Any apps that stream movies from NAS?

[Chic0]

I have Goodplayer, which will play various movie formats, but as you know, they need to be stored locally on the ipad itself.

Are there any apps that will enable me to play movies wirelessly from my NAS?

I bought Filebrowser thinking that this would allow me to do so, but it doesn't

[adit]

Try Buzz player HD!!!

[brian1970]

just downloaded Buzz Player, it is very slow at browsing network, and network files.
I browsed a SMB file server, and it would not list any files in it, there were pictures and video in the folder.
Waste of money im afraid,, oh well lol !!

[madamocta]

I use air video to stream from my computer, maybe it will work for you.

[rhett7660]

I use filebrowser and then pick the file and pick open with. Works pretty darn good.

[Chic0]

Already have filebrowser, but it doesn't seem to support my avi/mkv video formats.

Tried Air video demo, but it seems that it only allows you to stream from a computer

Not tried Buzz yet. I was going to, but after Brian's experience I'm not too sure I will now.

[Stangs55]

Airplayer should do the trick for you.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/airpl...369713694?mt=8

[rhett7660]

Originally Posted by Chic0

Already have filebrowser, but it doesn't seem to support my avi/mkv video formats.

Tried Air video demo, but it seems that it only allows you to stream from a computer

Not tried Buzz yet. I was going to, but after Brian's experience I'm not too sure I will now.

Filebrowser just allows you to look for files. It doesn't play files. It will see all the files in the folder. Do you not have VLC to play those formats. I don't know one program that plays all formats so you might have to experiment a little.

Also, it might help if you list all the movie formats you want to see. Someone here might be able to help you a little more if they know exactly what formats you are using or trying to use.

[Stangs55]

Originally Posted by rhett7660

Filebrowser just allows you to look for files. It doesn't play files. It will see all the files in the folder. Do you not have VLC to play those formats. I don't know one program that plays all formats so you might have to experiment a little.

Also, it might help if you list all the movie formats you want to see. Someone here might be able to help you a little more if they know exactly what formats you are using or trying to use.

This method should also work, although you'll be using two programs instead of one. If you have other needs for a network file browser, then give this a go. For a video player, I'd recommend AVplayerHD or Goodplayer over VLC...blasphemy, I know, but VLC is no longer the best option.

[Chic0]

Originally Posted by rhett7660

Filebrowser just allows you to look for files. It doesn't play files. It will see all the files in the folder. Do you not have VLC to play those formats. I don't know one program that plays all formats so you might have to experiment a little.

Also, it might help if you list all the movie formats you want to see. Someone here might be able to help you a little more if they know exactly what formats you are using or trying to use.

Just re-read your first post again. Didn't realise you could do 'open in' with Filebrowser.

Just tried it now and played the video in GoodPlayer. It worked fine, but it isnt really the solution I'm looking for.

The problem is that FileBrowser needs to download the file locally before transferring to the video rendering application. This process can be time consuming.

For example, i tried a relatively small 173mb AVI file. This took 1min 30secs at a rate of 1.5mb/s to download to the Ipad using filebrowser. Imagine trying to do the same thing with a 3gb MKV for example. That would take about 30mins.

It's not like my network is slow as I'm on 802.11n 5ghz, so i think this speed limitation is related to either the ipad hardware or filebrowser itself. (copying data from NAS to MBP is a lot faster)

What I was hoping for was an app that would allow me to stream videos wirelessly from my NAS, thus negating the need to download/copy over the file first. By the looks of it though, I don't actually think this app exists

[Stangs55]

Originally Posted by Chic0

Just re-read your first post again. Didn't realise you could do 'open in' with Filebrowser.

Just tried it now and played the video in GoodPlayer. It worked fine, but it isnt really the solution I'm looking for.

The problem is that FileBrowser needs to download the file locally before transferring to the video rendering application. This process can be time consuming.

For example, i tried a relatively small 173mb AVI file. This took 1min 30secs at a rate of 1.5mb/s to download to the Ipad using filebrowser. Imagine trying to do the same thing with a 3gb MKV for example. That would take about 30mins.

It's not like my network is slow as I'm on 802.11n 5ghz, so i think this speed limitation is related to either the ipad hardware or filebrowser itself. (copying data from NAS to MBP is a lot faster)

What I was hoping for was an app that would allow me to stream videos wirelessly from my NAS, thus negating the need to download/copy over the file first. By the looks of it though, I don't actually think this app exists

I'll repeat myself...

Originally Posted by Stangs55

Airplayer should do the trick for you.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/airpl...369713694?mt=8

[WickedStealthy]

Originally Posted by Chic0

Just re-read your first post again. Didn't realise you could do 'open in' with Filebrowser.

Just tried it now and played the video in GoodPlayer. It worked fine, but it isnt really the solution I'm looking for.

The problem is that FileBrowser needs to download the file locally before transferring to the video rendering application. This process can be time consuming.

For example, i tried a relatively small 173mb AVI file. This took 1min 30secs at a rate of 1.5mb/s to download to the Ipad using filebrowser. Imagine trying to do the same thing with a 3gb MKV for example. That would take about 30mins.

It's not like my network is slow as I'm on 802.11n 5ghz, so i think this speed limitation is related to either the ipad hardware or filebrowser itself. (copying data from NAS to MBP is a lot faster)

What I was hoping for was an app that would allow me to stream videos wirelessly from my NAS, thus negating the need to download/copy over the file first. By the looks of it though, I don't actually think this app exists

The problem with filebroweser is that is still uses SMB which is darn slow. Especially combined with wifi it can kill performance. Every request needs to be acked as far as I know and therefor can be slow with 50ms delay on wifi.

I hope they will implement SMBv2 or NFS. Send them an email If enough people ask for it they maybe implement it

[Colors6]

Originally Posted by WickedStealthy

The problem with filebroweser is that is still uses SMB which is darn slow. Especially combined with wifi it can kill performance. Every request needs to be acked as far as I know and therefor can be slow with 50ms delay on wifi.

I hope they will implement SMBv2 or NFS. Send them an email If enough people ask for it they maybe implement it

I hope iOS 5 will provide more integration regarding filesystem at the OS level between iOS and OSX.

[rhett7660]

Originally Posted by Stangs55

Airplayer should do the trick for you.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/airpl...369713694?mt=8

This looks like the app you are after. Thanks for the suggestion. Have you used it? If it the one I am looking at it has only eight reviews.

[Chic0]

Originally Posted by Stangs55

I'll repeat myself...

Originally Posted by rhett7660

This looks like the app you are after. Thanks for the suggestion. Have you used it? If it the one I am looking at it has only eight reviews.

Thanks Stangs55 - Yep that's exactly what I've been looking for!

Only had a bit of time to play about with it, but it seems to work well.

When I opened the app, it found my NAS immediately. It works using DLNA, so I was able to browse all my photos, music and movies on my ipad2.

I've tested it with some fairly large avi files (1-2gb) and also some HD MKV content (4-8gb). They all took a few seconds to buffer before the video was played.

I was incredibly impressed with the even the larger, more complex HD content as they played really smoothly with no stuttering.

The only thing is if you do purchase this app, make sure you go to Settings and disable the 'skip frame' option. It's seems to enable this option by default for some strange reason

[Stangs55]

Glad it helped.

I've got it on my iPad, but have moved away from it in favor or Airvideo with the client running on my windows home server--that way, I can access my videos remotely over 3G. But for just in-home streaming, Airvideo does a great job.

[Donka]

I know you mentioned you had problems with Buzz Player HD but that is what I use and it works perfectly for me. Browsing my NAS is quick and painless and it streams perfectly. Did you manually add the SMB share for your NAS or did you let it discover the uPNP server?

[uplusd]

Is there an app that can stream video files located on an external hard drive that is attached to an Airport Extreme?

[oldhouse]

Originally Posted by uplusd

Is there an app that can stream video files located on an external hard drive that is attached to an Airport Extreme?

I am looking for this same thing. Any hint please?

[Menneisyys2]

Originally Posted by oldhouse

I am looking for this same thing. Any hint please?

Please answer these questions so that I can provide you with some expert's recommendations.

1. Over what protocol do you want to access them? UPnP? SMB? FTP? HTTP?
2. Are you ready to jailbreak? (Not a must in this case - but very useful)
3. What format are your videos in?

[oldhouse]

Originally Posted by Menneisyys2

Please answer these questions so that I can provide you with some expert's recommendations.

1. Over what protocol do you want to access them? UPnP? SMB? FTP? HTTP?
2. Are you ready to jailbreak? (Not a must in this case - but very useful)
3. What format are your videos in?

1) I don't know what protocol is supported by USB port on airport extreme.
2) XBMC should work fine, but I would like to know if there is a solution for non-jailbroken devices
3) simple avi xvid+ac3

[Menneisyys2]

Originally Posted by oldhouse

1) I don't know what protocol is supported by USB port on airport extreme.

If it's an Airport, then, you'll need to use SMB. (UPnP is also theoretically possible but requires a lot of hacking - see for example https://discussions.apple.com/thread...art=0&tstart=0 and http://forums.boxee.tv/showthread.php?t=40999 .)

Originally Posted by oldhouse

2) XBMC should work fine, but I would like to know if there is a solution for non-jailbroken devices

There is but in no way as efficient / easy as XBMC, "thanks" to Apple's absolutely silly restrictions and Dolby's being awfully greedy. As you plan to play back XVID + AC3 over SMB, it's VERY hard to recommend anything to you with both SMB and AC3 support. Neither AVPlayerHD nor CineXPlayer, the two players currently supporting AC3, support SMB. That is, you

1, either hack the router to support UPnP (which is already supported by CineXPlayer) so that you don't need to use SMB OR

2, jailbreak and use XBMC OR

3, convert all your original videos, preferably to MP4 + AAC.

Originally Posted by oldhouse

3) simple avi xvid+ac3

These are very problematic, particularly audio-wise, see above.

[oldhouse]

Originally Posted by Menneisyys2

If it's an Airport, then, you'll need to use SMB. (UPnP is also theoretically possible but requires a lot of hacking - see for example https://discussions.apple.com/thread...art=0&tstart=0 and http://forums.boxee.tv/showthread.php?t=40999 .)



There is but in no way as efficient / easy as XBMC, "thanks" to Apple's absolutely silly restrictions and Dolby's being awfully greedy. As you plan to play back XVID + AC3 over SMB, it's VERY hard to recommend anything to you with both SMB and AC3 support. Neither AVPlayerHD nor CineXPlayer, the two players currently supporting AC3, support SMB. That is, you

1, either hack the router to support UPnP (which is already supported by CineXPlayer) so that you don't need to use SMB OR

2, jailbreak and use XBMC OR

3, convert all your original videos, preferably to MP4 + AAC.



These are very problematic, particularly audio-wise, see above.

Thanks for clarification

[lexvo]

In the reviews I read that AirPlayer does not work with the AppleTV-3. Is that correct?