Streaming avi to iphone

WD Software & Mobile Apps My Cloud 3rd Party & Mobile Apps
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Hi folks,

Most of my movies are Avi and I want to watch them on my iPhone, I have a WD My Book Live 3TB.

I understand that WD 2Go won’t play them as iOS doesn’t support the format?

Most work arounds I’ve found with Google require software running on the pC, so the PC needs to be on., sort of defeats the point.

Has anyone got a way round this so I can watch my avis stored on the WD while I’m out, but in a WiFi area?

Cheers

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Hello, aside from using a PC software that convert the videos in realtime to a compatible format, you can also try converting your video library to a format that is compatible with the iPhone. 

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Hi there, thanks for the response.

So there’s no app or anything I can put on the iphone to make it work?

software on the pc isn’t an option as it’s often in sleep mode.

Converting the video library would take too long to be practical.

out of interest, would mp4 be the best format to convert to?

and do android phones work ok with AVIs?

Cheers

4

Hi

my wife has a Galaxy s3 and all my movies look great on her phone, all streamed from the WD live 2 TB. On my iPhone. nothing. I can´t believe there is no app for watching avi s. I tried mediaplayer but I was not succesfull until now.

Open to some hints

thanks

cybbe

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5

Thanks for your response.

I tried a few apps like 8player lite which kinda worked and goodplayer which didn’t for me.

Once I’ve got everything in place (I’m moving everything from public share) I will try again.

If I do find an app that works I will post here.

And if anyone does come across a solution please post here too :slight_smile:

I’m also interested in any app that can look at photos that are not in the public share but can give thumbnails.

An alternative to WD Photos you might say :wink:

Cheers

6

IMHO, you’re far better off just converting your videos to MP4 with apple-compliant h.264 video / AAC audio.

All of the other “Apps” out there are, of course, software based, and will have varying degrees of success playing non-Apple video because the processor just can’t keep up with decoding.    NONE of the players I tried (and I have three or four) can play anything approaching the maximum bit rates without breaking up or seizing.

Whereas, if the video is iDevice compatible, the software CPU isn’t even used – all video / audio decode is done in the GPU giving excellent results.

Just go download Handbrake (it’s free), select the iPad profile, and convert your videos in batch.

If you do that, the iOS devices won’t even break a sweat when playing HD video.

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Yes, I’ve pretty much given up.

Might be getting an adroid phone next anyway :slight_smile:

I’ll try that software though, sounds good. 

Cheers.

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Must admit i gave up as well and coverted everything to mp4
In saying that, i did have some success with airplayer, sometimes did odd things though
Mediaconnect is probably better, but from memory you need to pay for an expensive addin for avi support.
Main reason ive gone with mp4 is so i can get subttitle support working with various players. Also, i no longer use dlna, as wd tv live is way better. There is an app called filebrowser which you can use a network share to access files/play mp4 movies as well. Dlna is a pain as things keep waking up the my duo all the time, id rather it stay in power save mode. Also, wd tv is way better at displaying photos/movies/music etc… than dlna is

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Thanks.

Handbrake worked really well. I’m going to go with that.

I tried Filebrowser actually, I was hoping it’d show photos’ thumnails but only does after opening a file.

I’m curious, when you say you no longer use DLNA as WD TV is better, what do yiou mean?

I don’t really know what DLNA is, some kind of connection protocol isn’t it? Is it how 2 devices connect?

Edit: meant to say, how does it relate to WD TV?

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Dlna is a media servering procotol. Do a google on it. However imho, its pretty crappy. It doesnt support playlists, album covers, or a good way to title thumbnails. So is not flash when it comes to displaying a lot of media. The wd tv live is much better at this. It supports all these things and more. The model i have is a WD TV Live Streaming Media Player. Google it for more info.

Linux avconv is pretty good at converting avi to mpeg, is a bit of a dark art to get the parameters right as its command line driven in linux.

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Btw, dlna may support the things i mentioned, i dont know, however the dlna server on the my book live duo doesnt

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Thanks,

I’m very tempted by the WDTV SMP. I’m currently using my wii to watch stuff on tv, it can’t handle much and I have only got it working from an attached HDD.

I might treat myself to one :slight_smile:

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iDealshare VideoGo can convert iPhone unrecognized video formats including AVI, Xvid, DivX, WMV, ASF, MPEG-1,MPEG-2, WTV, RM, RMVB, 3GP, 3G2, FLV, F4V, F4F, WebM, VP8, OGV, DV, VOB, MVI, AVCHD, MTS, MXF, MOD, TOD and etc to iPhone 5S/5C/5/4S/4/3GS/3G

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Bigasoft Total Video Converter is a professional iPhone video converter.

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CineXPlayer HD will play any file format without the need for file conversion. Decodes video on the fly and will play any file format I’ve thrown at it. I use it to stream movies to my iPad from my My Book Live. No skipping or freezing. I have a Netgear WNDR 4500 wireless router and using the 5Ghz band it works flawless. I have grown tired of converting my videos every time I want to view something on a new device. http://www.cinexplayer.com.

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Down load the vlc app from the App Store. There’s no need to convert to mv4. Vlc will connect to the mycloud. It sets it’s self up or you can ftp into the mycloud drive. I can also ftp into the drive from any comp on my LAN

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I’ll second the VLC app.

I have unlimited data on my iphone.

I first use the WD Mycloud app to email myself a link to the file.

Copy the the link i recieve.

The under ‘Open Network Stream’ I open the URL i recieved.

Pause to buffer.

And it works!!!

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How? - I can see it using WiFi but when I turn off WiFi & use the cell connection I cant seem to log in at all. Set-up intructions for us noobs please:-)

Thanks!

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ChaosFoZ wrote:

I’ll second the VLC app.

 

I have unlimited data on my iphone.

 

I first use the WD Mycloud app to email myself a link to the file.

 

Copy the the link i recieve.

 

The under ‘Open Network Stream’ I open the URL i recieved.

 

Pause to buffer.

 

And it works!!!

Just tried it. Very awkward, especially if I am just browsing while deciding what to watch. My Nexus phone with free MX Player can deal with any encoding (including the dreadful DTS surround sound) on the fly with no need for workarounds. Everything is supported via hardware accelaration.

But your solution at least gives ability to stream directly from WD My Cloud without need for Plex Server or having to download the entire file first.

I am seriously thinking in investing in real NAS that has Plex and hardware-supported decoding incorporated. Plex is definitely great when dealing with non-ideal bandwith.

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Doesnt seem to work for me as the link seems to be set up for using the WD site wd2go.com (its contained in the link). When performed as you state the video never opens in VLC (on iPhone).