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Air Video now a universal app!!
- Thread starter Phisherman81
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Looks like a great app. A few questions before I purchase:
- If I have, say, Lord of the Rings in 1080p on my Mac mini home theatre, could I install the app and stream the 1080p file to my iPad? I know the iPad only supports up to 720p natively, but I figure it can do all this encoding magic so maybe it could just downscale it.
- How easy is it to get 3G streaming (remote?) working? I'm a totally noob when it comes to port forwarding and all that networking jargon, but some apps automatically configure the router to allow for 3G use. (Like iTeleport, you can manually do it if you're a network genius, or it can set it up automatically for you. Automatic worked great!) Can Air Video automatically set it up?
- As I said above, I have a Mac mini home theatre in my living room running Plex with all my files (almost all 720p .MKVs, an occasional 1080p) properly sorted and such on an external hard drive plugged into the mini. Would Air Video be great for streaming from this? Having a terabyte of movies available to stream to my iPad would justify the price of the iPad alone.
- It can stream from external hard drives, right? I never unplug them.
- On iPhones, is quality downgraded over 3G?
- If I have, say, Lord of the Rings in 1080p on my Mac mini home theatre, could I install the app and stream the 1080p file to my iPad? I know the iPad only supports up to 720p natively, but I figure it can do all this encoding magic so maybe it could just downscale it.
- How easy is it to get 3G streaming (remote?) working? I'm a totally noob when it comes to port forwarding and all that networking jargon, but some apps automatically configure the router to allow for 3G use. (Like iTeleport, you can manually do it if you're a network genius, or it can set it up automatically for you. Automatic worked great!) Can Air Video automatically set it up?
- As I said above, I have a Mac mini home theatre in my living room running Plex with all my files (almost all 720p .MKVs, an occasional 1080p) properly sorted and such on an external hard drive plugged into the mini. Would Air Video be great for streaming from this? Having a terabyte of movies available to stream to my iPad would justify the price of the iPad alone.
- It can stream from external hard drives, right? I never unplug them.
- On iPhones, is quality downgraded over 3G?
Is this better than streamtome? I have the paid version of it and want to know if it is worth switching to air video.
Been using this with my 3GS for a while. Great app and thrilled that they've made it universal...
I just installed this app and am amazed.
Yes, you can stream from an external hard drive -- in fact, as a mini owner, this is a necessity (I have three externals attached to my mini, plus two more available).
Using Handbrake seems like the easiest solution. Worrying about resolution seems not really to be the point -- after all, if you really want high resolution wouldn't you want to display this on your flatscreen?
For me, this is the perfect delayed flight app (along with Netflix and Pandora and . . . ).
Just installed and messed around with this app today. Works amazingly well with the iPad. Awesome app!
I've successfully streamed 1080p mkv files from a networked media tank over 3G directly to my iPhone.
It works like a champ.
It works like a champ.
Has anyone successfully set up stream over the internet under Windows 7 or Vista? I keep getting a message my router does not support PPnP, yet it definately does (linksys wrt54gs). Rerouting the port doesn't make it work either, even though the server recognizes the port reroute.
Leagues better, yes. I talked to the developer of streamtome, and he said he would fix the video quality issues in the next iteration. But... Air video is perfect quality now, and has a much better UI. If I'm not mistaken, it will also stream playlists from iTunes.
What settings do you guys use? I've tried the server software on both my MBP and a pretty decent desktop and the videos come out very blocky on the iPad...
Thanks!
Thanks!
just got this app a couple days ago so I could watch Band of Brothers on my ipod in bed lol. It's the greatest thing
I know exactly what 729P is. It's very bandwidth intensive. That's why I asked.
I've never heard of 729p
I kid
Bought this today and seems to work great except I had a problem when streaming movies without converting them,i.e. movies in a format the ipad can play naturally. They play, but there is no bar at the top to move around the video. It's there with converted on the fly videos, but not with non-converted videos. Anyone notice this?
Here's my take on Air Video:
Downloaded Air Video for the iPhone, Ipad, and my iMac today and gave them all a test drive. WOW! I had been using Orb Live on my iPhone, which is okay but fairly unstable. With Orb Live, audio would frequently be out of sync, the server would crash regularly, and of course there is no iPad version yet.
But Air Video just works! And it works great! For those who aren't aware, it's a video streaming program that allows you to watch videos streamed from your desktop computer to your mobile devices. For example, I'm ripped my entire DVD collection onto my iMac. Then I can use Air Video to watch any of those DVDs on my iPhone or iPad.
Once you have the Air Video app on your iPhone/iPad (yes, the iPad version is native now), you then download the server program from http://www.inmethod.com/air-video/index.html. Once installed, you tell the server what folders on your drives that you want to share. For example, I have a folder with all my DVDs shared, as well as one with videos I have made with iMovie. You can set up a password if you like, and you can specify whether you want to be able to access your server from outside of your local network (yes, thank you!).
Then you go to your app on your iPad and add the server. If you are on the same network as your host computer, it will show up automatically. If you are outside of your local network, you have to put in a code from your server app into the iPad/iPhone app. Once this is done, your folders will show up on your mobile device and you simply select the video you'd like to watch.
Air Video will play just about any video you throw at it. For those videos that can play natively on your iPhone/iPad, you can just play it immediately. If it needs to be converted, you can either start a conversion and wait, or you can convert "on the fly". If your host computer is fast enough, it can immediately convert 1080p videos on the fly after a few seconds of buffering.
AND THEY LOOK GREAT ON THE IPAD! On the iPhone, it's nice, but on the iPad, it really is MY killer application. I can watch any of my DVDs wherever I have Internet access. AND IT WORKS WITH 3G! So when I get the 3G version of the iPad, I can watch virtually any of my movies on the go.
I tested it with 3G on my iPhone and the video quality was great. I have some doubts whether it'll look better on the iPad via 3G. With the iPad's larger resolution, that's a lot more data going across 3G so I would imagine they've either limited the resolution via 3G or it may perhaps start stuttering or have to be downsized. Only time will tell, I guess, but I'm very hopeful.
I can't wait to take a trip with the iPad. Instead of having to pay to watch movies in a hotel room, my family can just gather around the iPad to watch any number of videos.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
Downloaded Air Video for the iPhone, Ipad, and my iMac today and gave them all a test drive. WOW! I had been using Orb Live on my iPhone, which is okay but fairly unstable. With Orb Live, audio would frequently be out of sync, the server would crash regularly, and of course there is no iPad version yet.
But Air Video just works! And it works great! For those who aren't aware, it's a video streaming program that allows you to watch videos streamed from your desktop computer to your mobile devices. For example, I'm ripped my entire DVD collection onto my iMac. Then I can use Air Video to watch any of those DVDs on my iPhone or iPad.
Once you have the Air Video app on your iPhone/iPad (yes, the iPad version is native now), you then download the server program from http://www.inmethod.com/air-video/index.html. Once installed, you tell the server what folders on your drives that you want to share. For example, I have a folder with all my DVDs shared, as well as one with videos I have made with iMovie. You can set up a password if you like, and you can specify whether you want to be able to access your server from outside of your local network (yes, thank you!).
Then you go to your app on your iPad and add the server. If you are on the same network as your host computer, it will show up automatically. If you are outside of your local network, you have to put in a code from your server app into the iPad/iPhone app. Once this is done, your folders will show up on your mobile device and you simply select the video you'd like to watch.
Air Video will play just about any video you throw at it. For those videos that can play natively on your iPhone/iPad, you can just play it immediately. If it needs to be converted, you can either start a conversion and wait, or you can convert "on the fly". If your host computer is fast enough, it can immediately convert 1080p videos on the fly after a few seconds of buffering.
AND THEY LOOK GREAT ON THE IPAD! On the iPhone, it's nice, but on the iPad, it really is MY killer application. I can watch any of my DVDs wherever I have Internet access. AND IT WORKS WITH 3G! So when I get the 3G version of the iPad, I can watch virtually any of my movies on the go.
I tested it with 3G on my iPhone and the video quality was great. I have some doubts whether it'll look better on the iPad via 3G. With the iPad's larger resolution, that's a lot more data going across 3G so I would imagine they've either limited the resolution via 3G or it may perhaps start stuttering or have to be downsized. Only time will tell, I guess, but I'm very hopeful.
I can't wait to take a trip with the iPad. Instead of having to pay to watch movies in a hotel room, my family can just gather around the iPad to watch any number of videos.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
I had that error with my netgear router, using both the pc and mac software. I went in and checked, it was on (upnp is the same thing?)
I then simply pulled the power cord out of the router for about a minute, and plugged it back in. No problems after that...
wow this app is fantastic. I was just watching my videos over 3g at 50% still looked fantastic. Now I cant wait to get my ipad. I was wondering how I was going to stream my videos too it as even with 64gig version they wouldnt all fit.