Streaming videos from Hub to an Android tablet! (Here are the steps)

I have had a Live Hub since last December and it is AWESOME!  I have the stock firmware & don’t use it in many exotic ways, but love the TuneIn Radio and YouTube apps - my 20-month old and I watch Sesame Street videos before she goes to bed each night…

 

Anyway, I just got a Toshiba Thrive Tablet, and love it too!  I tried to use Twonky to stream my videos from the hub to the tablet but I couldn’t get it to work - I could only reliably stream YouTube videos, display photos, etc. from my EVO phone and tablet to the Hub (which was cool because I could view pictures I had taken of my daughter without plugging anything directly into the box).

 

Last night I started playing around with some apps I had downloaded onto the Thrive and now I can stream videos from the Hub to the tablet!  They look great, and stream without stuttering or anything.  I haven’t seen any topics detailing the steps (if there is one, my apologies), so I thought I’d share my experience.

 

My hardware & setup:

  • ·       WD Live Hub – CAT5 cable into wireless router, set up as DLNA server
  • ·       Toshiba Thrive – 16 GB internal, 16 GB SD card

Relevant software on Thrive:

  • ·       UPnPlay (free)
  • ·       RockPlayer Lite (free)
  • ·       ES File manager (free)

Steps to view videos:

  1. Install all of the software above on the Thrive.  The order doesn’t matter.
  2. Start UPnPlay.  If you have set up your Hub as a DLNA server and the Thrive, it should see your videos on the Hub’s local drive, but not the USB drive.  I have maybe one video on my local drive & everything, so that was useless to me.  This step is mainly to verify that you can actually see the Hub on your wireless LAN.
  3. Open ES File Manager.  It defaults to your local drives.  You can navigate to your SD Card, etc., but that’s not relevant at the moment, is it?  J
  4. In the top left corner of the screen, there is a drop-down that should say “Local” if you just started.  Press the drop down.  A Chang View window should appear; select LAN.
  5. If this is your first time, the resulting window may be empty.  If it is, then select the menu and then New.  A window will pop up; choose Scan.
  6. If you only have one DLNA server set up, then only one IP address will appear.  I have another computer set up as a DLNA server too, so I had two.  If you use the Windows Explorer on your PC you can determine which is which – the address should appear next to the drive letter for the server.
  7. Long press the IP address of the Hub.  Another menu will pop up; choose Rename and change the name of the server to something easy to recognize – I chose “WD Live hub” to make it easy.  Once you do that, the name you chose will appear above the IP address.
  8. Tap the icon to the Hub.  It should open and you should be able to navigate the local drive and any USB drives you have connected.
  9. Navigate to the folder of the video you want to play. 
  10.   LONG PRESS the filename of the video your want to play.  This is important.  You will have the option of choosing which application to use to play the video.  I use RockPlayer Lite because it seems to play the most file types; the only file type that I couldn’t get to play last night was an MKV.
  11.  After you choose the desired player, the video should play with no problems.

I hope this is helpful to someone…  If you have your own experiences, tweaks for other tablets, or other ideas on how to connect to the Hub over the Internet (I haven’t tried that yet) please share, OK?

 

You can also give Skifta (for Android) combined with RockPlayer a try.

hm - i will prefer :

imediashare  ( http://www.imediashare.tv/ ) - Android app - great !!

and mobo player for the video ( i think better then rock player)

Mobo is HORRIBLE on the Thrive Tablet.

meo007 wrote:

hm - i will prefer :

imediashare  ( http://www.imediashare.tv/ ) - Android app - great !!

and mobo player for the video ( i think better then rock player)