NineSwords
04-13-2010, 08:41 AM
You know back in the days when I was desperately searching for a DLNA player (http://www.touchmyapps.com/forums/showthread.php?427-UPnP-DLNA-player)?
Let me tell you that I have found non that resulted in a satisfying viewing experience (an most of the time in none at all).
but I have found the next best thing. and let me tell you I have never spent money on the app store more happily than for Air Video.
In short it's a client/server videostreaming solution.
the great part about it is how well it works. You install a little server app (mac or windows) on your desktop and set up which folders you want to share. That's it. The iPhone app automagically finds the desktop and you can browse your videos. When you select a video you can play it directly if it's in a format that is playable by the iPhone.
So far so good. Where it really shines over the crop of other similar apps is when you wan't to play videos that isn't in the mpeg format. Then you get to choose if you either want to let your desktop convert the video before it's being played, or let the desktop convert it on the fly. the on the fly conversion allows to directly wach a non mpeg movie. The quality is more than enough for my purposes. Xvids are working perfectly, and I'll give it a try with some more exotic formats later.
And for even more vieing pleasure you can queue videos. Doesn't seem like a big feature but for me this is one of the biggest plus points of the app. (I'm watching TV sereis when bathing and being able to queue some up and don't have to handle the iPhone with wet fingers is priceless)
There are some things that I hope to see improved in future versions. The streaming does work for my at the moment only on the local network. There is a beta option for remote streaming but that doesn't worked for me. May be due to some port forwarding/firewall problems or the fact that I don't have a real Mac. I didn't spent too much time looking for a solution though. I'll see into that later. Another thing that needs a bit tweaking is the look of the UI. It's just fugly. Give the UI more style an polish please. But the biggest thing thats missing is the lack of other media. Why not play audio files or pictures? I really don't get why they left audioa dn pictures out. I sure hope this will be added in a future update.
Anyway. Even without remote streaming and audio/pictures this app does exactly what I was looking for. In the TMA rating system I would file it under "Lick it and rub it all over your body".
Let me tell you that I have found non that resulted in a satisfying viewing experience (an most of the time in none at all).
but I have found the next best thing. and let me tell you I have never spent money on the app store more happily than for Air Video.
In short it's a client/server videostreaming solution.
the great part about it is how well it works. You install a little server app (mac or windows) on your desktop and set up which folders you want to share. That's it. The iPhone app automagically finds the desktop and you can browse your videos. When you select a video you can play it directly if it's in a format that is playable by the iPhone.
So far so good. Where it really shines over the crop of other similar apps is when you wan't to play videos that isn't in the mpeg format. Then you get to choose if you either want to let your desktop convert the video before it's being played, or let the desktop convert it on the fly. the on the fly conversion allows to directly wach a non mpeg movie. The quality is more than enough for my purposes. Xvids are working perfectly, and I'll give it a try with some more exotic formats later.
And for even more vieing pleasure you can queue videos. Doesn't seem like a big feature but for me this is one of the biggest plus points of the app. (I'm watching TV sereis when bathing and being able to queue some up and don't have to handle the iPhone with wet fingers is priceless)
There are some things that I hope to see improved in future versions. The streaming does work for my at the moment only on the local network. There is a beta option for remote streaming but that doesn't worked for me. May be due to some port forwarding/firewall problems or the fact that I don't have a real Mac. I didn't spent too much time looking for a solution though. I'll see into that later. Another thing that needs a bit tweaking is the look of the UI. It's just fugly. Give the UI more style an polish please. But the biggest thing thats missing is the lack of other media. Why not play audio files or pictures? I really don't get why they left audioa dn pictures out. I sure hope this will be added in a future update.
Anyway. Even without remote streaming and audio/pictures this app does exactly what I was looking for. In the TMA rating system I would file it under "Lick it and rub it all over your body".