Database Develop

Stream music and video from NAS?

I am new to Android and have only had my Nexus One since March but what I really miss about Windows Mobile devices is the ability to stream music and video from my network drive. I find it mind boggling that this feature which has been available on WM devices for every is still not possible on Android devices. Is it not possible to map a drive with Android so that the built on media player would be able to play music and video without having to download the file first?
Would appreciate and thought or comments on this.
Thanks,

I searched all night last night for a solution too. A lot of file explorers can map network drive but none of the media player can stream the videos (had to download, lack of codec etc). Eventually I had to setup tversity on my desktop, map the network drive on my desktop and stream video/audio through tversity's web flash interface (you can use track ball to control the interface). It's not pretty but it plays everything so far.

Get the app HomePipe there's a free and pay version.
I'm using the Free version and you can stream MP3s from your pc to android wifi or 3g.
You can add network shares from your nas too.
Bad thing is, you can only listen to the mp3 you select, if you want to queue up or look up other files, music stops. I'm only using free version, so i don't know if pro is any better.
As for videos. I have no idea.
I had an iPhone 3GS for 10 months before i went back to Android... and Air Video was freaking amazing. Wished Android had something similar.

I am new to Android and have only had my Nexus One since March but what I really miss about Windows Mobile devices is the ability to stream music and video from my network drive. I find it mind boggling that this feature which has been available on WM devices for every is still not possible on Android devices. Is it not possible to map a drive with Android so that the built on media player would be able to play music and video without having to download the file first?
Would appreciate and thought or comments on this.
Thanks,
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would really like to know that as well, specially over 3G..
If you have QNAP NAS you can stream .mp4 videos with QNAP APP.
This is my prob. from another thread:
Stream video over internet from QNAP to SAMSUNG GALAXY S 2.
Postby Freeman111 » Fri May 18, 2012 6:33 pm
I want to stream my videos over the Internet.
I have tried the following:
Rooted the phone.
Installed WEBDAV apps so I can get access to my Qnap and see the files (videos) BUT I can't stream them. All the video players I have tried come up with some kind of error.
However I can stream .mp4 videos using Qnaps APP QMOBILE, however it can't locate my .avi videos so thats not good. But I don't understand why I can't use WEBDAV like on
an iPhone.
I have heard of mounting folders using CIFS MANAGER, but does it also work outside your local network so you can stream movies over the internet?
And what port shall I use for CIFS manager?
Any suggestions are welcome.

yet another video thread...

what I've tried...
-rockplayer 1.6.3
-qqplayer
-vplayer (unlocked)
-vital player
What I watch..
-mostly divx avis haven't bothered trying nor do i care about mkvs at this point
ideally, where I would play video from nfs/cifs mounted storage
-cifs is working via cifs manager
what I've noticed
-rockplayer doesn't want to play anything
-qqplayer plays things but its choppy
-vplayer doesnt want to play anything either
- vital player cant play anything outside of /sdcard and doesnt play anything.
by doesnt work i mean i see the file in the player, i select it, either nothing happens or it appears to load and just closes the app. (yes software decode mode)
as a side note I've also noticed adb push file.avi /sdcard is much slower than my old 32gb class2 microsd card in my evo, and slower than the internal 16gb storage in my nexus s. (1266 KB/s (732659712 bytes in 565.100s))
anyone else having as much trouble as I?

My avi's play fine with rockplayer universal
Sent from my Xoom using XDA Premium App

You know whats strange? This device can handle the mkv format just fine.. whereas my gtab cannot.. yet plays avi's without any issues what so ever.

My m4vs, at first, will blank with weird rainbow lines for first few seconds but play terrific on RockPlayer afterward. Every time I select a m4v file.
Didn't try other formats such as avi, mkv, wmv, ogg, etc.
Tried VPlayer Unlocker, QQPlayer, all no good.
I'm looking forward to either VLC or CorePlayer which I think will hit first, on twitter, it's said to be expected to go out by middle of this month. Let's hope.

i dont know why, but every time i try to load an MKV file onto my xoom, windows explorer crashes. anyone else have this problem?

Blades said:
You know whats strange? This device can handle the mkv format just fine.. whereas my gtab cannot.. yet plays avi's without any issues what so ever.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But do you get audio?
Here's what I've found:

I suppose it depends on the audio that's muxed in. AAC should work in place of AC3 - downmixed to stereo. Though I actually haven't tried multichannel aac, I doubt it would work out correctly. Question is, do dts and ac3 pass thru work (thru HDMI)
Sent from my HTC HD2 using Tapatalk

I stated this in another post for video, so here goes again.
PLEX
I am working with the Android devs for Plex right now as a beta tester. At this very moment he is working on the video subsystem. Once the kinks are ironed out the next update will be pushed to the market.
I dont know about you, but I dont like having to encode my movies into another format just so I can watch them on my phone/tablet. Also having a collection closing in on 1000 movies makes that even more of a pain. I like the idea of having a server at home push my movies, NO MATTER the format to my phone/tablet.
Plex on my Nexus S looks near perfect, and there is early work being done to improve the video quality.
If I had to take a guess I would say the public is about two weeks or less away from an update that enables playback on the Xoom. Even better the interface will be tweaked to take advantage of the screen size and Tegra chip after that.
I will post in the forum the moment the official release goes live for our new toy.

[Q] DLNA Divx/Xvid playback

I am trying to stream my anime using DLNA BubbleUPNP. My computer is running PS3 Media Server because its been a reliable DLNA server for me for quite some time on many different platforms. It is hosting over a terabyte of anime.
I am having issues with divx/xvid playback strangely. All my videos that require hardware acceleration (1080p h264s) work fine but older encodes using divx/xvid in an AVI/MKV container do not work. I've tried MX Video, dice player, rock player, and bs player. Only BS Player would seem to actually render the videos at all but it strangely cuts to the middle of the video.
I watch tons of anime so pretty much my older anime episodes do not work but newer ones do. I am running the latest CM9 nightly (3/29). Well any insights would be helpful. I would think any recent player would play my old anime without a problem but it just freezes and crashes. Sometimes it would play audio before it does that.
Sorry if this is in the wrong forums and I haven't had much luck finding an answer while searching.

Problem solved.
I am not entirely sure what I did but I did a few changes to the ps3 media server client and fixed everything. It may have been related to me changing the number of transcoding cores to 4 instead of 8. It somehow thought I had 8 cores. I also added avi to the streaming extensions of the Android.conf in rendered and that may have done something. (I actually dont know what that did but I just wanted to try)
So it seems I am able to use Dice Player, BS Player, and MX Video to watch my videos now. BS Player seems to be the most reliable but all the players seem very fickle. Dice player likes to try HW acceleration on everything then crashes. BS Player knows when to switch between SW and HW so it seems to be the most compatible. I really don't like BS Player because I can't seem scroll through the video which is pretty bad. I've also noticed my video stops for no reason after a while which is frustrating too.
I would like to know if anyone has a better setup with a particular combination that works for them best.

I'm also using Bubble pnp, but with TVersity and also Samsung's All Share. Both seam to work, though All share adds metadata to all your media files for thumbnail generation. So if you have a large library, it takes a while to generate the extra files the first time you start the program. but having thumbnail previews is really nice.
I've also been using Dice player, but on a different tablet without any issues on most formats. I'll try it out on my TP and see if I can get it to work.

One thing I've done, which is probably something you might wanna consider at some point if you plan on continuing to stream, is doing a permanent transcode of your video files. Handbrake is a free tool that allows you to transcode almost anything into almost anything else, and it has an Android setting. I really like how that works, personally. I have all of my video files (TV series, anime, movies, etc.) all transcoded into M4V files, and they all play gorgeously on everything - my PS3, my ATV2G, my tablet, my phone. Beats the crap out of the AVI files, and they're slightly smaller, too. H264 is the way to go, and this changes everything to work great for that. You can even soft-code and hard-code subs into the shows if you want.
As I said, my favourite part of all this is the files are universally accepted on everything. My TP, my Android phone (running CM7), my PS3, my ATV2G, my dad's iPhone, everything.

Hah, I am firmly against re-encoding all my anime because I have a lot and it just bothers me when I change things from its original format.
I wish these DLNA browsers software like skifta and bubbleupnp were more customizeable in their UI. They all function perfectly fine but sometimes I want to try some different layout once in a while. I can see thumbnails fine for everything but I think it would be better if there were more modern 3d effects to sort of flip through all my anime playing small clips. Overall, I really have no complaints of my set up and have just minor stability issues with certain anime encodings.

Using ES File Explorer and MX Player, I can stream XviD flawlessly with no transcoding of any kind. 720p MKV mostly the same. 1080p does naturally buffer quite a bit due to the high bit rate.

My PS3 media server method has stopped working for whatever reason . It seems anything with mencoder avi files just crashes any chance for playback for some reason.
I've looked into SMB file sharing via ES File Explorer + MX Video player but for some reason everything refuses to even run. I can browse my windows shares fine but I can't play anything. It actually worked at one point but I am not sure what changed. Streaming my anime seems so fickle.
I've tried using TVersity + BubblePNP and everything also worked flawlessly at one point. Then TVersity refuses to even load itself and crashes right away. This is getting a little sad.
I've tried Windows Media Center and shared my videos but it magically refuses to show all my folders containing only mkv and ogm files. These are apparently unsupported formats so they won't even show up in my bubbleupnp browser. Somehow everything that did show up worked perfectly.
I've tried and gotten a lot of different ways to work...but somehow it magically just stops working. I am hoping someone has like some magic bullet solution to all of this. As of now I can only play stuff that are hardware accelerated. Maybe I shouldn't be so stubborn about re-encoding all my anime but I really like it the way it is now lol.

Has anyone tried Serviio? I'm getting ready to upgrade my home file server and was searching for solutions when this popped up.
It seems to support transcoding and the like but would be interested in informed opinions if any are available.
ByteWrencher

So I reinstalled TVersity a few times and now it mysteriously works like a charm. I really like it now. Seems to reliably play all my stuff fine. The really cool part is I can host my files online and access it while away from home as long as my computer is on.
I also tried Serviio. It seems to really surprisingly well also. Its a little bit user unfriendly without a default GUI. I just used the Serviidroid app to configure the Serviio server so its fine now. I think its actually pretty good. I guess it lacks the polish of more mainstream programs but it seems to do the job just fine. I'll have to play around more to see if it chokes on anything.
For now I hope TVersity is my last stop because it seems to work pretty well when it works.

Sony Movies - any good?

Which file formats are supported by Sony Movies? It can not play popular movie file formats, it seems.
Any recommendations for a better alternative? I am not looking for one which has the most features or the fanciest, but easy of use, low resources usage, and popular file formats support.

All right, I found this somewhere: MP4/H.263/H.264/WMV player.
It does not play my *.wmv. My version is 5.0.A.08. I'll try another one.

I find movies plays all my files, however, you can try
MXPlayer
or
VLC player

I settled for the VLC player. Thanks! After I installed it, it recognized and played my video files instantly and before even rebooting,

VLC
So I found that VLC is called a beta but it works actually reliable. It plays not only videos but also music. It has a real interface which is similar to many other newer Android apps, and it has real settings, such as to define the media directories. I hope the release edition will not go the way of a heavy pig, as some other Android apps did.
Deleted Movies and Walkman from my phone.
Thanks again for the advice, Greg. Getting more familiar with things.

Are they really H.264/MPEG-4 files?

First of all I know this section is for the Cromecast and all my MP4 video play using it with Avia.
If you happen to have a DLNA TV when you cast from Avia you’ll see your TV as an option. Back some time ago I decided to try it and all my videos would try to play but an “unsupported video format” message would appear.
I dropped a message to Avia Tech support but never heard from them till about a week or so ago. After a bunch of emails back/forth, they found a Samsung Smart TV in their office. They tried it and found most but not all videos played and received the same error as I did.
I then asked them to try BubbleUPnP with Avia since all my videos play this way. They tried it and although a few more played some still didn’t meaning that BubbleUPNp does some transcoding and Avia just passes the file as is. So even Avia Tech Support has MP4's that a certain device doesn't like!
Okay the problem seems to be the Samsung Smart TV but it brings up the point that not all MP4’s are created equal even though I used HandBrake which is what Avia Tech Support suggests to use.
BTW- My TV has the latest firmware. The Samsung DLNA app used by the TV is called AllShare. It later was changed to AllShare Play and recently Samsung Link. Now Samsung Link/AllShare Play is available in the Play Store but shows to not compatible with my Nexus 10. I don’t know what’s included in the newer Samsung Smart TV’s or if it’s still called AllShare or not.

wptski said:
Okay the problem seems to be the Samsung Smart TV but it brings up the point that not all MP4’s are created equal even though I used HandBrake which is what Avia Tech Support suggests to use.
BTW- My TV has the latest firmware. The Samsung DLNA app used by the TV is called AllShare. It later was changed to AllShare Play and recently Samsung Link. Now Samsung Link/AllShare Play is available in the Play Store but shows to not compatible with my Nexus 10. I don’t know what’s included in the newer Samsung Smart TV’s or if it’s still called AllShare or not.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh yes, very true!
The same holds for MPEG-2. DVD uses MPEG-2, but it uses a specific range of parameters - left alone to mess with all the available settings it's easy to create non-DVD-compliant MPEG-2, just as it's easy to create non-Chromecast-compliant MPEG-4, non-iPod-compliant MPEG-4 audio, etc.
It's a lot like clothes - simply knowing it's "Men's dress shirt" is not enough to know it will fit.
Even knowing it's "Large men's dress shirt" won't guarantee a fit.
Short of trying it on, you need to get the measurements.
I think on my phone the AllShare stuff is now called Samsung Hub, except for the actual playback function, which is still called AllShare Play, as opposed to AllShare Cast. *shrug*

wptski said:
First of all I know this section is for the Cromecast and all my MP4 video play using it with Avia.
If you happen to have a DLNA TV when you cast from Avia you’ll see your TV as an option. Back some time ago I decided to try it and all my videos would try to play but an “unsupported video format” message would appear.
I dropped a message to Avia Tech support but never heard from them till about a week or so ago. After a bunch of emails back/forth, they found a Samsung Smart TV in their office. They tried it and found most but not all videos played and received the same error as I did.
I then asked them to try BubbleUPnP with Avia since all my videos play this way. They tried it and although a few more played some still didn’t meaning that BubbleUPNp does some transcoding and Avia just passes the file as is. So even Avia Tech Support has MP4's that a certain device doesn't like!
Okay the problem seems to be the Samsung Smart TV but it brings up the point that not all MP4’s are created equal even though I used HandBrake which is what Avia Tech Support suggests to use.
BTW- My TV has the latest firmware. The Samsung DLNA app used by the TV is called AllShare. It later was changed to AllShare Play and recently Samsung Link. Now Samsung Link/AllShare Play is available in the Play Store but shows to not compatible with my Nexus 10. I don’t know what’s included in the newer Samsung Smart TV’s or if it’s still called AllShare or not.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same issue here. Even though I transcode:
mp4 container
h264 codec
high profile (4.1)
I still can't direct play. I have no idea what i'm missing but according to "the google" these are the parameters that a file needs for CC compatibility.

sherdog16 said:
Same issue here. Even though I transcode:
mp4 container
h264 codec
high profile (4.1)
I still can't direct play. I have no idea what i'm missing but according to "the google" these are the parameters that a file needs for CC compatibility.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Exactly what behavior do you see when you cast the a video from Avia?

sherdog16 said:
Same issue here. Even though I transcode:
mp4 container
h264 codec
high profile (4.1)
I still can't direct play. I have no idea what i'm missing but according to "the google" these are the parameters that a file needs for CC compatibility.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You forgot to note the Audio codec...
AAC(Both HE and and LC), CELT/OPUS, Vorbis or MP3 are the only Audio codecs supported by CCast.
If it is stereo MP3 is fine, If it is surround then AAC is required.
I think you may have gotten the video side right but did not get the Audio correct and thats why it won't play on the CCast.
Samsung if I'm not mistaken uses Mediaplay for Video It should play AAC just fine.

Why did Google choose Avia anyway? Theres loads of better media players for android.

The S3 Kid said:
Why did Google choose Avia anyway? Theres loads of better media players for android.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not sure what the selection process was for who got to play with the yet-unreleased SDK, but the developer also had to have shown interest in supporting Chromecast, so likely it was both sides.
Probably Google saw enough interest to deem their participation and feedback beneficial to the SDK development process.

The S3 Kid said:
Why did Google choose Avia anyway? Theres loads of better media players for android.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It was probably more aVia chose them and not the other way around...
I know they worked with Plex developers directly.
aVia may have been the only local file player other than Real Player to show any interest.
Most of the best players are one Developer driven products and didn't show interest when Google asked for people interested.

One of the things mentioned by Avia Tech Support was that Avia came installed on some Google TVs. They had asked what app was on my Samsung Smart TV.

bhiga said:
Exactly what behavior do you see when you cast the a video from Avia?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Most stuff just said unsupported format. However, I took a fresh rip and encoded a test and it worked so I think I may have gotten it. And to the other poster, I'm pretty sure it was aac audio I was selecting
Sent from my SCH-I545 using xda app-developers app

So i just wanted to update:
I'm finding that some videos that say "Unsupported Format blah blah blah" that I try to play from my phone will play fine when transferred to the laptop and shared through windows media center. The kicker is that some videos aren't showing up in Avia when dropped in the same spot as everything else. Note: The machine is a netbook with Windows 7 and only a 1.33Ghz dual core so it's not transcoding anything.
Even more strange; when i try to play the same movie through my plex server on said netbook with the paid plexpass android app, it then attempts to transcode and fails horribly with buffering every 2 seconds. I'm finding that playing local content with Chromecast has a TON of "ifs and buts". Basically, it's all very simple if you have a powerful desktop, but not so easy for those of us on a budget... which i think is most of the people who bought the CC, due to the price point.
So if I can just get Windows Media Center to show all my converted movies, which I can't, I'll be fine. IDK, I just felt like venting my frustrations with this whole venture. Back at it tonight i suppose.

sherdog16 said:
So i just wanted to update:
I'm finding that some videos that say "Unsupported Format blah blah blah" that I try to play from my phone will play fine when transferred to the laptop and shared through windows media center. The kicker is that some videos aren't showing up in Avia when dropped in the same spot as everything else. Note: The machine is a netbook with Windows 7 and only a 1.33Ghz dual core so it's not transcoding anything.
Even more strange; when i try to play the same movie through my plex server on said netbook with the paid plexpass android app, it then attempts to transcode and fails horribly with buffering every 2 seconds. I'm finding that playing local content with Chromecast has a TON of "ifs and buts". Basically, it's all very simple if you have a powerful desktop, but not so easy for those of us on a budget... which i think is most of the people who bought the CC, due to the price point.
So if I can just get Windows Media Center to show all my converted movies, which I can't, I'll be fine. IDK, I just felt like venting my frustrations with this whole venture. Back at it tonight i suppose.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not sure if WMC tries to conform things for XBOX/UPnP compliance or not... We'll assume it doesn't though.
Sounds like Plex is just being hampered by poor transcoding performance. Netbooks tend not to fare well with high-performance tasks, especially CODEC-related operations. A desktop with more RAM and a more video-friendly optimized CPU would definitely fare better.
You might be having network performance issues on top of that.
Chromecast has a ton of "gotchas" with playing local content - because it's not really designed for that. Its primary purpose is an Internet streamer. Beyond that, it's a bit like using your phone in lieu of a laptop. You can do it, but you're subject to restrictions.
I'm still in search of an "all in one" solution as well, but seems there is none.
Plex is awesome for my non-DVD/BD content because it can transcode for whatever client... but I'd have to convert my DVDs/BDs
TV + phone/tablet
WMC+MyMovies works well for my DVD/BD content - and it works for my video content too... but then I'm tied to my TV - can't watch on my phone/tablet, and control via my phone/tablet is klunky at best for non-DVD/BD stuff (I use TMT for DVD/BD playback - its Android remote app works fine).
TV
Avia plays my local content... and casts it too, but not if it requires transcoding
Phone/tablet
RealPlayer cloud needs me to throw non-compliant media onto their cloud before I can cast it
Phone/tablet
If/when the MyMovies Android app is released (they're working on it) I'll finally be able to cast my DVD (and hopefully BD) content which may render my WMC machine obsolete... but still not an all-in-one solution.

Also Transcoding is still a WIP as far as Plex goes...They are slowly getting there but it would seem it still transcodes even in some cases where it probably shouldn't have to or doesn't transcode in cases it should (notably MP4/H264 Level 4.0 or lower/AAC)
Transcoding will not operate properly on a Netbook. What is happening (and this is a guess) is Plex is trying to transcode for aVia and the system can't handle it. The Error says incompatible but that is because the transcode isn't working.
aVia can probably handle the file fine without Transcoding but Plex doesn't care what aVia will handle it transcodes based on the Source and without a profile for aVia it is probably just using a Generic Transcode format that your Machine is choking on.

Asphyx said:
Also Transcoding is still a WIP as far as Plex goes...They are slowly getting there but it would seem it still transcodes even in some cases where it probably shouldn't have to or doesn't transcode in cases it should (notably MP4/H264 Level 4.0 or lower/AAC)
Transcoding will not operate properly on a Netbook. What is happening (and this is a guess) is Plex is trying to transcode for aVia and the system can't handle it. The Error says incompatible but that is because the transcode isn't working.
aVia can probably handle the file fine without Transcoding but Plex doesn't care what aVia will handle it transcodes based on the Source and without a profile for aVia it is probably just using a Generic Transcode format that your Machine is choking on.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah this is what has me miffed. Plex is great. Looks great, reads everything in, so on and so forth. I never figured the netbook could handle any transcoding, i assumed direct play would be okay as I can encode the files on my work PC (which has plenty of balls) to be compliant. But it frustrates me now when I have a file that is obviously CC compatible (plays fine through DLNA via Avia) but it then attempts to transcode the file when it shouldn't have to. I wish there was a "force direct play" option with Plex (or maybe there is and i'm not aware). Orrrrr i wish all my files that I encode with the exact same settings in Handbrake would read in through WMC so I don't even need Plex, and I could just use Avia.
I feel like I'm RIGHT there with this but can't quiet figure it out. It has me obsessed with "beating the problem" so to speak.

I faced this wierd issue before...
For some mp4 files, when put locally on my android device, can stream fine to chromecast.
Same mp4 file copied to a network location and streamed via vget to avia did not play at all.
For other mp4 files (exact same coding done via handbrake)... they play well from both local storage or network storage accessed via vget.
I was never able to solve it.
Its very puzzling and a random hit/miss
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk

sherdog16 said:
Orrrrr i wish all my files that I encode with the exact same settings in Handbrake would read in through WMC so I don't even need Plex, and I could just use Avia.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
WMC is supposed to be a DLNA-compliant source, but how it determines what it does and doesn't serve is a bit of a mystery... I suspect it's something to do with the Homegroup concept that I still avoid.