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Streaming Hi-Quality Videos To Android With Tversity and nswPlayer

Hello everyone,
I have pieced together a tutorial to get hi-quality Video Streaming to your Android phone over Wi-Fi or 3G. For those of you using Orb Mycast for years, like I have, have noticed that the quality is unbearable and down right atrocious until I rediscovered Tversity again.
Here are some items you will need:
1: Tversity installed on PC where media is stored
2: nswPlayer installed on Android phone from market
Its the only player for Android that picks up on .mp4 files without having to download the file all the way
3: Handbrake encoder from handbrake.org for converting your movies to a lower resolution and optimizing for progessive playback
Optional: Setup your PC for Static IP and Port Fowarding if you want to stream via 3G if away from home. Go to www.portforward.com for detailed tutorials on how to set this up.
Encoding Movies for Progressive Streaming Playback
Before you begin encoding your video for playback, here are some things to look at to keep the video quality hi while making the smallest video size available. You want to look at the resolution/bitrate of the movie you are encoding and if you are like me and get your movies off of uTorrent or such, you want to keep the same quality. You want to keep the bitrate match to the resolution size by converting it such so that if you have a movie file that runs at 729kbps at a resolution width of 672, when you downsize the file to a resolution width of 320 then the bitrate should be 346kbps to match.
In Handbrake, go ahead and select iPhone legacy as the profile for encoding.
Next, check off the Web Optimized button so that the file can played progressively, if not, you will get an error message saying "illegal file".
After loading your source and destination, make sure the destination file is saved as yourmoviefile.mp4 instead of yourmoviefile.m4v because you will also get a "illegal file" error.
Under Picture, change anamorphic encoding to none and make sure "Keep Aspect Ratio" is check marked. Next, changed the width down to 320 and the height will automatically change with it.
Under Video, change to Avg Bitrate to match your width resolution like I explained above and then you are ready to encode when hit the start button. Bear in mind that this might take a little while depending on your PC's Hardware specs. If you have any issues using Handbrake, visit their forums for any fixes that you need.
Setting Up Tversity For Streaming
I will not go into detail about setting Tversity on your PC such as configuring the libraries and such but I will go over settings that need to be in place for this to work.
Under Settings in the Transcoder section, make sure under "When To Transcode" make sure its set to never. The reason behind this is I havent figured a way for Android to pickup on the stream without waiting for it to fully transcode.
Next under General Settings, under Home Network, make sure you plug in your PC's IP address so that way your phone has access to your video files.
For this part, you would have had to setup your PC for a static IP instead of being a random IP that is given when your PC gets turned on each time. If you got to www.portforward.com for detail tutorials on setting up a static IP.
Optional:Under General Settings in the Home Network Section, there is an option for "the media server should accept requests......" which will let you access your media over 3G on your phone. To set this up, after you check mark that you want access, go ahead and setup a username and password to let you login from outside your network.
As before, you need your PC setup as a static IP but also you have setup your home router to Port Forward requests from Port 41952 to your PC's Static IP. Go to www.portforward.com for instructions on how to setup port forwarding.
Install A Android Media Player That Will Pickup On Progressive MP4
So far the only media player that works for this so far is the "nswPlayer" that you can download for free off the market.
If anybody has found a better player that works for this solution, please let me know so I can test it out.
Last But Not Least, Lets Stream A Video To Our Phone!!
For Home Wi-Fi Streaming Only
Open your web browser in your Android Phone, input your PC's Static IP such as "192.168.1.XXX:41952/lib"(Replaced the XXX's with Your IP address that you previously setup), from here, you will be navigated to Tversity's mobile WAP GUI. Navigate from here where you setup your video files in your library to appear. After that, select your video file and if all is setup correctly, then either you will get a popup saying with default player would you like to use or it will go straight to nswPlayer and start playing the movie.
For Streaming Over 3G or Another High-Speed Wi-Fi Connection
The only difference here that we are going to do is navigate our Android Browser to your home's IP Address which can be found easily if you go to www.whatsmyip.org from your home PC. For example it will look like this, 98.246.64.55:41952/lib to access Tversity away from home.
WARNING: Streaming from outside your network will take a long time for your movies to buffer to nswPlayer. It has taken well over 2 minutes for the movie to play sometimes over 3G. Thats why we try to get the movie as small as possible to stream faster over 3G.
All and all, thats about it. This should get you up and running on streaming to Hi-Quality video files to your Android phone wherever you are at. I will update this tutorial with any helpful updates I get from the community on what works better or my own discoveries as time goes on.

Thanks for the wonderful tutorial. I'm using the Samsung Vibrant with nswPlayer and I keep getting "Illegal File" what am I doing wrong? Do I have to use handbrake to encode my files? I downloaded them as .avi and they run fine off my SD card.

Yes you have to encode each video to be the correct format as well as enabling it be stream byte by byte. If you want to stream while on the same network as the pc with your video files, you could use Allshare to stream via DLNA if you have Windows media player setup to manage your media library.
I am going to play with this setup to see if I can avoid pre-converting the video file because the Galaxy S has some codecs that other Android handsets dont have. Maybe I can figure out if it can stream avi containers.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA App

Thanks for the tut. arcMedia Player will play the avi streaming formats.

the Android Movies app lets you watch Movies in HD you will need wifi or 4G though.
check it out for yourself:
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.androidmovies&feature=search_result

Does anyone know why this app have been removed? I purchased this app and it did worked but lately it hasn't been working. Has anyone have this problem?
Sent from my PG86100 using XDA Premium App

Seems like a lot of work, but it must pay off.
As far as Android Movies is concerned i was able to watch one movie in excellent quality. I knew they would probablyl get shut down at some point. Now there is just a msg in the app saying that they will be back and to be patient. Eh, it was like renting a movie for $2 knowing the caveat would be that it may be a one time deal. I was very impressed by the quality and i wasn't even on 4g.
Hey OP, any idea about orb for Android. Months ago i heard a talk about it and a lot of people were complaining about the quality. Any experience on your end?

e-zzy1 said:
the Android Movies app lets you watch Movies in HD you will need wifi or 4G though.
check it out for yourself:
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.androidmovies&feature=search_result
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I bought the Android Movies app and now its gone. Can't find it and can't get a response from the developers.
I need the apk to redownload but I guess im out of luck.
Sent from my Nexus S 4G using XDA Premium App

I would tell you to purchase "Amatsu" from the Market, but the developers are thieves and crooks.
They sold "free android movies", which was vaporware. It never functioned... Only had a date on it staying when it would be working again. It then disappeared & Amatsu took it's place. Now Amatsu doesn't work!

Update
Hey guys,
Sorry that I have been absent for some time but I have movesd on to better ways of taking your collection on the go. Right now I am part of the Alpha team over at WWW.plexapp.com which is a better way of organizing your media collection with their free server software along with a small payment for their client on Android. Go check it out, you guys won't be disappointed.

nice work!

Need all your Help to push MS / avi transcoding issue

Hi Everyone,
I m kindly asking you to help me push MS into fixing the avi/xvid issue since conversion times are too long.
edit Several members have also raised concern that the Zune software transcodes videos where there is really no need!
ruscik said:
a 720p Family guy blue harvest in divx (my own copy) was converted to mp4 but resolution was not lowered.
A 720p family guy something dark side in mp4 was converted to mp4 but resolution was not lowered or audio adjusted.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have created a post on the official MS support forums and the fellow users have supported the post but MS is trying not to give a proper answer on the issues unless people reply enough or click the "I would like an answer too" button. The post seems to be ending up unanswered and pushed back. I need to let the post grab MS attention!
I would like MS to escalate the issue internally but I need more input! So please be so kind!
I suggest that we could do this for other issues as well!!!
Their forum relies on Live IDs so it is just about entering your username. (Doesn't take long)
http://social.answers.microsoft.com...7/thread/b71af2ac-9f72-4b10-a5ee-eaa29c1933e7

It can be fixed quite easily.
1) Write down the spec of your computer on a piece of paper.
2) Go to your local PC shop
3) Hand them the piece of paper and ask for something faster at encoding video
4) Happiness

Yep. Crap computers suck at transcoding video. Even a better graphics card would work much better, since lots of GPUs these days can offload much of the conversion.
Some notebooks were sold without multi-core processors (but are still 64-bit, some people assume 64-bit = multi-core), and lots of consumers have things like mismatched ram sticks and the like that can reduce their computer performance for these types of tasks.

Thanks a lot guys!!!! Appreciated!
It looks like they are still ignoring the issue. I think I might try to upvote the thread tomorrow again.
My general issue is that I am accessing different PCs all the time. Let it be work, uni, friends, or my home laptop. So I generally just need a fast way to get stuff onto the device.
Maybe we get lucky and they enable it again

I personally don't think this issue should have a high priority, as Zune software reencode your file on the fly.
Even at Microsoft, ressources are limited, and there are lots a other stuff I would like first (custom ringtones, multitask, silverlight and flash on the browser...)
My 2 cents.

(nico) said:
Even at Microsoft, ressources are limited,
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The issue here is that it works on the Zune HD without re encoding or demuxing and the same applied to the wp7 emulator until they decided to take the feature out...
Maybe it will be a OEM specific feature?!

Name one reason for DivX /XviD support, except that you want to play your pirated movies...
Transcoding XviD shouldn't take much time with a modern computer.

Why do they have to be pirated? There are those of us who have huge DVD/BD libraries ripped to xvid (and later on MKV). Personally I have several hundred DVDs that I have painstakingly converted to xvid for digital storage and easy access from my HTPCs.

Sir. Haxalot said:
Name one reason for DivX /XviD support, except that you want to play your pirated movies...
Transcoding XviD shouldn't take much time with a modern computer.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You could make the same assumption about mp3s. I started ripping in 99.. I don't have the resources to rerip my music into something better now. And in a real case scenario I don't want to be told 2 years from now that an MP3 player doesn't play mp3s anymore because they are "all" considered to be pirated .....

I have pleny of DVD's/BD that on top of normal movie have a digital copy that can be used with portable players. They come in many formats on those discs and all require to enter a code before 1st play so it can check if it is valid copy.
I do that and then can play them on my PC even via Zune. Formats I have are WMV, AVI, MP4 and DIVX.
My death race in wmv that works on windows 7 fresh install (with no extra codes and net access) is converted by zune. Annoying as zune officially supports WMV and even plays that movie.
Two mp4 movies (Mummy and Mummy 2) from the same Box set one just copies and works one is converted from mp4 to mp4. Some Divx movies are "converted" but it lasts 1 to 2 min aka it only changes extension while some are properly reconverted but resolution or quality are the same afterwards (720p or standard resolution no matter). There is a problem there.

[Q] Considering purchase of a Xoom, but I have questions

Hi everyone,
I've been toying with the idea of purchasing a Xoom since it was announced, but before launching myself into a 500$+ purchase, I would like to make sure the device does what I expect it to.
Here is a short list of what I am looking for in a tablet. If possible, could you guys tell me if the Xoom fits my needs.
Microsoft Exchange support
If yes, can I add multiple Exchange accounts? Support for calendars as well?
Video Playback
I watch a lot of 350MB (xvid) and 1.09Gb (mkv) tv shows. Is there a good player that supports playback? Is playback choppy/laggy or loses audio sync? I've seen and read a lot of bad press on this.
Video playback is potentially a deal maker/breaker. Video has to be smooth, and I'd like to avoid having to re-encode video if I dont have to. If a made in china device like the superpad can read MKV files, why not a dual core beast?
Tethering
I have an iPhone 3G and a tethering plan. I can tether to my laptop. Will I be able to tether to the XOOM?
SAMBA/SMB Share navigation
Can I browse network shares stored on my computer? Can I provide logon credentials to browse shares for a domain network? (Ex : DOMAIN\userassword or user(at)domain.localassword). Can I stream video over Wifi and network shares?
VPN
Is there support for L2TP over IPSEC? Certificate or PSK?
I'm quite computer savvy, it just seems difficult to get facts straight on tablets these days.
Thank you all in advance for reading this and taking the time to reply.

ipigi said:
Hi everyone,
I've been toying with the idea of purchasing a Xoom since it was announced, but before launching myself into a 500$+ purchase, I would like to make sure the device does what I expect it to.
Here is a short list of what I am looking for in a tablet. If possible, could you guys tell me if the Xoom fits my needs.
Microsoft Exchange support
If yes, can I add multiple Exchange accounts? Support for calendars as well?
Video Playback
I watch a lot of 350MB (xvid) and 1.09Gb (mkv) tv shows. Is there a good player that supports playback? Is playback choppy/laggy or loses audio sync? I've seen and read a lot of bad press on this.
Video playback is potentially a deal maker/breaker. Video has to be smooth, and I'd like to avoid having to re-encode video if I dont have to. If a made in china device like the superpad can read MKV files, why not a dual core beast?
Tethering
I have an iPhone 3G and a tethering plan. I can tether to my laptop. Will I be able to tether to the XOOM?
SAMBA/SMB Share navigation
Can I browse network shares stored on my computer? Can I provide logon credentials to browse shares for a domain network? (Ex : DOMAIN\userassword or user(at)domain.localassword). Can I stream video over Wifi and network shares?
I'm quite computer savvy, it just seems difficult to get facts straight on tablets these days.
Thank you all in advance for reading this and taking the time to reply.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A quick set of answers for you:
Exchange support - Yes
Calendars - Yes
Video Playback - unfortunately I can't answer that but I'm sure it won't be a problem with all the available apps and answers from other users regarding HD playback/re-encoding/compression
Tethering - Yes, works a treat...I'm doing it from my HTC Desire and Laptop.
SAMBA/SMB - Yes, 'Cifs Manager' from th Android Marketplace is a doddle to use. Streaming video/audio via wifi and network shares is easy.
VPN - not sure
Hope that helps.

Video playback - Yes, moboplayer
VPN - Yes openvpn just look around the fourms

Be aware that not everything (like openvpn) - will work out of the box. You will need to do some work, and possibly void the devices warranty (Unlock/root)

Costco has 90 days .... to return if you have one... Or can Order on line
(As I did)
Thats the way I went thanks and good luck

pyrator said:
Video playback - Yes, moboplayer
VPN - Yes openvpn just look around the fourms
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How good of a playback are we talking about. I've been reading a lot of people (on these forums and other places as well) who are having problems playing back some video files. Stuttering, laggy, things like that.
I'm going to be using this device for personal use first and work second, so smooth video playback is important and is probably the biggest reason for the purchase of a xoom.
For VPN, I've been digging around and found a thread on the xoomforums dot com website (I cant post a link yet, I'm too green). Note that I plan to use L2TP over IPSEC, and not pure IPSEC to connect to a VPN. Apparently there is native support for that without the need for OpenVPN.
Also, does anyone know if there is a Remote Desktop app so I can connect and control windows 7/vista PCs from the tablet?
Thanks to everyone for the replies!

ipigi said:
How good of a playback are we talking about. I've been reading a lot of people (on these forums and other places as well) who are having problems playing back some video files. Stuttering, laggy, things like that.
I'm going to be using this device for personal use first and work second, so smooth video playback is important and is probably the biggest reason for the purchase of a xoom.
For VPN, I've been digging around and found a thread on the xoomforums dot com website (I cant post a link yet, I'm too green). Note that I plan to use L2TP over IPSEC, and not pure IPSEC to connect to a VPN. Apparently there is native support for that without the need for OpenVPN.
Also, does anyone know if there is a Remote Desktop app so I can connect and control windows 7/vista PCs from the tablet?
Thanks to everyone for the replies!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
350MB (xvid) ---> play beautifully using moboplayer
1.09Gb (mkv) ---> choppy as **** on any player or if the video plays smoothly, the audio is non existant.
Im assuming these are "borrowed" videos downloaded from the internet.

I just use Handbrake to convert files to my Android devices. I just run into too many problems otherwise.
And if you are trying to play MKV files with subtitles. I've found no solution for that. Rockplayer kinda works if it's 480p or less. Though sometimes the audio gets out of sync.

If the subs are in text (srt) format, HB should move them over. If they're bitmaps (vobsub/pgs) or have styles (ass/ssa/smi), they can't be converted w/o an intervening translation/OCR step, since MP4 container only accepts plain text subs.
MKV->MP4 conversion is OK if you don't watch foreign films and don't care about subs. It's a PITA otherwise.

Do a search for 'Remote Desktop' on the market place...there are a handful which all work great. I can verify blistering speeds connecting to Windows 7 (32 and 64-bit)

robbiev80 said:
1.09Gb (mkv) ---> choppy as **** on any player or if the video plays smoothly, the audio is non existant.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The Xoom can't decompress the audio at all? I'm not a huge fan of re-encoding video and I perfer to just drag and drop to play videos, my Desire can just about keep 20-25 fps playing 350Mb HD video, 20 minute anime series, the audio is fine as well. Why can't the Xoom play a 1Gb file with it's dual core CPU?
*edit* That's my Desire playing MKV's, not AVI etc.

For what its worth I just tested an 840mb mkv file on moboplayer and it was flawless, no issues with audio at all. I haven't tried anything over 1gb though.

[Q] is xbmc installable?

I love XBMC on my home ubuntu pc, and i know it is tegra2 enabled, but anyone know if it will be installable onto the tablet?

If you can get Ubuntu running on it, sure. Otherwise, barring an Android port you can forget about it.

i hope they do get it to work - especially as its working well for ipads, iphone4, etc.

Why?
I guess i just don't really understand the use of xbmc on a tablet. On my htpc sure.

Use Plex.
Stupid character limit.

Xbmc is an awesome platform for video playback, plus cab link library's with a central unit. Would work well with my setup.

ok just read my post and it didnt make sense! (was typing using iphone!)
XBMC is an awesome program for video playback and library. I would want to use it on the tablet for viewing as I can link multiple xbmc librarys to the main central one i use on my htpc (which also acts as a home server using ubuntu). I know that it is running as a upnp server too, but its the library linking that would be great - i watch a lot of tv shows, etc.

ricostuart said:
ok just read my post and it didnt make sense! (was typing using iphone!)
XBMC is an awesome program for video playback and library. I would want to use it on the tablet for viewing as I can link multiple xbmc librarys to the main central one i use on my htpc (which also acts as a home server using ubuntu). I know that it is running as a upnp server too, but its the library linking that would be great - i watch a lot of tv shows, etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I only got the XBMC Remote to work to control my pc and use the DLNA-functionality of XBMC on my PC to have him act as my media server and watch it with upnplayer. XBMC does make a navigationable library as media server where you can select on actor, year, director, title etc. but it is not as fancy with covers and banners as in XBMC.

ricostuart said:
ok just read my post and it didnt make sense! (was typing using iphone!)
XBMC is an awesome program for video playback and library. I would want to use it on the tablet for viewing as I can link multiple xbmc librarys to the main central one i use on my htpc (which also acts as a home server using ubuntu). I know that it is running as a upnp server too, but its the library linking that would be great - i watch a lot of tv shows, etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
XBMC should be capable of doing what you want through DLNA. Go into settings and enable UPnP video sharing, then browse to it on your TF, and it should show your entire library across all xbmc devices. And it lists the files in library mode, not file mode, so you get the pretty naming instead of viewing raw folders.
If you mean you want things like posters, metadata, etc then no this is not possible. XBMC is slowly being ported to ARM platforms but it is nowhere near usable except on the Apple TV 2. There is a ton of interest in getting it on ARM, but I haven't seen any work done for Tegra2, so chances are it will never run on our Transformers.

[Q] Educate me on renderers and servers and channels for google TV please?

I apologize if this is the wrong forum. I did search for the answer to my questions but I have such a poor understanding of these concepts that it's hard for me to even research. I ask for patience and simple explanations if possible, as my tech savvy level tends to be pretty low.
My parents bought an LG Google Tv (55GT) over the Holidays, finally caving in and buying a nice tv for te first time in my life. They kind of went all out on this one, deciding that for once they just want something that fills all their needs. Sadly it's proving to be incomprehensible on so many levels. Part of it is we have pretty bad internet for streaming, which we knew in advance.
The basics are working for us. Netflix, Amazon, and I even got a workaround for Hulu Plus.
I began looking for media servers to try and stream media from our laptop to the TV, and discovered Plex and Playon, as well as Twonky and the app that led me to this forum, BubbleUpNp.
My understanding so far is that Twonky, Plex, and Playon are merely servers, and that I required a product like Bubbleupnp to recognize and communicate with those servers on the TV. So far so good. Using Bubbleupnp (and I also tried Avia) I was able to see all our running servers, and ultimately I was able to access the media files I had stored on my computer (after messing around a bit, not all of them worked for video, all let me listen to my music)
Enter the problem I am working on now, having conquered all these other issues. All these servers come with great channels I can add on. There are academic channels with lectures, podcasters, tech stations, and on and on. However when I try to play these channels in Bubbleupnp, I get this error:
"bubbleup can be selected only for playing a video to an external renderer (ex: TV) from another ap (ex: file manager)"
Bubbleupnp gives me an option in the screen where I choose which server I want to browse to use a 'local renderer' or 'avia's renderer'. I don't know what this means.
What I am hoping for is someone to explain to me what rendering is, how it works, and how I can fix this issue. My parents would like access to all these cool channels, and I would like to slay my massive frustration with it.
What is a local renderer? Do I need to download a renderer to my tv? to my computer? How? does this have to do with video codecs or translating data into a language the TV can understand?
I would be grateful even to be pointed to something that explains this stuff. I hardly know where to start because my knowledge in it is so pathetic. Please help?