifi speed at home.The best result was obtained using Bsplayer and EsExplorer on android and standart network folder in Win7(Ubuntu - better) .
Max play 720p in hw decoding mode.

I suggest to those facing various issues to try out the app ''Emit''. For me, on the same wireless network, it functions well, playing external subtitles just fine.

OK so I've been going down this road on an Android tablet & this seems to work well.
1) BubbleUPNP - connects to my Samsung's AllShare server for my TV on mypc wired into the network.
2) KMPlayer - backwards compatible & it just works with all my files when selecting in bubbleUPNP.
The other way to approach this is IMO using FX File Explorer Pro (local p2p site for unlocked apk) & this enables network support? Again, the media player was what really gave me issues, KWPlayer worked best for me.

Animor said:
Hi,
As for your question, I have found a way to stream external srt subtitles along with the movie, using free uPnP.
Apparently, only some uPnP media servers and clients support it. In addition, only some movie players can extract this information when streamed through uPnP. I've found several such uPnP media servers, but most of them require payment after a trial period. However, I've managed to find one that doesn't
So, in order to stream videos with external srt, you need the following:
1. Serviio on you PC.
2. BubbleUPnP on your android device.
3. MX player on your android device.
4. The srt file should have the same name of the movie file, and they have to reside both at the same directory in your PC.
If you want to check your system under heavy or moderate bit rate, you can use this:
http://www.auby.no/files/video_tests/
"birds" is quite heavy. If you get it to work, you won't have any problem with 1080p movies.
Perhaps the term "1080p" movies is not accurate. What really matter is the bitrate. Naturally, 1080p movies requite higher bitrate. So even if you manage to play small-size 1080p movies through smb, I guess that as you wrote yourself, it's because of the lower bitrate.
If you want to make sure where is your bottleneck, copy the movie to your android device and run it locally. you can use "birds" or any other movie you want. If the movie stutter when run locally, then your bottleneck is your android hw. However, don't use SW decoder, use hw decoder. On MX player I use HW+, and on BS player I use the "experimental hw decoding" feature. On my Nexus 10, this is the only way I can handle high bitrate movies.
Regarding what you asked about: I'm sorry, but I am not familiar with a proper way to mirror a high quality video from the PC to the android device. You can try screen sharing/mirror softwares like VNC or TeamViewer, but I don't think they will work with adequate fps for displaying a video.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks, works now for me!

MarkusOSx said:
thanks, works now for me!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I like folder music player.

I know I'm resurrecting a long dead thread but I figured everyone here is/was interested in about the same thing, so you may already have found a solution.
Basically it had already been asked earlier as one of two options, but was passed over for the other. Did anyone ever get mirroring the video to work? There's lot of mirror apps out there but I'm looking for a way that will let me play a video on my PC and mirror it directly as is on my phone, while still having full control over the video on my PC. This also let's me further control DTS tracks which gets decoded by my AV receiver instead of my phone, therefore audio isn't an issue, I just need video. Any ideas?