Streaming Hi-Quality Video To Android With Tversity and nswPlayer

Very nice, thanks for this! I need to try it when I get home, I was doing a forum search for this exact thing. I just got TorrentDroid working to kick off torrents on my home computer from my Droid, the next thing is streaming.

Might I recommend one thing...you don't need to set a static IP for your machine, you can set up a DNS name at No-IP - Dynamic DNS, Static DNS for Your Dynamic IP for free, then install a small app on your computer that will keep the IP updated. You still have to have your home router set up for port forwarding and such, but at least you can have a name and not have to remember an IP.

 

Will this work on a Mac?

 

No, TVersity is Windoze-only.

 

Just found this via google, very excited to test it out. I'm an iPhone to Droid convert, and I was using airvideo (i think that's what it was called) to do this very simply and nicely with the iPhone. I'll probably get started on this tonight or some time this week and post some feedback on my experience. I'm also very interested in serving my library from Linux, which is my server machine at home. I can use a windows workstation to test this out though. thanks!

 

The Droid can play properly formatted MP4 files directly from the web browser. If you visit this thread on your Droid, and access the MP4 links directly on it, it will play the files while downloading, even if you just have the default "Gallery" on your Droid for video playback.

http://www.droidforums.net/forum/droid-audio-video/15161-droid-optimized-movie-trailers.html

If you are using a web server on your linux-box already, you just have to either enable folder-browsing for folders that contain your video files, or use some script to have it generate the web page with links for you. This would work on a MAC as well in the same way.

A few weeks ago, I released the free MP4 Streaming Server app (Windows-only) as an addon for DVD Catalyst 3. The app basically runs a web server on your computer (without the need of configuring it) and provides an easy way of organizing your videos in playlists. For a demo, you can visit this link on your Droid:

MP4 Streaming Server

For additional information, you can read up a bit here.

What is MP4 Streaming Server? | Tools4Movies, the official home of DVD Catalyst

The most important thing in regards of streaming video is the upload speed of your internet connection. If you just intend to use it at home, you can stream videos of the best quality your Droid can handle (854x480, 1500Kbps video, 160Kbps audio) but if you want to use it over the internet, your upload speed (lower than your download speed) as well as the 3G download speed comes into play. If you have a 3mbit connection, that usually results in an upload speed of 384kb/s or 512kb/s. If your videos exceed this in quality, your video playback will stutter.

Before you start re-converting your movies, I'd recommend running a speed test on your computer to get the upload speed, as well as a test on your Droid on 3G to get your max download speed, and use the lower of these as the TOTAL (audio + video) quality for your conversions.

If you end up with 500kb/s, and want 128kb/s audio, you can only use 500-128 =372kb/s for your video. (go a little lower like 360kb/s to leave some room for speed variations). If you go too high, 1500kb/s on a 512kb/s upload speed, you wait for 2/3rds of the movie for buffering.

DVD Catalyst 3 has some "Streaming" profiles that have their settings optimized based on a maximum upload speed. The screensize is adjusted to fit the internet speed while providing a good quality.

Lastly, for the people who want to stream their videos, if you want to stream to different devices (the wife's Blackberry) the streaming will work for almost all internet-connected devices that are capable of MP4 playback. Most of the HTC Windows Mobile 6+ devices, the Blackberry Bold/Storm/Curve/Tour models all are capable of playback of the same file format the Droid uses, however, the screensize can cause complications. If you want to stream to multiple device types, try a few different (screen-)sized files to find the one that all of them will play.

The Droid/Milestone/Nexus will play high quality Blackberry files, but some Blackberries will have a difficult time playing high quality Droid optimized files.

edit: As of the latest iPhone OS 3 version currently on Apple devices, the iPhone/iPod Touch can no longer play video files from a direct link in Safari. This worked for all previous OS versions for these devices, but with the latest update this capability was removed. This is the main reason why the MP4 Streaming Server app is now available as a free download.

 

Nice!

Great stuff, DVDCATALYST, thanks. Lots of good points for people that may not be well versed in this sort of thing. I've been at this sort of thing for quite a while and your points are things that even veterans of video transcoding and streaming would do well to remember. I was already thinking about how the streaming would work over 3g. I've only got about 100kb/s upstream with my connection. I figured I'd start with the wireless LAN in the house as proof of concept. I'll have to re-encode a few chapters of a DVD to see how that streams. I've already got a good handbrake preset for high quality droid video off the SD card. Once that's going nice, I'll look in to opening my web server up and then streaming over 3g. I've already re-encoded some music videos to fit nicely on my screen for video ring tones using vringo. So I have some good, small video to work on streaming over 3g. When it comes to my actual media library I was thinking I'd have to transcode on the fly somehow. I was thinking along the lines of handbrake or vlc, but hadn't dug much in to how I'd actually make it happen.

 

Thanks

I've been playing with streaming for years. When I got my first PocketPC, I messed with Windows Media Encoder, Snapstream/Beyond TV (might work for Droid now btw) and even have a PSP that connects to a LocationFree box connected to a TiVo.

For your transcoding on the fly, you might want to look into this

Stream multimedia files to PSP without encoding- AfterDawn: Guides

I played with it in the past. It uses ffmpeg to transcode on the fly. If you use linux you can try and build ffserver (server component of ffmpeg) or you can set up Quicktime/Darwin Streaming Server for it.
The most important thing is that if you use MP4 files directly, they have to have the "Quicktime FastStart" Atom enabled. I don't think Handbrake can do this, but I have another post somewhere on these forums where I explain this in more detail.

http://www.droidforums.net/forum/droid-audio-video/32294-mp4-format-mobile-devices.html

 

I just tried this but it didnt work... I followed every bit of instruction correctly but it just keeps popping up as "Illegal File" when i click on a movie i want to play.

 

I'm gonna try this out as well. Got my Droid where I want it as far as a base OS (thanks to UD 9.8). Anyway I wanted to figure out the streaming bit and tried Orb. I have used Orb a little before for xbox, but on the Droid the video is crap. Wasted an hour of my life on that (great idea but not good for video). Will try this tomorrow...or uh later.

 

Any updates on this? Anyone get it to work? I'd love to be able to stream my Anime collection from my PC to my Droid.