Video streaming over CIFS/SMB - Galaxy Tab General

Does anyone know how to improve the buffering of the native Video app for playing videos over a SAMBA mount? It plays find for a few seconds and starts freezing. Playing local video is fine and playing via RockPlayer is fine, but I'd much rather use the native player as it's got a good interface, built-in brightness control and doesn't sit there with a blank screen while it's "thinking".
Failing that, has anyone got any recommendations for a good alternative player? (That isn't VPlayer/Rockplayer). Having a look at mVideoPlayer, will see how that goes.
Edit: Nope, mVideoPlayer fails at network buffering too.

I've had no luck with this either but I'm beginning to think it's not entirely buffer related. For one I've noticed that CIFS consumes a lot of CPU power. Also I'm unable to get more than 2MB/s transfer speed (regardless of transfer method) with the SGT over wireless. (N-enabled router, direct line of sight, various distances tried, etc).

Bitrate shouldn't be an issue. The implementation of 802.11n that the SGT (and just about any mobile device) implements only supports up to 73Mbps (an improvement over 802.11g's 54Mbps, but still nothing too flash). That still gives us a theoretical peak of 9MB/sec though (actually only 4.5MB/sec as WiFi is half-duplex, plus lots of packet overhead etc) which should still be plenty.
Even only getting 2MB/sec should be plenty. Assuming the average video is encoded at 1500kbps with 192kbps audio (both pretty generous), then that's only (1500+192)/8 = 211.5KB/sec, so around a tenth of the max speed.
It's possible it could be a CPU thing I guess, I don't _think_ that the standard Video player has any form of hardware acceleration, that plus the overhead from processing the wifi data could be enough to cause it to choke. I'll try locking it at 1.4Ghz and see if that helps.
Check that the channel your wireless is on isn't crowded by other devices, that'll drop your speed. Lock your router at 802.11n rather than 11a/b/g/n mixed mode if you can, that'll help too.

Streaming video over CIFS is very inefficient as it carries such a large overhead. It's like trying to cut a steak with a spoon. It's not designed to do that so why would you bother when there are better ways?
Configuring jumbo frames may improve performance, but this would be like sharpening the edge of that spoon.
You should look at using DLNA or as sammy call it, AllShare. There are light weight server apps around you simply install on your PC of which the AllShare app can connect to. The best part about it is, it'll cut your steak like butter.
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krispyjim said:
Streaming video over CIFS is very inefficient as it carries such a large overhead. It's like trying to cut a steak with a spoon. It's not designed to do that so why would you bother when there are better ways?
Configuring jumbo frames may improve performance, but this would be like sharpening the edge of that spoon.
You should look at using DLNA or as sammy call it, AllShare. There are light weight server apps around you simply install on your PC of which the AllShare app can connect to. The best part about it is, it'll cut your steak like butter.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Then you have the codec restrictions imposed by the DLNA app though. Given my circumstances it will probably be a better solution. I've got XBMC running on my media server but their DLNA support seems to be horribly broken, (the PS3 _mostly_ works with it, my TV and the SGT both see it but won't stream anything from it). It might be time to fire up TVersity once again. (Twonkymedia always used to be a broken pile of rubbish, maybe it's less so now).
Maybe it's time to ditch the mediaserver, get an AppleTV, stick XBMC onto that and stream the media from the UPnP server on my Tomato'd router.
I like the spoon analogy
Does the SGT support other remote filesystems that are less horrible? (NFS?)

krispyjim said:
You should look at using DLNA or as sammy call it, AllShare.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And in the unlikely case he'd get it to work, we are all ready to hear his tale. Samsung's implementation of DLNA is atrociously incompatible' i couldn't find any server that the useless app would like.
So i went with Plex. Bought the app, installed the server on the computer, set things up and now i have a pretty transcoder streaming to the tab. Be warned that it dosen't hardcode subtitles
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AlexTheStampede said:
And in the unlikely case he'd get it to work, we are all ready to hear his tale. Samsung's implementation of DLNA is atrociously incompatible' i couldn't find any server that the useless app would like.
So i went with Plex. Bought the app, installed the server on the computer, set things up and now i have a pretty transcoder streaming to the tab. Be warned that it dosen't hardcode subtitles
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is Plex reasonably capable now? I had a look at it a few months ago and it was completely useless, it did virtually nothing and refused to let me add any plugins to change the fact.

The AllShare app has it's limitations sure, but it does work. I have a lot of stuff in AVI format which works really well. If I need to play MKV's then I use UPnPlay and Rockplayer which seems to take almost anything I throw at it. For some reason with AVI though, the audio is out of sync with video hence why I still use AllShare.
On the server side, I have a Netgear ReadyNAS Duo which has a DNLA server built in.
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knightnz said:
Is Plex reasonably capable now? I had a look at it a few months ago and it was completely useless, it did virtually nothing and refused to let me add any plugins to change the fact.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Depends. While i personally don't care about plugins, after a test apparently they work. Except for the audio ones. Considering i use it to watch videos, i'm perfectly fine, and everything would be cool even if i wanted to watch pictures (i could browse and open images inside Aperture).
AllShare on the other hand... If it sees a media server, it won't see the contents, so i really can't consider it as "working". Seems to be kinda decent as a server, but total fail as a client. PlugPlayer worked bad even on the iPhone, can't imagine what the Android version does.
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AlexTheStampede said:
AllShare on the other hand... If it sees a media server, it won't see the contents, so i really can't consider it as "working". Seems to be kinda decent as a server, but total fail as a client.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not sure why your having such issues with it.Don't get me wrong here as I'm not an AllShare fanboi or dating the samsung cio's daughter or anything. The app could be so much better than it is. It does however, function as a player and yes, I can browse the content of the server using it. Sounds like theres something wrong with your setup.
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Could you please tell me how you got cifs to work? I have been trying with no luck. I am on overcome rom with modaco r3 kernel.
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krispyjim said:
Sounds like theres something wrong with your setup.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe. But 4 different servers (that work with the PS3) kinda point the finger towards the Samsung part of it...
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captain134 said:
Could you please tell me how you got cifs to work? I have been trying with no luck. I am on overcome rom with modaco r3 kernel.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The latest Overcome firmware+kernel supposedly has all the CIFS modules built-in so it should be the easiest option.
You can try either using CIFS Manager to mount the share, or "Gscript Lite" and make a script that does;
busybox mount -r -t cifs =o "username=USER,password=PASS",iocharset=utf8 //192.168.1.111/Share /sdcard/Mount
Replace USER and PASS with a useraccount with permissions on the system ("guest" and no password should work), replace the IP address, share and mount location with ones of your choosing.
The script will need to have superuser access. I've also got it manually calling
insmod /lib/modules/cifs.ko

I previously tried vplayer with my cifs share over wireless & it worked well with the buffer option enabled. However it doesn't support hardware decoding so it's ok for divx but not 720p etc. Cifs may not be ideal for this type of application but it still seems the best option to me if the player supports buffering. I've contacted the rockplayer dev & he seemed willing to implement it in a future update.
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download bsplayer etc (free) from market, and this is the only android player which streams from synology and other nasdrives or shares directly to the samsung galaxy tab 10.1 via wifi, no waiting, no conversion, no copying, just a network address from your device is needed. Pure Magic.
rgds

I can confirm that bsplayer works, at least for the few 720p mkv files I tried. Smooth streaming using cifs on my tab with the latest overcome rom.

Related

[Q] how do u stream movies wirelessly on a vista pc to your acer a500

hi,is it possible to stream movies wirelessly from a vista laptop onto the a500 through the home network? if yes,how do i set it up? cos i've tried everything
Well if you plan to use only on the home network their clear.fi app works. For remote access I have been using subsonic it does require a donation to allow video streaming
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Do you know how to get other folders to show up from the clear.fi app? All I can see for video streaming from my PC, is a video/collections folder. I would like to be able to see my media folder that I have on my desktop.
I am using plex and it works very well.
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lord_voldemort666 said:
Do you know how to get other folders to show up from the clear.fi app? All I can see for video streaming from my PC, is a video/collections folder. I would like to be able to see my media folder that I have on my desktop.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
that is windows side setting.
but I have to say I cease use clear.fi because I was getting some unwanted folder.
I will try to set when I got time to set my windows...
I am going to install win7 64bits soon so...
crajoh said:
I am using plex and it works very well.
Sent from my A500 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How in the heck did you get plex to work? Did you change the default player to something else? If so how?
I load a movie and it times out on every one. When I contacted the makers of plex they say that it is not working on the acer yet and offer a refund.
I use ps3 media server on the pc and upnplay which is free from the android market for the A500 , The ps3 media server trans-codes on the fly and I use mobo player from upn to play the content. easy as 123 setup and works perfectly and also means I can play any file type. 1080p is a bit jerky but 720p is as smooth as silk. Did I mention its all free
lord_voldemort666 said:
Do you know how to get other folders to show up from the clear.fi app? All I can see for video streaming from my PC, is a video/collections folder. I would like to be able to see my media folder that I have on my desktop.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
my videos pooped right up mine are also in the video folder in my documents
I have PlayOn running on a desktop machine and the PlayOn app on my A500 and Thunderbolt. Works very well over wifi.
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I think that the Acer app only shows/shares the stuff you have in my documents. So you can't watch movies through it if you have them on another HD (like I do sadly).
I am able to see all of my share's on any of my drives. But my home network is wide open on this side of the router.
Might check your sharing settings on you pc, and your firewall if applicable.
i do recomend subsonic wholely just a one time donation unoocks video streaming. you select the folders to share music and movies and the app is free on android and one port needed to be opened to view from anywhere tablet phone or say work computer. also to with the ability to download the content to
I have tried:
Plex: Works but slow as hell and it didn't let me skip a part of the movie so I had to watch every movie from the start.
Subsonic: IMHO a Plex clone so I didn't bother with it and I couldn't test it to see if it streams movies any better.
Upnplay: Ugly and clunky interface but it does stream movies from any UPNP server without installing any additional software and it's free. It uses your default browser and it can skip in a movie so I'm using that. It's not pretty but it does work well.
bpivk said:
I have tried:
Plex: Works but slow as hell and it didn't let me skip a part of the movie so I had to watch every movie from the start.
Subsonic: IMHO a Plex clone so I didn't bother with it and I couldn't test it to see if it streams movies any better.
Upnplay: Ugly and clunky interface but it does stream movies from any UPNP server without installing any additional software and it's free. It uses your default browser and it can skip in a movie so I'm using that. It's not pretty but it does work well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well if u didn't try streaming with subsonic how do u have an opinion. Works great for me streams great except for blueray rips bit rate is a tab large most likely my mobile connection
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BrianDigital said:
Well if u didn't try streaming with subsonic how do u have an opinion. Works great for me streams great except for blueray rips bit rate is a tab large most likely my mobile connection
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I won't donate just to test it but the web interface was worse than what Plex offers and I've tried Plex (was not impressed) so I've just skipped it.
As I've said. The best solution is the one that doesn't require any additional software on my PC. So even though Upnplay is ugly it gets the job done.
P.S.: I have my opinions you have yours so unless don't force your on me and I won't force mine on you. I've compiled a list that would be handy for me a few days ago when I was searching for the same thing and I hope that helps someone. Bickering over trivial stuff sure won't.
root your Iconia
setup nls_utf8 and cifs module
mount cifs share using mount manager
use moboplayer to play all the content
Never had a single problem!
bpivk said:
I won't donate just to test it but the web interface was worse than what Plex offers and I've tried Plex (was not impressed) so I've just skipped it.
As I've said. The best solution is the one that doesn't require any additional software on my PC. So even though Upnplay is ugly it gets the job done.
P.S.: I have my opinions you have yours so unless don't force your on me and I won't force mine on you. I've compiled a list that would be handy for me a few days ago when I was searching for the same thing and I hope that helps someone. Bickering over trivial stuff sure won't.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
whoa buddy don't be so defensive, i was inquiring how you could make an opinion without trying it
bpivk said:
I won't donate just to test it but the web interface was worse than what Plex offers and I've tried Plex (was not impressed) so I've just skipped it.
As I've said. The best solution is the one that doesn't require any additional software on my PC. So even though Upnplay is ugly it gets the job done.
P.S.: I have my opinions you have yours so unless don't force your on me and I won't force mine on you. I've compiled a list that would be handy for me a few days ago when I was searching for the same thing and I hope that helps someone. Bickering over trivial stuff sure won't.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Subsonic is free to try, the app is much more intuitive than the web interface when used on an Android device (the web interface of any program that also provides a native application will be much less intuitive on any platform). I'm not saying there is anything wrong with forming an opinion such as yours, but I will say Subsonic and Plex are two different products, trying one piece of one product and using that as a reason to dismiss another different (and competing) product is just being ignorant. If you want to be ignorant, run with it, but don't ask for peoples advice and opinions and simply dismiss them based on your own ignorance. Or, just don't ask for advice if you aren't willing to listen to it. Oh.. wait, that's right.. this isn't even your thread, troll.
Now, as for the OP, if this is simply to watch inside your own network, things like Subsonic, Plex, etc. are more than what you need. All you really need is what mrvanes outlined, or even just a file manager that supports network shares (like File Manager HD, File Expert, EStrongs, etc). Browse to your media and open it (a good file manager will not require to copy to local first) with the program of your choosing.
nasimdejai said:
hi,is it possible to stream movies wirelessly from a vista laptop onto the a500 through the home network? if yes,how do i set it up? cos i've tried everything
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've been using Buzz Player that reads all shared folders (SAMBA), its not without its problems, but it works for me.
i have tried them all upnp streams every format avi mp4 mkv audio codecs like ac3 stream beautifully..its free and i acess from any network ...

Streamed MKV to Galaxy Tab via DNLA/AllShare

Just posting mainly to get this to the top of Google if anyone else ever does similar searches to me. The Galaxy Tab's AllShare app (so I assume this also holds for the Galaxy S, Vibrant, and all the other devices that are appearing in the "similar threads we found" prompt as I post this) expects MKVs to be supplied with a mimetype of mkv/x-msvideo. If not, whatever DNLA software you're using, you'll get the unsupported format error. I've just spent the day yesterday wading through every DNLA server known to man trying to get streamed MKVs working. The only combination I've found that works is Twonky plus editing its clients.db file to modify the mimetype of MKVs. Once done, streaming MKVs works a treat.
Hope this is useful to someone in the future (probably incoming people from Google!)
I've actually got .mkvs to stream via "VLC Direct", along with VLC open with a web interface. This works over 3g, but depends heavily on your upstream. You can use this program as a VLC remote for your PC too, as well as stream videos from your tab to your PC.
Loccy
you supposed right, I'm in the same situation with a Galaxy s..
I think this is one of the very few features i really miss right now, having Allshare (or similar) capable of streaming mkv's from a server to the phone
Later today i'll try stekum's solution, i will consider paying the pro version if it works just fine, even if it requires a server side software (that's why i still prefer "regular" pc's over nas).
I've also read about PlugPlayer app. I might give it a try, anyone already did?
I don't mind not having a fancy graphic interface, so i tried EsExplorer over LAN, but with no sucess.. anyone knows if there's a player/file browser wich could handle mkv over lan?
Cheers
I had xvid and mkv's streaming over wifi on my network via SMB shares before I wiped and installed my current rom. Now i've got xvid working, but no matter what combo i try mkv's will not stream.. Thinking about going back to stock to see if the same settings work again to stream mkv's. I'm using a combo of file expert + vplayer. rockplayer seems to try and play streaming mkv's.. but it fails at it (will play, but they are unwatchable)
The thing to remember is that the Tab stock ROM, or those based on stock (eg. Overcome) actually have support for hardware decoding of MKVs in the stock player. Anything that is seen as an MKV file is fine - I suspect the internal mimetype for MKVs is the same as AVIs, so that's why SMB works (although I was never able to get my wifi to push data fast enough to the tab to make that combo work). The internal player treats AVIs and MKVs on the local filesystem identically. SMB shares are mounted on the local filesystem, so when you open an MKV, the OS says "ooh, mkv/x-msvideo" and the player says "great, an AVI file, I can play that". Non stock ROMs don't have that MKV support - in fact most Android flavours don't, as I've found recently with a cheaply 10" tab I bought recently to take over the Galaxy as my video device.
When you get into DNLA it's the server that supplies the mimetype for the file. As most DNLA servers supply the "correct" mimetype for MKV AllShare doesn't know recognise the file type, and (incorrectly) reports that it can't play the file. So if you're using DNLA you MUST modify the mimetype the server sends for MKV.
The VLC solution is fine, but is transcoding, so what you're getting is not actually an MKV at all.
Twonky was the only DNLA server I managed to do this with without similarly resorting to transcoding.
Could you guide us please which section of the clients.db did you modify?
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a parse of your clients.db would be awesome, tried changing mimetype for Android and samsung TV (added a mkv line to Android and modded the other) No luck
I'm running twonky on my headless ubuntu server if that means anything
edit:
I changed the media reciever in the webinterface to Android and made the android settings in clients.db look like this:
NA:Android
HH:Android
DB:AUTO
WB:webbrowse-n95
TP:MP4,-relocate_moov
MT:mkv video/x-msvideo
after that i can play most of my mkv files, so i guess i got it working.
Ok, I've tried many solutions and combinations so far in my galaxy s .. nothing worked except for VLC DIRECT, as steckums suggested.
I haven't tried twonky yet though..from what loccy explained i can see it still needs an application running server side... i was hoping for something like allshare..but hey we can't have it all
Thanks Loccy and Psymon for the hint, i'll install twonky on the server and see if it works for me..
p.s. with such a little screen i couldn't notice a big loss of quality when VLC streamed, transcoding, my test movie. Maybe with tabs it is different
braz+ said:
Ok, I've tried many solutions and combinations so far in my galaxy s .. nothing worked except for VLC DIRECT, as steckums suggested.
I haven't tried twonky yet though..from what loccy explained i can see it still needs an application running server side... i was hoping for something like allshare..but hey we can't have it all
Thanks Loccy and Psymon for the hint, i'll install twonky on the server and see if it works for me..
p.s. with such a little screen i couldn't notice a big loss of quality when VLC streamed, transcoding, my test movie. Maybe with tabs it is different
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your in for treat if you can get it working. Simply play the same file one after the other in the respective format and you instantly appreciate that the higher the resolution the crisper and more vibrant the video quality and watchability (not real work I know) regardless off screen size. The only caveat being the original capture equipment used and post production ect.
My question for this in the know is this; my understanding (basic as it may well be) is that mkv can also handle more colours simultaneously and has the ability to display a much larger range overall. Firstly is this correct? Or reserved for vc1 or blueray and the upper echelon of displays? If correct by changing the mime does this, as would be logical, mean the extra bits are ignored as it believes its a simple avi. Also I find 720p HD avi is the happy middle for me and it can be as complicated to achieve good playback and battery life even using these. I think I may just do some research re the mime difference between regular and HD avi... thank you for the tips... most timely considering the impending awesomeness of BOCA v2.0 . Cheers guys..
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Loccy said:
The thing to remember is that the Tab stock ROM, or those based on stock (eg. Overcome) actually have support for hardware decoding of MKVs in the stock player. Anything that is seen as an MKV file is fine - I suspect the internal mimetype for MKVs is the same as AVIs, so that's why SMB works (although I was never able to get my wifi to push data fast enough to the tab to make that combo work). The internal player treats AVIs and MKVs on the local filesystem identically. SMB shares are mounted on the local filesystem, so when you open an MKV, the OS says "ooh, mkv/x-msvideo" and the player says "great, an AVI file, I can play that". Non stock ROMs don't have that MKV support - in fact most Android flavours don't, as I've found recently with a cheaply 10" tab I bought recently to take over the Galaxy as my video device.
When you get into DNLA it's the server that supplies the mimetype for the file. As most DNLA servers supply the "correct" mimetype for MKV AllShare doesn't know recognise the file type, and (incorrectly) reports that it can't play the file. So if you're using DNLA you MUST modify the mimetype the server sends for MKV.
The VLC solution is fine, but is transcoding, so what you're getting is not actually an MKV at all.
Twonky was the only DNLA server I managed to do this with without similarly resorting to transcoding.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'd still be inclined to suggest perhaps its a little more involved than a simple trick like that. To achieve real hardware acceleration you would need to split the streams to be piped to respective chips. 5.1 faux surround soumd and a distinct, noticeable difference in the mkv picture quality being played via CPU vs true gpu and sound card decoding with the rather large differences in battery drain and the sharpness and vivid colours the rest make me really think there is a little sophisticated trickery going on here than meets the eye.
A haalil media splitting like service would also need to know to hand then differently. I think it just plays xvid but like xdva or whatever its obliged to to split the streams for their respective processing chips/centres avoiding CPU usage as an extremely important requirement. Simply the CPU would be more involved in the distribution side in regular stuff than the files like x264 and vc1 which are the gpu/hardware accelerated/decoded files.
Could be wrong here honestly not an expert but that's how I have always broken it down when try to wrap my head around it all.
So sleepy.. prolly oodles of sleeping (heh or even spelling) mistakes but they will have wait to be dealt with at a later date. Any resources that you may know of I'd be interested in learning more too. :-D
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joshuaauger said:
http://code.google.com/p/ps3mediaserver/issues/detail?id=486
Comment #4:
MimeTypesChanges=audio/wav=audio/L16|video/x-matroska=video/avi
Added that to my android.conf on ps3mediaserver. Works for mkv!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Grand will try that, just used mono or vlc for this though and had no issues but always nice to have alternative.
But I end up downloading the file as get great wifi in the house it serves me the best but will definitely try this out next weekend.
Was looking at upgrading the media server in here and transcocing is fine most of the time but.....
HELP!?!?!
Can you put this in stupid plain English??? I'm having the same problem but don't understand how or what to download/change/update... Tx
I know this is old, but as this is the first google result, a hint from the Playback creators, "Samsung TV users have reported mkv streaming working... If you just rename the file .avi instead of .mkv". It's a mime type issue, so just get around it by lying
I worked for me. File didn't play as .mkv, just renamed it. I bet the allshare app can be hacked to fix the mimetype issue, assuming it's in plaintext string, but why bother.
Same for flv videos.

[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.

Options for free streaming video?

What are the best ways to stream video from my linux server to an N7, over the internet?
What are the best websites that stream free video to an N7?
Thanks!
tlc
Bump I'd like to know this too.
Sent from my DROID RAZR using xda premium
I set up MiniDLNA on my Linux Mint box and I'm using BubbleUPnP w/ Dice+plugin on my N7. MiniDLNA is lightweight, doesn't offer any fancy interface stuff and doesn't do transcoding, which is exactly what I wanted. Setup was a snap, and it actually took longer to figure out what ports to allow through the firewall than to get MiniDLNA installed and configured. There is just one config file to modify to tell it where to get at your media and what media types you want to show from that location, and that's pretty much it.
I have it list my movies and TV shows that I have stored (avi, mp4, mkv, etc.) and the N7 plays everything perfectly, even the HD stuff that my SGSII won't do cleanly (unless it's actually on the phone). I haven't tried any 1080 HD video though, just 720p high profile, and that much is working fine for me. This is all for my LAN of course, I probably would have gone with a different solution if I wanted access over the internet (automatic transcoding would really be needed there).
Don't have an answer to your second question though, I'm currently looking for the same info.
Plex
Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2
mtrs said:
I set up MiniDLNA on my Linux Mint box and I'm using BubbleUPnP w/ Dice+plugin on my N7.
...
This is all for my LAN of course, I probably would have gone with a different solution if I wanted access over the internet (automatic transcoding would really be needed there).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks. I clarified my first post to say I'm looking for something that streams my home media over the internet.
Besides the transcoding issue, IIRC, DLNA doesn't serve the WAN without VPN or ssh tunnels, right?
Plex is very good and in terms of the clients is very flexible (I have it running on my old Samsung blu ray player too!)
orcham sanctifier
tee el cee said:
Thanks. I clarified my first post to say I'm looking for something that streams my home media over the internet.
Besides the transcoding issue, IIRC, DLNA doesn't serve the WAN without VPN or ssh tunnels, right?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Right. If over-the-internet is what you need then I agree with everyone else, just go with Plex.
Streaming movies from the web.. Look up Amo Navi-X in the play store.
Have a look at polkast, got it on my NAS and works great.
fridgeman said:
Have a look at polkast, got it on my NAS and works great.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just sent mail to get the beta linux server.
ownCloud is a competitor in this space. Have you compared them?
tee el cee said:
I just sent mail to get the beta linux server.
ownCloud is a competitor in this space. Have you compared them?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No not looked at anything else as Polkast is built into my NAS, and I dont think I can change it
I haven't bought the plex android app yet, but I tried plex with my linux server and a macbook client. For me, it's a big PITA to rename & reorganize my video files and hope that plex matches them correctly. And it's all for a fancy UI that I just want to get past and watch the vids. I may do it eventually though -- some of the streaming plugins look cool. It'd be really cool if I could get that tivo plugin working.
Something I found that works for me today is Air Video. Air Video is designed to serve iOS clients and doesn't advertise a Linux server. But there are server jar files available here and someone rolled an Ubuntu PPA here. And the "Mirage" android client works with it. I've tested with iOS clients and the N7 and it works well for both.
Air Video serving home video to an N7 on the internet.
Pros:
Simple server, Ubuntu PPA.
Serves iOS clients too.
Don't have to rename/reorganize your vids.
Password protected access.
Cons:
Vids only.
Mirage client takes IP address not host name.
For the N7, Air Video may be unnecessarily transcoding to an iOS friendly format.
Basic folder navigation UI.
Give tversity a shot, has a web interface and does transcode if you need it
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app
I also use TVersity, streaming from a Windows PC. We usually watch videos on an Xbox 360 and TVersity seems to work best for that, but it also does a bang-up job with the Nexus 7. I use MediaHouse to discover it and MX Player to play the videos.
The only hitch is that DTS audio does not stream. TVersity transcodes, but I have not looked to see about changing the audio to something else.

Note 2 and Plex: WOW !

I saw a colleague toying with Plex at home, showing off his collection of videos on an Ipad at work (with a few decent black zones... LOL) over the 100 Mbit link we have there...
Well, just installed Plex media server myself on my PC, the Plex client on the Note 2 and it ROCKS !
Yesterday I sat at a coffeecounter in our mall, browsing via 3G, opened my OpenVPN to home and took a moment to view my videos at home in exquisite quality on the Note 2. My wife couldn't help herself seeing the videos and pulled it out my claws to go and watch herself...
Big screen, 16:9, good resolution and speed: all you need... :laugh: :laugh:
Yrcimim said:
I saw a colleague toying with Plex at home, showing off his collection of videos on an Ipad at work (with a few decent black zones... LOL) over the 100 Mbit link we have there...
Well, just installed Plex media server myself on my PC, the Plex client on the Note 2 and it ROCKS !
Yesterday I sat at a coffeecounter in our mall, browsing via 3G, opened my OpenVPN to home and took a moment to view my videos at home in exquisite quality on the Note 2. My wife couldn't help herself seeing the videos and pulled it out my claws to go and watch herself...
Big screen, 16:9, good resolution and speed: all you need... :laugh: :laugh:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why did you have to VPN??? Does Plex not allow for outside access?
I never knew anything about Plex. What a very neat application to have at home and on mobile devices.
Thanks for sharing and I'll definitely be taking advantage of this once T-Mobile's note 2 is released. Thank God for unlmtd 4G data.
Milkman00 said:
Why did you have to VPN??? Does Plex not allow for outside access?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Plex allows everything. It's just that *I* don't allow much: I use my LAN also for home office and as a networkmanager I have too much sensitive client stuff there. But OpenVPN has no human-measurable impact on the speed and a.t.m. you don't even need to root anymore to use it.
A tip: in order to get subtitles working you need to set Direct Play on Disabled in the Advanced Settings of the Plex client on the phone...
Have fun.
Sent from my GT-N7100 using xda app-developers app
Eh, I'll stick with Splashtop. You can view all of your videos, including DVD's burned to your harddrive. With Plex, you cannot.
Just got it set up myself. I really like it plays every video on my computer.
Any idea if it'll be updated for multiwindow?
-BoneZ- said:
Eh, I'll stick with Splashtop. You can view all of your videos, including DVD's burned to your harddrive. With Plex, you cannot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Huh? Do you even know what is or what it's capable of? And I'd like to see you watch a 1080P video on your hard drive over HSPA using SplashTop. I have a terabyte of music, movies, and TV shows on my home server that I can access from anywhere. You can even share libraries with other people using Plex so they can access your stuff and vice versa. There are Plex clients for iOS (desktop and mobile), Windows (desktop and mobile), and Android. I have three Google TV's and stream audio and video from Plex anywhere in the house. It transcodes on slower connections so you can use it on as low as a 3-5MB connection. And as you can see its meta-tagging is unbelievable at indexing and organizing your media. Everyone I know that uses it swears buy it.
http://plexapp.com/
I'm using Plex for last 2 years and it's absolutely awesome and no comparison with any other similar media managers.
1. It's light
2. It's cross platform. You can have server in Mac, Windows, Linux whatever. You have clients in Android, iOS and most importantly and interestiny clients for devices, like Samsung TV, LG TV etc.
3. It's open source project
And so many other things. I have like 10TB of media and I use Plex with my Samsung LED TV, Note 2, Galaxy 10.1 Tab, MacBook Air and it is absolutely fabulous.
Please try it and I guarantee you'll love it.
i tried it and its crap . XBMC is 10 times better.
So this streams films from my PC to my phone?
I love Plex but for some weird reason I can't get stuff unless I am on the same Wifi connection, any idea what I need to change?
I used to use something very similar called Subsonic. Haven't ran it in a loooong time but it didn't support video nearly as well as Plex appears to.
Using a VPN is an easy way to setup a secure connection to your LAN while away from home without opening up ports etc. However not sure I want to jump through those hoops again with Plex and my Note 2. Wonder how hard it is to setup Plex to be open on the net? Hmm I'll look into it. Thanks for pointing out this app though OP. Looks 100x prettier than Subsonic ever was.
Aw lame, just tried installing the PC media server and it requires Bonjour. I hate Apple -_- refuse to install any of their stuff on my machine. Damn, that's a shame. The app looked really nice on Android.
Ok wow nevermind. I said screw it, installed Bonjour and setup the Plex media server. I then went into settings and disabled Bonjour discovery, then uninstalled it from my machine. I then setup Plex on Android and setup a myPlex account. Wow. On 4G right now testing at home, and man I can stream my movies in brilliant quality without any lag or buffer issues. AMAZING. This app owns Subsonic hands down.
Thanks OP!
djashjones said:
i tried it and its crap . XBMC is 10 times better.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Care to elaborate? Maybe a few pros and cons? "It's crap" and "10 times better" aren't very descriptive to people interested in understanding the differences between the multiple approaches to storing, cataloging, and accessing their media.
AjunNg said:
So this streams films from my PC to my phone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
IamPro said:
I love Plex but for some weird reason I can't get stuff unless I am on the same Wifi connection, any idea what I need to change?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll post some newbie tips later...
ok, i tried with my movie/tv/music collection as there is an app on my NAS for it. The scrapping i found was poor compared to xbmc. playback was abit poor on 1080p and the deal breaker was my music. i have loads of compilation albums and it showed up as seperate disks.
tried to find a way of installing a player on my win7 laptop but it seems only the server got installed.
I spent 4 hours playing around with and that was enough for me
djashjones said:
ok, i tried with my movie/tv/music collection as there is an app on my NAS for it. The scrapping i found was poor compared to xbmc. playback was abit poor on 1080p and the deal breaker was my music. i have loads of compilation albums and it showed up as seperate disks.
tried to find a way of installing a player on my win7 laptop but it seems only the server got installed.
I spent 4 hours playing around with and that was enough for me
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
These type of programs try to be easy for an end user to understand, but at the end of the day you really are setting up a streaming server that has a database of files and has to transcode them on the fly. Unless you are very familiar with how these things work, you probably shouldn't be the one to set it up.
Granted once someone who knows what they're doing gets it setup, its easy for an end user to connect and enjoy their files in great quality all over the air. I myself streamed Star Wars in 720p with really high bitrate over 4G yesterday and had no hiccups. And that's not even on my Note 2, it was on my Thunderbolt that struggles to play 360p videos on Youtube. So the program and buffering IS efficient and quality, it just requires the proper setup.
As for music goes, I am a little concerned. My Thunderbolt apparently doesn't support WMA music files, and since most of my audio collection is just that, I am sorta screwed. Hoping my Note 2 which is out for delivery as we speak, has some form of WMA reading capability or else that's that
DaRkL3AD3R said:
These type of programs try to be easy for an end user to understand, but at the end of the day you really are setting up a streaming server that has a database of files and has to transcode them on the fly. Unless you are very familiar with how these things work, you probably shouldn't be the one to set it up.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
^^^^^
This.
For Plex to metatag and display everything correctly your files and folders have to be organized and structured a certain way. It was a huge pain in the ass and took me several days to rename and reorganize my media initially so Plex could tag it. I didn't have to, but I wanted the UI to look pretty, clean, and professional so I made the commitment. Anything I added after the one-time organization was easy because I new the naming convention and structure to use. In a way, Plex made me more disciplined about how I stored my media which wasn't a bad thing.
djashjones said:
The scrapping i found was poor compared to xbmc.
i have loads of compilation albums and it showed up as seperate disks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can manually tag stuff that wasn't found properly via Media Manager on the server side. It's not perfect but it's no less perfect than other PC and Android taggers I've used.
playback was abit poor on 1080p
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Odd. It shouldn't be over a fast connection if Direct Play's enabled. It only transcodes when it detects buffering and even then adjusts up if the signal improves.
and the deal breaker was my music.. tried to find a way of installing a player on my win7 laptop but it seems only the server got installed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Their website's not the most intuitive. A lot of people mistake the Media Server for Media Center which is the client. Here's the link to the client if you ever want to try again.
http://plex.r.worldssl.net/plex-laika/0.9.5.4/Plex-Media-Center-v3213059-en-US.exe
People should use what works best for them and for you that seems like XBMC. Like DaRkL3AD3R said, getting Plex and your media files set up initially is a chore. Friends ooh and ah when the see Plex on my devices and want it too. When I tell them what's entailed they get less enthusiastic. That's why it's great to have so many different choices.
Would love to get this to work....be VERY nice to stream my vast move collection right to my note 2. I played with it a few hours with different settings and it still stutters the playback every few seconds. My wi-fi streams netflix fine...(scratch head).
Well good news. Got my Note 2 today and setup Plex on it, and success: I was able to stream WMA music files without error.
Back on my Thunderbolt I would get an invalid file type error. It just couldn't play them.
DaRkL3AD3R said:
Back on my Thunderbolt I would get an invalid file type error. It just couldn't play them.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
HTC does funky things to their video and audio players that deviate from stock and Plex craps out because the files it's looking for aren't in the correct system directory. I briefly had a Jetstream and couldn't get it to work and Plex support was kind of baffled by what HTC was doing based on the logcat I sent them. Plex worked great on my One X so I'm guessing their newer devices are following standards.
I tried plex on my ipad and it worked great with my htpc. However, now that xbmc has come for Android, I doubt I'll use plex again, simply because of how efficient networking, scraping and syncing between platforms work in xbmc. And of course because the rest of my million boxes all run xbmc
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