For those who seek it, true airplay compatibility would be a simple, implemented service throughout the device using it's stock media players.
When I play a video I transfer onto my device, there is a share button on the top right. When I click see all, I noticed that Evernote and a few other downloaded apps are in the menu. Also true of youtube videos, which can be shared to a number of applications.
My question may be obvious now, but is there a way for an app to run in the background and enable a list of airplay devices from that menu?
Or maybe a simpler solution would be Doubletwist player (or another airplay capable player) to be one of those share sources, being a quick shortcut. I just hate having a bunch of players for different scenarios. I would love that process to be a bit more tied together.
Just stirring the pot.
Related
I've got an annoying problem that I don't know how to fix.
I have a script that uses handbrake to encode videos for me and spits them out as a .mp4 file. I used to view these from a local open web directory so I could stream them while I was in the bath or in the kitchen or having a dump or whenever I wasn't in front of my TV.
They work on my iPhone, iPod touch and on the various Android things I put on my HD2. How can it work on a flashed WinMo phone and not on a proper Android device?
What's frustrating is that they work when I transfer them over using Astro or downloading them in the browser. I assume it would work if I put them on a memory stick but all of these solutions take more time.
I was thinking I should root the Tab and put a custom Android on it, but is there anything else I can do without re-encoding a bunch of files?
What exactly is the problem? How are you trying to stream them?
I have an open web directory which is basically just a list of .mp4 files. I open the browser and point it to my site, 192.168.1.3/movies, and then click on whatever I want to watch.
Then usually it gives me an option of what app I want to play it in and I usually just pick the default video player.
This doesn't work on the Tab where it does on my other devices (Android and iOS).
So the problem is that its not giving you an option to pick which app to open the .mp4 with?
Maybe you dont have any other apps that can play the file?-
It does give me an option, it just refuses to play saying that the type is not supported. I've tried the built in video player, rockplayer, meridian. I've also tried it on a file manager like Astro.
The files just refuses to play like they do on my hacked HD2 and iPhone.
Are you trying to emulate this like the AllShare program? Cant seem to get this to work too on the network media
I don't know what AllShare is unfortunately. Did it work on a previous device?
Allshare is sammys DLNA client. Its pretty good for small folders on a LAN server. But it doesn't understand headers very well. Search is your friend.
Someone pointed me in the right direction on another board.
Another Forum said:
OK, figured it out. The problem is that most MPEG4/QuickTime muxers append a critical piece of metadata to the end of the file and it needs to be moved to the beginning to allow streaming/progressive downloading in the Android media player (it's not a Samsung-specific problem).
If you already have a bunch of non-streaming-compatible MP4 files, there's a tool that comes with ffmpeg called qt-faststart that rewrites them (without reencoding) in a compatible fashion.
Also, it looks like Handbrake 0.9.2 and up have an option for producing "Web optimized" MPEG-4 files, which if you enable should fix future videos.
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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!
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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'm not sure if this or Q&A is a better place for this, so I'm reposting here as well.
I really like to sort my videos into a nice little heirarchy as supported in iTunes. Ie: Movies, Video Clips and TV shows then TV Shows further sorted into series and then possibly season. I've always liked iTunes' ability to let me do this but the program is slow and resource intensive and doesn't sync with Android.
I recently got an Xperia Play which came with the Media Go software. This software lets set videos as Movies, Clips or Shows and set season and series info, etc.. all that wonderful stuff. Now I'm hoping to find a media player or organizer that can continue this.
Does anyone have a program they can recommend that can detect the type of media a video file is from this data and sort it appropriately? And is compatible with Xoom as my Xoom tablet is the device I intent do use for viewing videos (Bigger screen and all that after all. )
I'm new to the world of Android, but I've had my eye on the Acer Iconia A500 for a while. After getting my hands on one recently for a few minutes in a store, I'm pretty sure this is the tab I want. The feature set is excellent, the form factor is really nice, and the price is right too!
But before I buy, there's something I need to know (which I was not able to learn after searching this forum extensively). I want to use my A500 for video playback -- specifically, for playing a playlist of short videos, in sequence. This is for performances that I do which include video projections.
Are there video players available for the A500 that can use playlists? And if so, what are the transitions between videos in a playlist like? What I'd prefer would be just a seamless jump from one video to the next. A delay of up to a few seconds would be OK, but I would want to see only a black screen during that time. I don't want to see the video player controls, the tablet home screen, or anything else appearing in between videos.
If you smart people here can put my mind at rest that this is possible, it will move me one step closer to becoming an Iconia A500 owner. Thanks in advance...
If you get the Act1 video player you can create playlists. You can even have them play randomly through the settings. Act1 combined with the hdmi out means music videos on autopilot when I have people over.
Sent from my GT-P1000 using XDA App
projectdownset: Cool, thanks... I figured there must be video players that would do this, but wanted to know for sure. You mention that random play is possible with Act1, but I assume I could also play in a defined order as well... is that correct?
Also, what are the transitions between videos like?
P.S. Apologies if my questions seem dumb... I have ZERO experience with Android. I'm guessing there are probably video player apps that will do what I want, but I can't afford to invest in a tablet without knowing whether it can do what I need.
Again, I just need to know if there's a video player that will play a playlist of videos in sequence, with seamless (invisible) transitions between videos.
Set my mind at ease and help me join the ranks of A500 owners!
projectdownset: Do you use Act1 with an external monitor or projector? Because I see this on the Act1 FAQ page:
My phone has an HDMI output port. Will it work with Act 1?
No, Act 1 can't access the HDMI output port of Android devices. Manufacturers of Android devices with HDMI output (such as the Droid X and HTC Evo) are using their own applications and interfaces to access the HDMI port. This functionality is not made available to third party applications, unfortunately.
The more general problem is that Android doesn't have a concept of external display devices. That is to say, no one can write a general application that can access a monitor that is not the device's builtin screen. Some day Google may expand Android to generally support external displays, but today it's not possible.
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I created a shortcut for my playlist and played it right on my tv. The acer and xoom mirror the tab unlike other phomes that have a seperate interface for their hdmi.
Sent from my GT-P1000 using XDA App
Update: I have gotten a little more info elsewhere. An Asus Transformer owner was nice enough to test video playback for me in the Dice, MX, and Mobo players.
Here's what they found:
Dice player : No playlists but it can be set to play all the files in a specific folder sequentially. The player controls do pop up for a few seconds between each file and I couldn't see any way to disable this.
MX Player : No playlists or whole folder support that I could find. Each file needs to be started manually.
Moboplayer : Playlist support, but as far as I can tell, no auto-advance to next file.
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Still hoping to find a player that fully meets my needs.
projectdownset said:
I created a shortcut for my playlist and played it right on my tv. The acer and xoom mirror the tab unlike other phomes that have a seperate interface for their hdmi.
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OK, cool. Thanks for the info.
Any other Act1 users out there know what the transitions between videos in a playlist look like?
Fast transitions. Hard to change the video. I hide the onscreen controls so I have to press next on the screen four or five times to fast forward through the video. I'm sure there's an easier way I just have to mess with it. You should just try it and if you don't like it get a refund.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
projectdownset: Thanks again. Elsewhere on the internets, I got a response from a Galaxy S user who tried Act1 with a playlist, and said there were no transitions between videos other than about 0.25 seconds of black. That's exactly what I was hoping to hear.
I think I will go ahead and get the A500 and see how it works out!
Video editor
If these are videos that have a predefined order.and always the same videos.edit them on your PC into one segment you can then control every aspect of transition and so on.you can then play it with most players.
Goodluck
Hi Erica,
They do not always have the same order. I sometimes want to add or remove videos, or change the order.
I used to use a portable DVD player... but of course that required me to burn a DVD every time. I wanted a solution that would allow me more flexibility. I've been using my laptop recently (with the VLC player, which has nice playlists and clean transitions).
But it would be great to use a tablet instead -- much more portable. From what I'm hearing about Act 1, I think I could run it on the A500 and get good results.
I was wondering is there any aplication/concept for aplication that makes PC work as a "cloud" or stream video feed to my mobile phone via WLAN ?
I googled and did quick forun search and could only find aplications that allow you to control your PC, not see video feed.
This could be realy cool App, especialy since Onlive doesnt support some of the older (and free) games and isnt even available in every country.
CrazyRemote is able to control the PC at a very high framerate, which allows watching videos and even playing games remotely. If that's not what you're looking for, look for an app to stream from VLC
jacklebott said:
CrazyRemote is able to control the PC at a very high framerate, which allows watching videos and even playing games remotely. If that's not what you're looking for, look for an app to stream from VLC
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Wow, thats what i was looking for
Now i need to figure out is there a way to use Xplay controls (touch pads too)
If not, well thats too bad then.
Not exactly sure what you're trying to do but apart from the aforementioned crazyremote, check out teamviewer and vlc direct. maybe what you're looking for.
OnLive basically can do the functionality if you just want to play games. There is also an upcoming service from them called OnLive Desktop which is a whole Windows 7 desktop environment which allows for high framerate video streaming, flash, browsing, actual MS Office document edition in MS Office, etc.
Also, Nvidia was touting a new tech that would work with Tegra3 devices (not ours, I know, but on topic none-the-less) that would use the GPU to compress and decompress the input and audio/video stream to and from the computer to allow remote game playing or any other function.
Beyond that, framerates and others would depend on the technology, overhead, and speed of connection. You could use RDP (SplashViewer, etc) or whatnot. Most of this is not fully feasible for twitch games or suchnot, but okay for turn-based or some RPGs or whatever.
If all you want is just Video (like you have tons of .MPG, .MP4, etc) and audio streaming over the air (I assume by WLAN you mean cellular data and not WiFi) from your machine, you can try ORB. It takes a little setting up on the server end, but works nicely. There are a dozen little services that can be set up on your computer (especially if it is Linux). You just need to open that particular machine and the app's port to the DMZ (or internet directly) and then use a local app or your browser on your phone/tablet to reach it and view your stuff. If I remember correctly, ORB can even auto-downsize videos on the fly to match closer to your phone's viewing specs, and/or bandwidth.
If you mean WiFi, any DLNA source can work. You can even make your computer a DLNA source if you have Windows Media Center or one of a dozen other apps that can do it. Then you just have to get an app that can pull DLNA sources (I think Mobo can, as well as a number of others). Certain routers can also have a USB stick or USB hard drive plugged into them and use that as storage to present across the network as a DLNA source.