I have a WD Tv Live Hub, and an Android phone running Jellybean (Droid 4. Is there anyway I can watch the videos on the WD on my phone, using my network? I have a Netgear WNDR4500 for a router. The phone can only connect to the router wirelessly, and the WD can only connect via ethernet. Also, the video files I want to watch are all in .vlc format. I don’t want to transfer files over to the phone, especially since I only have a 32GB Micro SD card, and the WD’s 1 TB hard drive is almost full. I NEED to do this using the router if at all possible. Or is there anyway to directly connect the phone to the WD and watch the videos?
Hello, the WDTV will be available as a media server or a network shared folder to other devices on your local network, check if you have any app available that you can download to access your local network devices. Check page 78 of the manual for more information.
Manual
http://wdc.com/wdproducts/library/UM/ENG/4779-705046.pdf#page=83
I have a nexus pad running Jelly Bean 4.2.2 and have found plenty of good apps that will let you play videos/music from your HUB. I connect as a network share, and to use that method you really need to do two seperate things to make this work.
1) connect to a network share and locate the video
2) Play the video
To connect, I am using EFS file Explorer to browse both my local drive on the pad, and connect and browse to remote shares on the HUB or any other network resource. I really like the EFS file Explorer. It’s a great app for all sorts of file management tasks. By far the best one I tried.
I then use BS Media Player to play the movies. It works quite well, but there are plenty of other applications that will do the same thing and play various media formats. I chose BS Media player because it works well with MKVs which is the format most of my videos are in. The one issue I have is I cannot find an application that plays ISO files.
As Ichigo wrote above, you could also use your phone as a Media Server client over DLNA from the HUB, which would transcode the video first and then stream it to your phone. I do not have enough experience with this to recomend any specific application but I am sure there are some other folks here who can tell you some apps to try out.
Good luck getting setup. Once you can browse your network with you phone, and see the HUB and the files on it, you are in great shape. From there it’s just a matter of selecting an app that you like, and plays the formats that your videos are stored in.
-P
Also, the video files I want to watch are all in .vlc format.
What exactly do you mean by, “in .vlc format”?
From what I can find out, a .vlc file is a video/audio playlist that’s specific to using with the VLC media player, and no different that other playlist files other than the extension. See this link: http://www.fileinfo.com/extension/vlc
In any case, a .vlc format seems not to be a video or audio file format, but a playlist. I have some suggested programs for you to use for streaming to the phone, but I’d like your explanation beforehand.
And, to Pearl: I suppose you don’t recall what all I’ve written about VLC Streamer app for iOS and Android gadgets in the forum. It enables one to stream both ISO files and DVDs (playing in a drive) to the devices with the assist of VLC running on your computer. Just search the forum for my messages regarding VLC Streamer. There is a free demo program (with adverts) but that **bleep**, so spend the whopping sum of $1.99 and get the ad-free version! (BTW, it can stream MKV files, too, even those from BDs if not too complex).
Sorry, I meant .vob format
@mike27oct, thanks for the tip, would certainly be nice to be able to play some of my ISO files on my pad. I checked out the link you posted and the product looks pretty interesting. I am going to give it test.
I am correct in understanding that it turns your VLC app into a DLNA Media Server, so transcodes the video and then puts the stream out onto your local net? I have little aprehension from one of your post that you said it pegged your CPU to 100%. I have other background apps I need to be running that I dont want to slow down to much if possible.
I’ll give it a whirl, the interface looks nice from the pics on the website
-P
Will any of this work with the WD TV Live Hub connected to the router over ethernet cable and the Android phone connected to the router over wireless?
kturcotte wrote:
Will any of this work with the WD TV Live Hub connected to the router over ethernet cable and the Android phone connected to the router over wireless?
Yes, WiFi is fine for your Android device as long as you get a strong enough signal so the video doesn’t stutter too much.
-P
I downloaded EFS File Explorer, and told it to find a new server, but it wants the IP address of the server. How do I find out the IP address of the Hub? It also wants a user name and password. Assume I don’t need that?
Not sure how you told it to find a new server. When I open it, I see my local files. I choose the button in the upper right corner that says “local”, and a drop down will let you choose LAN, FTP, BLUETOOTH etc… Choose LAN and then pick your hub when it shows you all of your network devices. (you may just see IP addresses)
If you need to find the IP adress of your HUB, you can find that under setting\network settings\network setup
If you have your HUB passworded on the shares, you either need to know that or turn it off. It is possible that the server it found it another one of your computers that requires a pasword login.
-P
I got it work! Thank you!! Now, the only issue is, I can’t skip between files/videos (Next, back). Is there a video player app that natively plays .vob files without issue and will allow a random/shuffle playback of all the video files in a folder, and allow me to skip a video if I don’t want to watch that particular one?
That’s great news kturcotte! Glad to hear you are up and running. Sorry to say I have not tried it with VOB files as I converted everything to ISO or MKV, and I don’t have much use for shuffle on vids since I am using it for movies/tv series. Since you can use any media player you want on Android though, try a google search for a player that has those two features.
Your other option would be the one mike27oct mentioned. VLC can play VOB files, so I would think the add on that he told us about could transcode and stream them to your phone.
-P
I WISH VLC were available here in the US, but it’s not (Unless there’s someway to get it that I’m not aware of?).
I think you are missing the way this works (We are in the US also). VLC is a media player that works in windows, the add on (which I have not used), makes it work like a media player.
You can get VLC here. It is a great media player for windows. Will play almost any format you can throw at it
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html
-P
pearl wrote:> I am correct in understanding that it turns your VLC app into a DLNA Media Server, so transcodes the video and then puts the stream out onto your local net? I have little aprehension from one of your post that you said it pegged your CPU to 100%. I have other background apps I need to be running that I dont want to slow down to much if possible.
Pearl, you might have already discovered by now that VLC Streamer is a two-part program that uses a third program (VLC) to get the job done. VLC Streamer has an app for the mobile device, and the program on the PC called VLC Streamer Helper runs the VLC program and likely is a transcoder and server that streams the VLC output to the mobile device. The app on the mobile device is likely the “control center”. So, there is a lot going on to stream to the tablets and phone; especially with transcoding an ISO or MKV file. So, I have a “fast” PC, but could use a faster and quad core machine to do all this math that is going on!
I recently converted my new blu-ray Miles Davis concert video to ISO, and then to MKV for playing via the WD. I tried streaming the blu-ray MKV to the ipad tonight, and there was too much buffering going on. I can get a few not-too-complex blu-ray MKV files to stream this way, but most seem too complex to stream without much buffering. It’s not the home network, the bottleneck is the PC not cranking out data fast enough, I believe. For my situation, non-blu-ray material streams fine with VLC Streamer setup, but things choke up when I do most blu-ray derrived stuff.
No, I have VLC on the computer and LOVE it! I need all of this to work completely independently from the computer is the problem.
kturcotte wrote:
No, I have VLC on the computer and LOVE it! I need all of this to work completely independently from the computer is the problem.
Not going to happen the way things currently are – if you mean watch ISO/MKV videos on your mobile devices with VLC. You need VLC Streamer to complete the job.
If you just want to watch videos on your mobile device there are other ways I have found and use. You need to have your videos in a more standerd format such as mp4/m4v to use any of the DLNA ways to stream.
Below is what I posted in a thread a while ago:
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I have these six iPad/iPhone apps installed for accessing the network data (i.e. media player so they can play on my iPad or WD player and be directed from the iPad./iPhone. (Some of the apps are also in Android versions.)
1. Pogoplug app – specific for using with a Pogoplug device; enables access from anywhere on the internet. for streaming; not just within local network.
2. VLC Streamer app – streams movies; i.e. ISO, MKV files; even DVDs within local network. CPU intensive,
3. WDTVMedia HD – streams DLNA compatible files (music, movies, photos) to/from media player to iThings; for local network use only.
4. FileBrowser – access your local network like you can from your PC and play stuff on iPad. Can be setup for outside network, too.
5. AiCloud – specific to my ASUS router; similar features as FileBrowser, enables access from anywhere on the internet.; not just within local network.
6. Twonky Beam – One of my favorite apps that enables playing audio/video/photo media to/from iPad, WDTV, Roku, etc. I like that it enables iTunes playlists to play music from my iTunes folder on my PC to the iPad or WDTV, Roku, etc. Only app I have found that can deal with playlists, and it does very well. Easy to watch YouTube videos beamed to WDTV, etc.
Search this forum for the names of these apps, as I have written something here about all of them.
A gigabit network and wireless N w/5G connection really helps these apps to work well. A fairly fast PC does too.
The above passage came from this post of mine:
Great stuff mike. thanks for posting, I know that I am going to check out a bunch of the apps you have written about. I appreciate you testing out so much stuff and turning the rest of us onto it.
Thanks for the all the tips
-P
