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Just picked up my Vibrant today (Bell Canada version). So far, I am very happy.
However, one thing I thought I would be able to do with this phone (since it is DivX HD certified), would be to stream DivX over the network to it - either via Astro / SMB, or via the AllShare UPNP it comes with - without having to convert them.
Alas, neither of these seem to work. All I ever get is "video format not supported" or some-such from the built-in video player.
In anyone able to STREAM DivX avi or mkv files to this phone? I know my UPNP setup works because my BluRay player (also a Samsung, with "AllShare", BTW) can play it fine.
Based on my testing, Allshare's media playback definitely does not support all of the media formats/codecs that the primary video player supports. So while DivX and MKV videos work fine copied to your SD card, the current version of Allshare may not stream them wirelessly. I simply get an error message stating "Sorry, this video cannot be played"
This could be a matter of Allshare simply not using the same codecs, pending a possible update. ::crossing fingers:: Since both MKV and DivX are open standards, I don't imagine it would be a licensing / copyright restriction. I've personally found that while most XviD videos stream fine, a few will not. I haven't yet narrowed down the specifics.
I connected to my laptop with Windows Media Player, XBMC, and Samsung PC Share Manager thus far. Some of what I've read about various DLNA media servers suggest that real-time conversion may be an option in cases. These UPnP Media Adaptors transcode the files as it comes across. I have yet to look into that as a work-around but remain hopeful. [Update: It sounds like Nero Media Home may handle this well]
Ultimately, I foresee the Galaxy S (Transdroid) and DD-WRT (Transmission, uShare, external HDD) routers becoming the nexus of many home entertainment centers.
Yeah... the device I use for my UPNP server is a router... so real-time conversion is for sure not an option.
Given that the player can play these files, it seems silly that AllShare can't read them. AllShare *is using* the native player. So it is somehow messing with the files, or making the wrong guesses as to what it can play.
I might contact Saumsung support about this, maybe if people raise a stink about it it will be fixed in the Sept. update?
I have a Captivate, but I'm running into exactly the same problem.
I've used every "DLNA" supporting media server out there, transcoding or not, AllShare on my Galaxy S will not play it. It browses just fine, pictures work fine too, but video is a no-go.
What's really weird, is even after I get the "Sorry, this video cannot be played" error, if I go to properties->details, it shows me the correct duration, but a file size of "256.00GB". And I know the file in question plays beautifully when loaded onto my SD card, or the phone's internal memory. So what the heck is going on? Getting this to work on the Galaxy S would be an absolutely killer feature and I really hope more people get involved with this.
Shammyh said:
I have a Captivate, but I'm running into exactly the same problem.
I've used every "DLNA" supporting media server out there, transcoding or not, AllShare on my Galaxy S will not play it. It browses just fine, pictures work fine too, but video is a no-go.
What's really weird, is even after I get the "Sorry, this video cannot be played" error, if I go to properties->details, it shows me the correct duration, but a file size of "256.00GB". And I know the file in question plays beautifully when loaded onto my SD card, or the phone's internal memory. So what the heck is going on? Getting this to work on the Galaxy S would be an absolutely killer feature and I really hope more people get involved with this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I already sent a question to Samsung support through their website about it... I suggest you do the same. If enough people ask about it maybe a fix will make it into the rom update... there is obviously something wrong with it.
Unfortunately most on this forum seem to be using AllShare to play media from the phone on the TV, not the other way around.
same problem but it wont play any thing, including MP3's. I have media tomb setup as a media server and I can browse it all day long but cant stream a single anything.....really annoying.
I have been able to stream mp4 videos from my NMT device (DragonTech ioBox, the A100-series of NMT hardware). That's it, though. No other formats will stream although I can browse for everything.
These are 720p mp4 files that I grabbed from YouTube.
i have the same problem too:/ dno wut to do!!!
MV10 said:
I have been able to stream mp4 videos from my NMT device (DragonTech ioBox, the A100-series of NMT hardware). That's it, though. No other formats will stream although I can browse for everything.
These are 720p mp4 files that I grabbed from YouTube.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So.... UPNP problems are usually due to the headers sent to the player. If we knew what headers were being sent to the phone that *worked*, we might be able to know how to fix it.
I don't suppose you know how to use Wireshark? You can use it to sniff your network and see the HTTP headers being sent from your DLNA server to the phone.
Not familiar with it, but I'm a developer In Real Life, I can figure it out. I'll have a look.
Samsung support == horrible
So this is the email i sent
AllShare Player, Supported Formats
I am wondering what media formats the AllShare DLNA client on the Galaxy S can play?
I have several Divx HD media files that play fine when copied directly to the phone, but when I try to play them using the AllShare DLNA client (streamed from a non-transcoding DLNA server), they do not play.
What are the formats supported by the AllShare client, and what mime types is it expecting for those formats?
Is there any planned update to allow the AllShare client to support the same formats the phone does from the filesystem?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is how they respond.
Thank you for submitting your inquiry to Samsung.
Please try MP4 format.
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Basically, they totally ignored the question.
What's more, if i try to reply, the form is busted.
*Frustration*
the thing with allshare i think is that whatever youre playing it on, has to be compatible with the file type.
i have a samsung c6500 bluray player that i use for allshare through vibrant which plays basically all formats, and i have no issue streaming anything to it through the phone.
theking52 said:
the thing with allshare i think is that whatever youre playing it on, has to be compatible with the file type.
i have a samsung c6500 bluray player that i use for allshare through vibrant which plays basically all formats, and i have no issue streaming anything to it through the phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This thread is about doing the exact opposite.
The SGS/Vibrant can play Divx HD, heck it even has the Divx HD certified logo on the box. But if you try to stream it to the phone with AllShare, it does not work. If you copy it to the phone with USB, it works fine. So, AllShare is busted.
I don't want to play movies from my phone to my TV, I can't even think when I would ever want to do that. But playing movies or TV from my media server on my phone while lying in bed, that is something I may want to do occasionally.
This is strange as I am not having ANY problems with streaming divx Avi files and even 720p M4V files through AllShare to my phone. I am however not able to stream my MKV files.
The only thing I see different is that I use Twonky for my UPNP server running from a Nettop PC I have setup as a server. They do have a trial for Twonky for those that want to see if it works for them. http://www.twonky.com/
The biggest disappointment for me is that AllShare FORCES wifi. I was hoping I could hack that feature out of AllShare through the Vibrant dumps available here, but I cant seem to find what Im looking for. In truth Im kind of new to editing code, so Im really just taking guess most of the time.
The reason I want this to work over 3g is that a simple VPN should allow me access to my UPNP server from where ever I am. At present I have this setup using Hamachi VPN on several PCs that belong to friends and family. This allows them access to my Twonky UPNP server that they can browse with XBMC. My Fios 30Mb up/ 30Mb down connection will even allow them to stream 720p video from me. I dont even notice the hit to my bandwidth sense UPNP is pretty light in terms of bandwidth.
Anybody want to take a stab at getting the wifi only portion of AllShare removed?
Same here. I have Twonky running on my unRAID server and I'm able to stream MP3s, JPGs, and DivX AVI files without a problem. However, as soon as I touch an MKV file I get an error. I really don't see why as I can play them back locally on my phone. Has anyone gotten anywhere with this?
mac1978 over on Android Forums has tried renaming MKV files with AVI extensions and he says that works. Absolutely ridiculous. Does this mean that AllShare has blacklisted MKVs, or is there some sore of glitch in the supported file format list? Either way, it's clear this is a software issue on Samsung's part. Any idea how we can get it fixed?
http://androidforums.com/samsung-ca...re-streaming-samsung-bs-my-final-impasse.html
The AllShare player itself isn't that intuitive. Considering Samsung is launching a PMP based on our phones seems ridiculous considering it's shortcomings. Maybe it will spark more development in this area.
EDIT: This post suggests the feature was working post 2.2. Does anyone have a Galaxy S still on 2.1 that can test this out for us?
http://samsunggalaxysforums.com/sho...es-via-ALLSHARE-since-upgrading-to-Froyou-2.2
EDIT 2: There seems to be another thread on this in the i9000 forum. No one has anything really there either.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=801423&page=2
brunes said:
Basically, they totally ignored the question.
*Frustration*
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, well, at least you could get an email address. It appears the Canadian website doesn't even HAVE email support. All they give you is a phone number (1-800-726-7864) which as of right now, redirects you to the American support line who are unable to even talk to you. I was able to get the correct number from them (1-905-542-3837) and told them about the redirection issue. Hopefully they will resolve that.
Anyway, the girl I spoke to was just as unhelpful. She was friendly about it, but after looking it up she said the reason was because of "codecs?" and that AllShare can't do MKV. It can only stream MP3s and AVIs, or some other nonsense. Clearly the case is not codecs because as some have observed if you change an MKV extension to AVI it plays. It is using the correct codecs on the phone just fine. AllShare is just rejecting the MKV container for some reason.
Because this is phone support there's no way to really escalate things, so I was hoping someone could get a hold of a Canadian Samsung Mobile Support email address? If not maybe a helpful American can contact the US support team and find out what is going on.
Hi All,
I'm wondering if anyone has had any success streaming media to their A7. I currently have a NAS drive on my network and stream media to all my other devices (Archos 70, Archos 5 Android, EVO, etc.) but for some reason I cannot get the A7 to actually play anything from this network location.
I have been able to navigate to the files themselves, but playing them has not worked out so well. I've tried a variety of Apps and different file formats, but none seem to work. I can attempt to open files, and even get prompted to use various Apps, but nothing seems to work after that, it just fails. Anyone have any ideas or success with this effort please let me know as this is a biggie for me.
Sorry if this is a dup question, as I could not find anything about this for this device in particular.
And many thanks to Dexter, you've made this device surpass it's otherwise limited capabilities. Seems silly such a quality product is being left behind by the Stream, but this seems to be the model of all tablet makers these days. Pump them out as fast as possible regardless of full functionality and forget about them a month later!
The only way I've gotten streaming to work is by using PlayOn.
hi I can access all my movies on my hard drives and play on my a7 this way
download TVersity media server from tveristy.com. I just use the free version. It will change your home page when you install it so you will need to change it back. Install that on your pc and then add your movie files to the library.
On your a7 download a app called skifta from the market and install that. when you run this choose a media source choose TVeristy media server. Under player choose your a7.
then choose browse and play media you will see your library files you added in tversity and some other stuff. You will need a video player installed on your a7. I have act 1 video player and also rockplayer. It will let you choose which to use when you select movie.
select one and your movie should start. Your movies have to be in a compatable format.
it also will let you play music and view photos
I also have a wd live movie box on my tv. With this same setup I can redirect the movie to wdlive box by choosing it as player and the it will playback the movie on my tv.
Thanks for the advice (both of you). I was really hoping for a more direct approach though. I've used apps like Orb that require you to run a host computer, and my NAS drive (Buffalo Linkstation) has a web app built in, but both these methods have proven very slow and often frustrating when trying to access via mobile networks. It just seems odd to me that the A7 doesn't do this while most other Android hardware does. Granted I'm more familiar with Archos products and they specialize in media players. Will keep trying though, Thanks!
DANOinSD said:
Granted I'm more familiar with Archos products and they specialize in media players. Will keep trying though, Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the platform you refer to is different from Tegra2/Nvidia, and you can blame Nvidia for the stock codecs they support.. they partly added mkv's now in latest update.. but 1080p mkv's still stutter on a7 and other tegra2 devices..
LG with their Optimus 2X added their own custom player, and since its incorporated into the framework, its hard to make it run on other devices for now.. but nvidia is primary source for what we can use it for now..
archos is a different story and they havent got what tegra2 can offer for the future, so it might play alot of media's but not perfect for android at all.
Thanks for the info Dex!
Think I'm gonna get a XOOM (been drooling over some honey), then I can officially make my A7 a tinker toy!
by the way, the new 1.41 rom kicks ass, the motoblur keyboard is soo much better!
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.
I have a couple of questions about streaming your own content, rather than Amazon's, to the Fire that I'm hoping someone who has one can answer for me.
Can you stream content you upload to Amazon's content locker (5 GB free, or pay for more)? Is that limited to music or do videos work too? If so, what is the streaming quality like?
Can you stream content to the Fire over your home network, from a media server? If so, what kind of infrastructure and app support do you need?
Could you stream from a Wifi-enabled external drive, like a Seagate Satellite or a Kingston WiDrive?
I'm hoping the answer to one or more of these questions is yes, which will go a long way towards ameliorating the 6 GB usable internal storage. It's kind of sad considering my phone has 32 GB (16 internal and a 16 GB micro SD card).
The KF specs only lists MP4 and VP8 for video formats, which is standard for Android 2.3. As for 3rd-party video players, per Engadget review, "Amazon's own media players work well, but third party ones that offered better compatibility with file formats universally did not."
one word - Skifta
The Skifta app is working great for me on the fire - and available in the amazon app store to boot. no hacking required and it's free.
Skifta.com
I choose my NAS w/some m4v files (encoded w/handbrake for atv2) as the source, my fire as the player, then it lets me browse, play, stream over 802.11 in my house.
You can stream your stuff to your phone using Emit. It's in the Amazon marketplace so no sideloading.
https://www.emitapp.com/
Thanks for the tips, I'll check out those apps as soon as I have my home NAS running again!
I can also answer one of my questions now that I have my Fire in hand:
Can you stream content you upload to Amazon's content locker (5 GB free, or pay for more)? Is that limited to music or do videos work too? If so, what is the streaming quality like?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Apparently you get unlimited storage for your own MP3s in Amazon's Cloud Player and they work great. Streaming quality is quite good. Haven't tried videos, books, or documents in the 5 GB space yet.
Cool note about Skifta I forgot to mention...is that it's DLNA certified. In other words, if you already have DLNA video devices, it works great with them without having to add new servers and such.
(in my case, my NAS does DLNA out of the box so it just finds it and works) - think they also have a mini server for PC/MAC if you don't already have one.
+1 for Skifta. Works great for me.
Emit works awesomely! realtime encodes the files on demand and streams it. much better than what i was going to do (open up a aws account with e3 and cloudfront, and have a website for all my stuff after hand encoding all my media to mp4... ... ... ya...)
thnks kernodle
robopanda333 said:
Emit works awesomely! realtime encodes the files on demand and streams it. much better than what i was going to do (open up a aws account with e3 and cloudfront, and have a website for all my stuff after hand encoding all my media to mp4... ... ... ya...)
thnks kernodle
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you know if it can re-encode and stream mkv files and make them work on the Fire?
e.mote said:
The KF specs only lists MP4 and VP8 for video formats, which is standard for Android 2.3. As for 3rd-party video players, per Engadget review, "Amazon's own media players work well, but third party ones that offered better compatibility with file formats universally did not."
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Engadget made too many assumptions in that statement '3rd party players ....universally did not'. This is inaccurate. The VLC Media Player (alpha) and Mobo Video Player Pro do many formats. Mobo works well and is smooth playing. VLC is still in alpha, but once final one is launched it will be more capable. VLC can play 1080P WMV, but is a bit choppy due to no hardware video acceleration optimizations incorporated in this early version. There are other players on the market that should work with the Fire if these two do.
Go flex satellite
Sideloaded goflex app and rockplayer app and streaming from the satellite hdd is working on the Fire.
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned PlayOn. It's free if you just use the local media streaming part of it, and it works really well. I have it on my Droid Incredible, PS3, Wii and on my KF, and I can stream remotely as well (even via 3G).
Unfortunately, it's PC only, and it's needs at least a dual core to run well.
sl0ttedpig said:
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned PlayOn. It's free if you just use the local media streaming part of it, and it works really well. I have it on my Droid Incredible, PS3, Wii and on my KF, and I can stream remotely as well (even via 3G).
Unfortunately, it's PC only, and it's needs at least a dual core to run well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1 : PlayOn is awesome. I use it currently with my Windows Home Server to stream to PS3, iPhone and Nexus S.
I just want to be able to put on some mkv files without re-encoding so I can watch on the plane.
shaxs said:
Do you know if it can re-encode and stream mkv files and make them work on the Fire?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes it takes my avis and mkvs and converts on the fly. bigger files will have to "load" a little bit because of that. you can also tel it to preencode files. all the settings are what the device asks for too, so if you decide you want a different resolution, just change it in the options. i really love it.
goodness noone mentioned subsonic?
http://www.subsonic.org/pages/index.jsp
stream music via app may need to sideload it(although its in amazon approval process still)
u can also use browser version for video streaming and it supports full screen i have a subsonic server setup on my home lan with all my music/movies (5Tb) now accessible anywhere with subsonic on my fire
best solution imho and if u happen to be handy with rss feeds for your content u desire u got yourself a much better solution then anythign amazon can put out and faster
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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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!
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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?