Can this product stream?

Legacy Products My Book Live
1

I want to use My Book Live as a “cloud server”. I want to move my music and my videos from my desktop to this My Book Live (connected to home network), and access the music/video from my laptop at a different network (for example, at a library with public WiFi network, at my parent’s house, from AT&T’s 3G WiFi dongle, etc).

I want the laptop to stream this music/video (e.g. playback starts “immediately”), not download then play (e.g. download the full file, then play), on my laptop.

^ Can all that be done using this My Book Live? How? Is it native through Windows Explorer (i.e. does it look like an external HDD hooked up to my laptop), or must all this be done through a (proprietary) software?

Can the above be done with using an Android phone, assuming correct formats (e.g. mp4 for videos)? How? Just through the web browser, or through a (proprietary) software?

On another note, I don’t pay extra for static IP at my home network, which means my IP address changes whenever my ISP wants it to change (so it isn’t reliable). How would I possibly connect to My Book Live from an outside network, if that happens? My router supports Dynamic DNS, so I can actually sign up for a service that will update the domain name reroute IP whenever it changes (e.g.: no-ip.com). Does My Book Live support this as well (i.e. access via a domain, and not IP addy)?

Thank you.

P.S. I trust 40/30 connection will be enough to stream (assuming other network is “perfect”)?

300×135 25.9 KB

P.P.S. If the other network is slow, would the My Book Live autothrottle down the quality of the stream to match the network? For example, if the video on there has a total bitrate of 800kb/s, and my outside connection is only 400kb/s would it stream at 400kb/s or lower for real time consumption, or would it still stream at 800kb/s?

2

Here’s a Too Long; Didn’t Read version:

a) Can I stream videos from a different network, if the device supports streaming (laptop or android with mp4s)?

b) Is Dynamic DNS domain supported with My Book Live? Can I access MBL from a different network with it instead of the IP address?

c) 40dl / 30ul Mb/s speed is good enough to stream 1080p HD files, correct?

d) If a file I’m streaming is 800kb/s, and the outside network I’m connected to only supports 400kb/s download, when I stream, will MBL re-encode the video on the fly to make it so that it’s less than 400kb/s, so that I can have a real-time consumption? Or would it still stream at original 800 kb/s (so I have to wait 2 seconds for every 1 second of video)?

3

a)  The potential is there but that functionality is not built-in, aside from Twonky Media Server which you can access via a web page if you configure your router to allow it.   But it’s unsecure…  Anyone in the universe will have read access to 100% of your media.

b)  No.  No Dynamic DNS support within the MBL.   But your ROUTER should handle that anyway.

c) No, not necessarily…  Burst rates in excess of 50 megabits per second are normal for Bluray media.

d) No, the MBL does not transcode video to match network conditions.  

It sounds like you might be happier using a LOCAL RENDERER (like a WDTV Live) and something like a Slingbox.

1 Like