Hello everyone,
I am here to show you step by step on how to use Google's Picasa media storage services to stream HQ movies straight to your phone so that way you can save space on your phone. Now this technique can used by multiple users at once so if you can co-workers or family members that you want to share your movies with, this is the guide for you.
Here Are Some Things You Will Need:
1: Gmail Account (Either your personal one or create a new one if you plan to share your movies with others)
2: Picasa Uploader 3.6 (Used for uploading your movie files to your Picasa account)
3: Movie Converter Program (DVDcatalyst is my personal favorite and the easiest or some other good ones are Handbrake, meGUI or DIVX Converter that will work for this as well)
4: 3D Gallery (If you dont have a Google Experience device like the G1 or Motorola Droid, then you will need to google "Android 3D Gallery APK" and install it via the guides it gives you.
Optional:Quicktime may be needed in order for Picasa to recognize certain file types.
How This Works
Picasa is Google's service that has been around for years. Its primary function is place to store all your photos. Now recently they have made it so that you can upload home movies that you've taken with your digital camcorder for safekeeping. When you upload your movies thru Picasa Uploader, it converts the movie file to .FLV just like the same format that Youtube uses. The cool thing is during the encoding part, it keeps the same resolution and bitrate that you used when you encoded the movie. Now, the trick to this all is that the new native 3D Gallery program that comes with the Google Experience phones(Android phones that dont have a custom UI but stock look kind of like the Motorola Droid phone) with 2.1 OS or higher has the ability to stream those movies directly from your Picasa account to your phone.
Encoding Movies For Optimal Streaming
There are multiple guides on how to do this that I will list below but one thing you want to take into consideration is the Bitrate. Bitrate is kind of like the quality of video, if it is set too high, the video is cleaner but the file is huge but on the other hand, if it is set lower, the video might be pixilated but the file is a lot smaller. The trick is finding a good balance between Bitrate and filesize because Picasa does have a storage limit and also bigger movie files take longer to stream to your phone thru Gallery.
Here are two different guides to re-encode your movies, either one works for this technique but the DVDcatalyst is the easier way to go.
http://www.droidforums.net/forum/droid-faq/14858-how-convert-videos-use-droid.html
http://www.droidforums.net/forum/droid-audio-video/35019-streaming-hi-quality-video-android-tversity-nswplayer.html
Uploading Your Movie Using Picasa Uploader 3.6
I am not going to tell you how to setup Picasa but you need to direct it to your folder for where all your newly encoded movies are being stored at. Now you might run into a error if you encoded your movies using the guides above where the movies dont show up. To fix this, you must have Quicktime installed in order for Picasa to recognize these movie files that were encoded using their CODEC. After installing Quicktime, you must reboot your PC and once rebooted, in Picasa Uploader, go to Tools> Options> File Type and check off .mov as available files for Picasa to view.
After setting up your folders in Picasa, go ahead and link Picasa Uploader to your either your personal gmail account or the community gmail account that you plan on using. From there, right-click on the movie file and select upload to Picasa Web Albums and it will put it into a queue to upload to Picasa. From here, either go smoke a pack of cigarettes or drink a 6-pack because it takes a few for it to upload to Picasa and when it gets there, it takes a couple hours for Google to re-encode the movie into an .FLV file for mobile playback. It will show up in Gallery but if you try to play the movie and it says something like "This Movie File Cannot Be Played" then it means that Google hasnt finished converting it yet.
Playback Thru 3D Gallery
After you are done uploading your movies to Picasa and waiting for Google to re-encode the movies, if you have added your Gmail account properly thru Accounts under settings incase its your primary account or secondary if you plan on sharing with others, then when you open Gallery, the movies you have uploaded should show up now. Depending on if you are using 3G or Wi-Fi and how big the movie files are, then it can take some time to start streaming. It takes anywhere from 10 secs to 1 minute to start streaming on 3G whereas on Wi-Fi, it only takes 2-5 secs to start.
If the movies dont show up, trying taking a picture and uploading it to your Picasa account. Sometimes it requires you to do so in order to establish a link from Picasa to your phone.
Anywho, thats about it. Let me know if you have any feedback or questions regarding this method of video streaming.
Related
Hey guys have you ever clicked on a .mp4 or .m4v (iPhone video/website) link on opera mobile or IE and notice that it starts to download!?
well how do I make it so it will stream the video with Coreplayer instead of downloading the file?
it seem like a very common thing that the iPhone and Android do but not WINDOWS MOBILE!?
so any toughts will be highly apriciated, maybe editing the opera registry or so somethig??
thanks
BTW I've searched EVERYWHERE and cant seem to find a solution for this
ARE YOU SERIOUS GUYS!? NO! one
STREAMING
Im in the same boat your in and nobody has an answer...i hate downloading it should stream like tyhe other phones do....somebody help!!!!
It's not that hard; what you need to do is look in your PIE cache for the file that starts the stream up. If you use the streams at TodayPda.com, for instance, you will find .asx files dumped for each stream you used. Just copy them to a folder on your sd card, then go to the file associations tabs in tcpmp's settings and check the box for metafiles. Then, you can open the stream up in tcpmp by clicking on the .asx file. If you go to shoutcast, a file called "tunein-station.pls" is dumped (I think in PIE it may ask if you want it downloaded, otherwise it's in the cache). You need to copy it and rename it (as all stations use the same file name). As long as .pls files are associated with tcpmp, then clicking on these files will open up tcpmp.
If you're talking about links that just download the entire video, you seriously have a problem with that? I'd call that a bonus, myself. The files usually download faster than they stream, and the video quality is better and you can watch them offline as much as you want. A lot of the 'streaming' vids that you see aren't really streaming, anyway. Somewhere on your device, a temporary file is being dumped and once the dump start, you start to view it. If you watch youtube videos over PIE, that's how it works. When the video is fully loaded, you can go to \windows\temp, and there will be a .tmp file that is the actual video.
streaming
wow now u know a whole.lot...definitely gonna try that but what would be ideal is clicking on a video or link and to watch it streaming just like in an iPhone. that is what we are looking for...is there a EASIER way???????????
I get what you guys are sayingand I knew that info already (not trying to be rude)
HOWEVER
I'm currently thinking of building a website for streaming media not to download as some people would rather have the option of streaming the Videos.
I have SEARCHED months for Tv series to movies, something like south park family guy, House, law&order to many more. Some complete series other movies Ready for WVGA devices and more newer type off phones.
All together comes to thousands of GB worth of media. so NO! CRAPPY 3gp quality as there are many website already like that so its most in https mp4 not rtsp.
anyways I'm still thinking about it as everything should be Ondemand and FREE! ( with some ads )
I was thinking something like:
www.HD2media.mobi
you could code an app that sets off the video stream (no idea how though )
tuppaacc said:
I get what you guys are sayingand I knew that info already (not trying to be rude)
HOWEVER
I'm currently thinking of building a website for streaming media not to download as some people would rather have the option of streaming the Videos.
I have SEARCHED months for Tv series to movies, something like south park family guy, House, law&order to many more. Some complete series other movies Ready for WVGA devices and more newer type off phones.
All together comes to thousands of GB worth of media. so NO! CRAPPY 3gp quality as there are many website already like that so its most in https mp4 not rtsp.
anyways I'm still thinking about it as everything should be Ondemand and FREE! ( with some ads )
I was thinking something like:
www.HD2media.mobi
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
...Still keepin an eye out 4 ur spectacular HD2 site......
i was wondering if anyone could help point me on how i could stream videos hosted on my personal website to my android. i basically have a website with unlimited bandwidth and 150gb of space and wish there was a way to stream movies to my phone. is there any pages that could help for this purpose? if converting the files to a streamable format is required thats fine aslong as they work and are viewable.
it would be cool if i had to make pages for each video and the android to recognize its a video like how it does with youtube and open on a video app.
Hi guys,
just got a HP touchpad. now is there a video player on here? and if its there what format do they have to be in to view it. have tried a couple of different ones and cant get them up.
Is there a player app i can download onto it at all ?
thanks
there is a photos & videos app built in, but it's pretty poor for video.
you need to add your video files to the root of the built in storage (the tablet installs onto your computer as a removable drive).
i still haven't got my head around the video file support just yet, but it doesn't seem to handle .avi, divx, xvid etc.
mp4 seems to be the main format.
there are a couple of apps for streaming videos from a upnp media server, but nothing free as far as i can tell.
kalemsoft media player seems to be the best of these as it lets you load video files from the local storage on your tablet as well as browse for remote stuff.
i have successfully played an avi file using this app.
i've only tried the demo version so far which requires internet access in order to assess the trial period.
i don't particularly want to purchase the paid version just yet.
I used Handbrake and followed the instructions here: http://forums.precentral.net/hp-tou...n-resources/287212-handbrake-preset-dvds.html I just tried a short 45 minute kids dvd to see if it would work okay. It was about a 400mb file. Placed it in a folder called Videos on the root of the usb partition and it shows up fine in the Photos and Videos app.
cdbillups said:
Placed it in a folder called Videos on the root of the usb partition and it shows up fine in the Photos and Videos app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
see i tried doing that as well. creating a folder called videos on the root and it wasn't detected.
only when i added the file direct to root could i access it.
are directory names case sensitive?
a video player that allows you to browse and/or add directories would be much better.
EDIT: looks like i had a folder called video. changed it to videos and it shows up.
strangely enough kalemsoft creates a folder recordings. when i added a video file to that, it also showed up.
I have put my videos in the download folder and they show up in the stock player fine. Also converted DIVX avi files to MP4 with Handbrake. Used the ipad HD settings for nice quality.
Kalemsoft Media Player wil read a lot of video formats , you can find it on app catalog.
The kalemsof that i downloaded isnt displaying in full screen and sometimes will hang on my TP. Guess its still not compatible to TP yet?
Sent from my HTC One X using XDA
nunjabusiness said:
I have put my videos in the download folder and they show up in the stock player fine. Also converted DIVX avi files to MP4 with Handbrake. Used the ipad HD settings for nice quality.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanx for the tip about Handbrake, nunja. I'll try it for conversions. I concur with the settings...
I'm on a Pre 2 and have no problems with mp4 playing (once you get the settings down it becomes rote). For my phone I use iPod settings...
For ripping from DVD I use DVDFab3 - I know there are way newer versions out there and I tried them but always go back to version 3. I just like the UI and it has never let me down. Point it at a DVD or ISO and under Mobile click Generic. You can configure it for generic mp4 and get a resolution up to 848x480 which should be alright on the TP screen. Your settings like Resolution, bitrate, volume level, subpicture - can all be saved as a profile.
DVDFab3 in a .rar file. Just extract and it will run out of the folder without install...
Does anyone know whether having video flagged as a music video has different functionality on the windows phone than regular video files? Obviously it is nice that you can choose to see just music videos in the Zune music . But here are a few things that would be useful...
Having music videos play when the screen is off
Having a playlist of music videos
Having the video start from the beginning every time, rather then where it left off
Also, does anyone know of a utility on the Windows platform to change the "music video" flag?
I don't believe WP7 treats "music videos" any different from normal videos. If you want just the music (play in the background, make playlists, etc.), then using music video files (which are huge, plus require a lot more RAM and battery to decode) is silly. There are tools that can extract the audio tracks from a video file, allowing you to save them just as audio files, if or some reason you don't have the audio file already. It's been years sisnce I used any such tools though; a web search will help you more now than I can with finding them. As for the "music video" identifier, it's probably just a metadata tag on the file. Windows Explorer should be able to edit it just fine; right-click the file, go to Properties, then Details, and remove the tag.
I am looking for an app that can play both photos and videos in the same playlist from a presentation standpoint so I can hook my tablet up next to a TV and have it stream both to the TV.
Right now the Gallery can do photos and MX Player can do Videos, but I need something that can do both in the same play list. Anyone have any ideas?
indiscriminant said:
I am looking for an app that can play both photos and videos in the same playlist from a presentation standpoint so I can hook my tablet up next to a TV and have it stream both to the TV.
Right now the Gallery can do photos and MX Player can do Videos, but I need something that can do both in the same play list. Anyone have any ideas?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So you're basically looking for a media server? I use Twonky. Check out the description, but it should match what you are looking for.
I have only once used the app to stream (via WiFi) a movie from my tablet to a TV and it worked fine. I also have Twonky running on my NAS as a permanent media server to serve all my devices that are connected to my home network.
I will look into it, but not looking to have this need to be over a server.
I am looking for something to simply play a slide show that can go from photos, to video, to photos, etc and have all the files on my tablet and not stored remotely.
indiscriminant said:
I have all the files on my tablet and not stored remotely.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think I confused you. Twonky is just that, it runs on your tablet so the TV (or any compatible media play device) can play/display the files you allow it to access. Twonky will turn your tablet into a media server.
I was only explaining that I have used it only once on my tablet. This was to watch a video that I had on my tablet on a TV via WiFi. So I was not using a HDMI cable to hook my tablet to the TV, which is something different. In addition I tried to explain that I use Twonky for the exact same purpose at home, just not on the tablet, but on a NAS.
I see apps for Twonky Mobile, Beam, Video, etc on there. Which one should I use to display these on my tablet in a playlist/slideshow. I will be attached via HDMI.
It doesnt seem to allow me to put both a video and a photo into the same play list... is that correct?
I think what the OP is looking for is a single application that can play both audio and video content within.
Try QuickPic, its a gallery application similar to the stock Gallery, but can play video as well (says standard video on the page).
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.alensw.PicFolder
If you want to create a 'playlist' of sorts, you could create a folder and put your files (pictures, video) inside of it. It should come up as a folder in QuickPic. I'm not sure about the ordering however, you'll have to play with that. Possibly alphabetical, or date modified.
Take a look at BubbleUpnp.
It's a dlna app, and the paid version lets you set up your device as a renderer or a library. Set your phone as the server/library, set your TV as the renderer, et voila...
I've tried loads of options, and this is by far the most comprehensive.
You even have the option to subscribe to a cellular based protocol...