AirVideo, my new favorite app.

iphone1105 said:

I must say, for 2.99. The app is great. A battery killer, but great. The UI is nice, and simple. And on the fly conversion is smooth. Even on a 2hr + movie(I watched The Departed via this app over 3G). If you havent checked it out, there is a 'lite' version. But its worth the 2.99.

Anyone else have thoughts?

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Can you describe what this app does, how it works ?

Yes. There are several video streaming apps that only support the native iPhone video formats e.g. (h264 in mp4). This one can convert pretty much anything.

The on the fly conversion is pretty quick, and is very reliable. I mostly use it over wifi. Played a little with it over 3G and it does work (you have to choose a lower quality setting).

Works great! Highly recommended.

This is actually one of those application that didn't have good media or advertising coverage. The application is well worth it and works wonderfully!

I actually stumbled upon this accidently and out of all the RSS feeds I subscribe to, I haven't really seen one place that talks about this.

I mean who doesn't want to have access to their videos on their home computers that the iPhone app will convert for them automatically (stream). Essentially making any video file playable over 3G/Wifi.

I know I won't be converting any videos now and uploading it to iTunes.

of course, you still have to rely on 3G/Wifi coverage but you get the point. There are great possibilities.

nutsnbolts said:

This is actually one of those application that didn't have good media or advertising coverage. The application is well worth it and works wonderfully!

I actually stumbled upon this accidently and out of all the RSS feeds I subscribe to, I haven't really seen one place that talks about this.

I mean who doesn't want to have access to their videos on their home computers that the iPhone app will convert for them automatically (stream). Essentially making any video file playable over 3G/Wifi.

I know I won't be converting any videos now and uploading it to iTunes.

of course, you still have to rely on 3G/Wifi coverage but you get the point. There are great possibilities.

Click to expand...

Simply put, it is one of the best apps around on any OS. I found out about it here:

http://appoftheday.com/

This is a EXTREMELY GOOD app and it's unbelievable that this isn't top 10 in the iTunes store everyday, especially since you can stream over 3G. This should be on every person's iPhone.

For anyone who's skeptical try out the free version and you will be amazed.

i also use this as well! perfect for being on the porcelain throne. i use it to catch up on my animes at work

I picked it up during the very brief 99¢ sale last week. I find that it works surprisingly well even over the 3G network.

There's a free trial version available, as well.

I used the free version for all of ten minutes, and bought the full version. Blows Orb and Orblive out of the water. Especially if you have a Mac.

The demo sold me on it. The demo is 100% fully functional and the only limitation is that it lists a max of 3 items per directory but you can refresh as much as needed to get the item you want. Only needed about 30 mins or goofing around with it to know it was worth my $3. I blogged about it on October 9th since I was extremely impressed with it. It even handles 1080p without a hiccup as the transcoding is smooth. Takes 10 secs to start the buffer and away you go. Only thing I wish it would support in the future is subtitles in .mkv files.

Can I just check, if watching your videos from your PC on your iPhone when out and about (via WiFi or 3G), will the quality be wholly dependant on your ISP's upload speed?

Does sound very interesting though.

I went ahead and purchased this based on the little time I played with the lite version. It seems like every time an app similar to this comes out, I debate on wether or not to purchase, and then find out it gets removed from the app store because of streaming video over 3G. So this time, I jumped on the bandwagon.

Very cool little app.

Nabby

This app is a gem, I've been using this for over a month now. This is the first video streaming app that I've found that supports VIDEO OUT to the TV. I've used Orb in the past and my biggest complaint about this app is the lack of support for video out. I keep reading that the SDK does not support this, but yet it is found in AirVideo.

This app just rocks.

Even plays videos from USB or FireWire drives mounted on the MAC running the server software. NICE!

Definitely giving this a try, nice find.

does your computer have to be on for this to work?

Che Castro said:

does your computer have to be on for this to work?

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Yes. The videos have to be stored somewhere .

There is a PC or Mac server component that also has to be running on the computer that has the video files. This software is on their website for download. With the server component, you specify which directories (whether local to the machine, or on a mounted drive) you want to be shared to the iPhone.

On the iPhone you just need the application to see the directories.

I tried it both locally (in my house wifi for both server and iPhone) and then running the iPhone connection via a 3G connection, and my Mac via a Verizon FIOS connection, and to be honest, I couldn't tell a difference in video quality, nor did the software ask me to change it (as mentioned above). YMMV.

I'm pretty impressed with it, no regrets at all on the purchase.

And it's just become mine. iTunes movies on a 1TB drive attached to Mac Mini, kids watching Barbie on the TV (FrontRow from the Mini, accessing movie on the 1TB external), me watching Mr Brooks on the iPhone via AirVideo. Awesome. Now I've just got to redress the balance re kids getting the 36" screen and me getting the 3.5" screen.

Loving this app.

Really got into "streaming" this week. Simply 2, Simply Photos and now this. 8gb phone, No problem!

Che Castro said:

does your computer have to be on for this to work?

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Surprisingly, if you are set up correctly, the answer is no. If you have an Airport Extreme base station as your router, and are running Snow Leopard on your host computer, you can use SL's Wake on Demand feature to wake the machine when needed. I am a big fan of the SL WOD stuff, and have my iMac server sleeping most of the time. When a file-sharing request, or iTunes request, etc. comes in, the WOD wakes the computer and serves the content. The machine resumes sleep once the activity is complete. I've been running the iMac this way since the SL launch, and have never had a single issue with the setup.

I tested with AirVideo today, and sure enough the AEBS is caching the service and a request from the iPhone will indeed wake the iMac. When the streaming is complete, the iMac goes back to sleep like it always does. Simply perfect.

EDIT: Works over 3G externally as well. iMac wakes just the same either way.

Is there any way to have a machine running Windows 7 wake from sleep to play a video?

BTW if you are searching for it in the app store, it's Air Video not AirVideo.

Wow, this app is great. I can play my EyeTV recordings without converting them. Buying now.

Oh. My. God.

This works like a bleeding charm even on 1080p videos!

nashmills said:

Is there any way to have a machine running Windows 7 wake from sleep to play a video?

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Not that I'm aware of. Snow Leopard depends on the AEBS to cache any Bonjour services that a mahine has available, and to continue broadcasting thier availability on the network. Even though a machine is asleep, it doesn't appear offline to other machines due to the caching.

I'm not aware of anything similar in Windows (or any other OS).

Uhmm... this app is sweet! It works beautifully, even over 3G (with a bit of buffering).

It's even more useful if you also have a VNC or RDP app, so you can remotely add/remove video folders to/from the Air Video server running on your computer. This approach works great with the Simplify apps also.