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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 have searched high and low... this is crazy. I have my entire DVD collection ripped from DVDfab to VOB format and it works great with VLC player, WD Live tv, etc. I copy the movie I want to my Xoom and no player will play the friggin files. Some of the players will play the first VOB file, then just die out. Never making it to the next one.
I really do not want to convert or pay for a coverter to switch to MP4 formats...
What players have you tried so far?
Just about every single video player in the marketplace. Rocketplayer, vplayer, doubletwist, etc. I just found a VOB merger.
http://beginwithsoftware.com/videoguides/joinvobfilestool.html
Merging hot tub time machine right now and see how it goes.
I have vob's too..i just used Total Video Converter to convert mine to mp4 ..you have to pay for it but im sure there might be some free converters out there.
It seems like it is soooo close to working by default with Rockplayer or Vplayer. Its like the same mess I went through with WDLIVE box to get to play videos.. finally it works great now. I really do not want to convert and take up that time....
This might be a dumb question, but did you try changing the extension to .mpg?
It won't solve the finding-the-next file problem, but at least they might play?
It does actually somewhat play. I have the Black Knight and it has a fairly large VOB file and on my xoom, it spits it out perfectly through HDMI using RocketPlayer. But once that VOB is done.. it craps out.
Try Moboplayer.
Yeah, no love from mobo either. Its seems so easy.. but I guess not... Its like I just turned the hands of video playing back 12 months to my WDlive box and everyone trying to get it to work as well.
Your problem stems from the weird way you chose to store your videos. Ripped videos are usually converted to MPEG4--ASP (DivX) for older stuff, AVC (H264) for current stuff. Most players therefor are designed for MPEG4, not MPEG2, and not the VOB container.
Your method was OK for the PC because it has a mature software ecosystem, and lots of available players. On mobile devices, you get hit by a double whammy of hardware restrictions and limited software. Most every current Android player is using ffmpeg lib, meaning no HW accel. HW accel will come for Android, but not for MPEG2. Online videos are all using MPEG4 AVC nowaday.
If you want to stick with VOBs, then buy a tablet geared for PMP use. The Archos Gen8 currently can play VOBs, as are a host of no-name Asian tabs. Chinese & Korean vendors have a long PMP history, and typically have strong video support. Their downside, for now, is no HC and low build quality.
Versatile media playing is one of the "Killer" features that Honeycomb should have had from the outset as it one of the obvious features that Android tablets could beat the iPad on hands down.
Research has already shown that a lot of tablet use is made at home and the large screen is perfect for media playing. MPEG2 and VOBS have been around a long time and when a low powered WDTV media player or an Archos can handle a wide range of audio and video formats it seems perverse that Android users are having to wait for these features.
Honeycomb needs to be able to play just about any video or audio format thrown at it. Google/Honeycomb needs features like this to demonstrate an obvious advantage over other tablets and "Chinese" media players.
The more that a Honeycomb tablet can do, the more successful they will be. To my mind it's just the sort of thing the public and the press would see as a major "plus" factor. Why should one have to buy a number of separate devices when one device could do them all?
I have read that the VLC media player is being ported to Android so we can live in hope but it really should have been in Honeycomb as a native feature from day one.
A native way to save and/or print a web page should also have been a "native" feature as well as a screencap feature - at least this last feature is included on the Asus Transformer so there is hope!
I'd need to check but maybe a way around this would be to setup a playlist and play each VOB in sequence? I think, but again I'd need to check, that Moboplayer has the ability for playlists...
Sure, HC should have any number of things. It should've been finished. But it isn't.
Consumers always want things done yesterday. The reality is that software development always lags. Rather than dwelling on the "shouldas", IMO it's more productive to focus on what is, and plan your decisions accordingly.
Lack of MPEG2/AC3 support isn't a matter of power. It's a matter of licensing. Many product decisions are made on business reality (read: $ cost), and not what's technically feasible. Most videos nowaday use MPEG4, and that's where the demand lies. Like it or not, VOB/MPEG2 viewing is a niche need. Those used to the PC's abundance in software will have to recalibrate their expectations for Android.
I dont think its a honeycomb issue. I think there is not a player out there to handle VOBs correctly because there has not been a device to come even close to being able to play the hi-res video files. Xoom can do it. I have said before somewhere, if I have a single VOB such as the Dark Knight, it plays awesome on my Xoom and through HDMI out to my TV.. (streaming no less from my WD 1tb NAS drive). It really works.. to me, its a player issue and nobody has made a player to play multiple VOB files. Id pay $20 or $30 had a player to make all my current ripped dvds work on the xoom.
and to top it off, MPEG4 stinks. I "converted" a VOB using one of the bazillion convertor software programs out there and it shows up on my xoom fine, but looks like crap compared to the VOB
Suggest you try a good converter. There's a reason why the whole computing world is using MPEG4. For a no-brainer converter that can do drag-drop batch processing (so you can do all your vids in one go), try HandBrake with my automated script.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=978529
Can I have this convert my existing VOBs? Or do I need to go back to the DVDs and do this?
I tried a convertor and it took about 2 hours.. insane.
The script accept folders as input. Each folder should hold a movie, and should have the VIDEO_TS.IFO file (this contains the stream info), along with the VOBs.
Yes, depending on your system speed, it will take a while. That's why there is batch processing. You drop 5-10 movies onto the script, and let it run overnight.
Speed is set at medium as default. For about 30-50% faster processing, at the cost of about 10% size increase, edit script and change speed to 'veryfast'.
I would recommend arcMedia player, after trying Buzz, MX, Mobo and Rockplayer I can say that arcMedia player handled this (megaupload. com/?d=O7ZMO5GK) video file the best so far.
If you turn off "skipping frames" at Buzz, video is being played with hanging / freezees, although CPU isn't being overloaded.
Other players just don't play ac3 audio properly.
give it a try to understand what I mean.
I have all of my Videos in VOB format also. when I convert these movies to MPEG4 is there a way to save all of the DVD features like subtitles, menus, and extras?
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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Click to collapse
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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Click to collapse
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.
Objective:A consolidated post listing multiple ways to stream videos from desktop to SGT 10.1. Contains answers to 4 questions
1) Best DLNA App?
2) Best Video Player that can play files over the network or one AllShare or DLNA app can use?
3) How to encode files to view them over SGT?
4) DLNA Server serving video files from desktop
Solution1 (cnewsgrp)
3) This thread says that SGT with 3.1 can play high profile natively. The encoding instructions are great
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1060825
4) I use Tversity and it works well. Any other suggestions are welcome.
Solution2: paua__
1) :get UPnPlay, which you use to browse the videos you want to stream
2) paua__ : DICE Player is (AFAIK) the only mediaplayer which utilizes Hardware Acceleration to process those heavy HD files. It eats .mkv for breakfast.
Solution3: oreo
1) 2) 4) VLC Direct.
it streams everything from your PC via VLC's built in web interface, and you can browse through all your files in your computer all with just 1 app. As an added bonus, it can REVERSE stream FROM my TAB to the PC (which is hooked up to my HDTV), I find this very useful when I want to show something quick on my big screen to my guests (like photos and vidoes that i JUST took). and you can fine tune the stream quality with settings in the app. oh and there's also virtually no limit on the number of formats/codecs it can handle, if your VLC player on the PC can play it, everything can be streamed to the Tab.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Solution4: jastop
Still tweaking this setup, but it works well for the SGT, Xoom, HTC phones (and the i*'s also)
* Windows Media Center 7 Host
* 2 WD TB hard drives
* Ceton InfiniTv 4 channel digital cable card tuner
* Verizon FIOS (all shows set to copy freely!)
* Remote Potato (Provides Windows Media Center Interface on Mobile and Desktops)
* MCBUDDY (Beta 18) - Transcodes recorded shows to smaller file, more mobile friendly format
* ES File Explorer - Can browse the Media Center hard disk wireless, and launch recorded TV, Movies and home videos in the player of choice. Also can use to copy a video to the device for offline watching
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My goal is the opposite of cluttering XDA with another video thread. I will take time to compose good information in my first post. for that to succeed you experts must provide me good usable information in replies .
Solution4: BarryH_GEG: Plex
1) DLNA App: Plex for Android, AllShare
3) How to encode files to view them over SGT?DVDFab, CoreAVC
4) DLNA Server: Plex Media Server
First off, get UPnPlay, which you use to browse the videos you want to stream.
Then BUY the DICE Player, which then will play the file tou select with UPnPlay.
DICE Player is (AFAIK) the only mediaplayer which utilizes Hardware Acceleration to process those heavy HD files. It eats .mkv for breakfast.
I assume you have already activated file sharing on your computer for your media files?
paua__ said:
First off, get UPnPlay, which you use to browse the videos you want to stream.
Then BUY the DICE Player, which then will play the file tou select with UPnPlay.
DICE Player is (AFAIK) the only mediaplayer which utilizes Hardware Acceleration to process those heavy HD files. It eats .mkv for breakfast.
I assume you have already activated file sharing on your computer for your media files?
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Click to collapse
Thanks. Comments added to first post. I will test this in about a week after I get my SGT.
After using tversity, now I use ps3 media server to share everything on my xbox360 ( for watching movies on the TV ) and on my GT10.1. You don't need to build a library and it can handle mkv ( It was not possible with Tversity in the past, I don't know now. ?)
I use an alternate method, VLC Direct. it streams everything from your PC via VLC's built in web interface, and you can browse through all your files in your computer all with just 1 app. As an added bonus, it can REVERSE stream FROM my TAB to the PC (which is hooked up to my HDTV), I find this very useful when I want to show something quick on my big screen to my guests (like photos and vidoes that i JUST took). and you can fine tune the stream quality with settings in the app. oh and there's also virtually no limit on the number of formats/codecs it can handle, if your VLC player on the PC can play it, everything can be streamed to the Tab.
Works in the house and on the road
Still tweaking this setup, but it works well for the SGT, Xoom, HTC phones (and the i*'s also)
Windows Media Center 7 Host
2 WD TB hard drives
Ceton InfiniTv 4 channel digital cable card tuner
Verizon FIOS (all shows set to copy freely!)
Remote Potato (Provides Windows Media Center Interface on Mobile and Desktops)
MCBUDDY (Beta 18) - Transcodes recorded shows to smaller file, more mobile friendly format
ES File Explorer - Can browse the Media Center hard disk wireless, and launch recorded TV, Movies and home videos in the player of choice. Also can use to copy a video to the device for offline watching
Before Google acquired SageTV I was looking at using it as the media center component, but for now it seems to be lost in acquisition limbo. The advantage it had was it didn't record in Microsoft's WMV format, it maintained the native MPEG2 encoding used by FIOS. Transcoding was much easier, and mostly unnecessary.
I use qloud media. If you beef up the bandwidth settings, it gives you good viewing experience. You have to run a separate server app on your desktop. Also both the client and the srvr versions are under constant development. I used to use air video on my ipod touch, and always felt tailored app just for the device always gives the perfect experience.
Hey. I am about the buy the G Tab 10.1. As my DVD is died I want to use the Tab for streaming videos to my HDTV. How it handles it? The videos are running smoothly?
I've streamed a few to my ps3 and worked great no issues
Careful!
When it comes to video FAR TOO MANY people talk about successes with the tab in generalities. If you want a specific answer then ask a specific question, as in describe specifically what video formats you want to play, where they are to be played from and what they are to be sent to.
Tegra 2 chipset tabs have limited hardware decoding support so don't expect any tablet to be able to play every file you throw at it that you download from the internet.
The way you formulated your question so far its unclear which online services you want to stream or if your source is a shared network drive. Either wary it is unknown what formats you want to play. My first reaction is buy a Roku or something for your TV media needs and only get a tab for what its truly designed for.
muzzy996 said:
Careful!
When it comes to video FAR TOO MANY people talk about successes with the tab in generalities. If you want a specific answer then ask a specific question, as in describe specifically what video formats you want to play, where they are to be played from and what they are to be sent to.
Tegra 2 chipset tabs have limited hardware decoding support so don't expect any tablet to be able to play every file you throw at it that you download from the internet.
The way you formulated your question so far its unclear which online services you want to stream or if your source is a shared network drive. Either wary it is unknown what formats you want to play. My first reaction is buy a Roku or something for your TV media needs and only get a tab for what its truly designed for.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
excellent answer. The tab is not an all purpose device. You are better off with Roku for streaming to tv
Sent from my Nexus S 4G using Tapatalk
I would like to stream HD MKV format movies, but I will use ordinary low resolution AVI files.
Still only part of the information needed but enough to say you should tread carefully.
To relieve you from having to confess where they're from (LOL) I will say this; if you're encoding your own specifically for this device to play you can adjust your encoding settings to target a specific supported setup for things to play beautifully. It's not hard to do (stick with 720p format, H.264 high profile with B-Frames, CABAC, 8x8 transform and P-frames turned OFF).
If on the other hand you're downloading video randomly off of the internet in MKV format then you will hit some that works and some that doesn't. 1080p stuff that's freely available on torrent sites? Forget it.
TV shows off of EZTV in AVI format (xvid/divx) play wonderfully in Dice Player on the tablet.
Bottom line? You're better off with something like a Roku, Boxee Box or WD Live Streaming Media Player. By the way, each seems to have some support for applications on phone/tablet to control them remotely.
For those with the budget, it's nice to have a dedicated HTPC that also serves as a media server. I'm running Plex on mine to stream movies/shows from it's HDD to my tablet. I run Boxee on it but haven't experimented much with remote control of Boxee using a mobile device yet. My other TV in my apartment has a WD Live on it that pulls the media off of the HTPC so the HTPC serves not only as my playback device for my main TV but as a media server for all my mobile devices and TVs.
Don't get me wrong, these things can play media well, but I'm not going to haphazardly guide you into the belief that they'll play anything you throw at them with simple answers. Those of us who understand what they can do simply adjusted how we do things quickly to meet the specs of the devices and never looked back. I love my tab for media playback on the go.
I'd get a PS3 for your media streaming needs, it plays pretty much any file (MKV's can be handled with PS3Media Server or MKV2VOB) and you also get an awesome games console and Blu-Ray player.