I have my parents setup with a Boxee Box with a 500 gb usb drive to their 720p tv. The interface and apps are crap, but they've unwillingly managed as long as I fill it with movies and check that they are correctly identified.
Now I am thinking that some sort of android box would be nice. Then I could have a shared dropbox folder with dropsync and manage all the files from my own computer at home. It would also enable my parents to use the national tv and radio android apps when they arent watching 720p mkv files with subtitles.
Does this sound feasible?
- It needs to be able to use a usb hard drive with a filesystem that supports large files. exfat? ntfs?
- Have a nice remote.
- Access to Google play.
- Stable.
- Ethernet or the possibility to use an ethernet dongle at the same time as the usb hard drive.
I doesn't have to be small or good looking.
Any tips? I will probably get an Ouya to but I want to do this project now, not whenever Ill be able to get my hands on an Ouya.
Related
Hi,
I have a question. I have acces from my phone (legend) to my pc through ES file explorer via Wifi (shared folders on both sides). I also have approx 100gb mp3s and i don't wanna tranfsef few of them everytime i wanna listen something. here's my question. can i stream music on my hdd (pc) to my phone while they're connected with wifi ? es explorer gives my only a 50sec sample when tap "play". i should add that pc is connected to lan with cable not with wifi adapter. great thanks for help
seereek said:
Hi,
I have a question. I have acces from my phone (legend) to my pc through ES file explorer via Wifi (shared folders on both sides). I also have approx 100gb mp3s and i don't wanna tranfsef few of them everytime i wanna listen something. here's my question. can i stream music on my hdd (pc) to my phone while they're connected with wifi ? es explorer gives my only a 50sec sample when tap "play". i should add that pc is connected to lan with cable not with wifi adapter. great thanks for help
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
- AudioGalaxy (free and easy)
- Subsonic (mostly free - server is becoming donation)
- CIFS Manager and whatever player you want because it'll mount as a virtual share on your SD card like ES does except it'll be accessable from any program as though it was right on your phone (only will work over wifi in most cases and you have to be using a device which has a cifs.ko module compiled specficially for it).
To start out -- id try audiogalaxy -- but its going to take a really long time to index a huge library -- FYI -- leave it overnight or something.
Edit -- without wifi whats the point? In that case Audiogalaxy works okay over mobile data out of the box -- subsonic will probably need port 80 forwarded from your router when you want to use it. They're going to consume a lot of mobile data though.
Lately I've been using CIFS Manager when on WIFI at home and Audiogalaxy for elsewhere. Cheers.
seereek said:
Hi,
I have a question. I have acces from my phone (legend) to my pc through ES file explorer via Wifi (shared folders on both sides). I also have approx 100gb mp3s and i don't wanna tranfsef few of them everytime i wanna listen something. here's my question. can i stream music on my hdd (pc) to my phone while they're connected with wifi ? es explorer gives my only a 50sec sample when tap "play". i should add that pc is connected to lan with cable not with wifi adapter. great thanks for help
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
100GB of music? DAMN! lol
100Gig - I remember when my library was that small ;-)
I just wrote a review on Audiogalaxy and it's one of my review applications which is staying on my phone, so I'll also suggest trying it out. While the bitrate seems a little too low at the moment, it is just a beta and is still good enough quality for casual listening - That said, a lower bitrate is going to help keep costs down, should you wish to stream over mobile networks.
I'll agree, a large mp3 collection will take a while to fully index but a decent broadband connection will help that. It's also really easy to get started on audiogalaxy (took me under five minutes from first visit to the website, to playing my first track on the phone.)
thanks for help. i just saw today that Audiogalaxy is released, i think that'll do . Btw, i used to have about 550gb of music but sadly i had to erease my whole disk because of failure ;//
seereek said:
thanks for help. i just saw today that Audiogalaxy is released, i think that'll do . Btw, i used to have about 550gb of music but sadly i had to erease my whole disk because of failure ;//
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Bloody hell! You win! I lost around 350gig for the same reason and now have only around 290gig in raid (thankfully raid, I lost one of the disk set last year but no data for once!)
I have been hearing of some cloud like applications out there for push/pull of files to/from pc to android, so that may make another alternative, especially for offline usage. I'm thinking of implementing both because it makes far more sense to be able to access certain data remotely, rather than trying to figure out what I'll want syncing before I leave home.
Oh and if there isn't anything that quite fits the bill, perhaps it would make an excellent dev project for me.
Subsonic serves me and my terabyte of music very well (roughly half the teratyte is FLAC). The reason AudioGalaxy is not something for me is because I like to do everything folder-based, not via some database/index.
I am currently trying CifsManager too. But it appears my WiFi is pretty slow, so for streaming Subsonic's buffering/caching is much appreciated. Another advantage of Subsonic is that you can tell it exactly what and how you want stuff re-encoded. You can have it set up so that if you are on WiFi, it will automatically stream your MP3/FLAC at their own max quality. Then when you go off WiFi with your phone and want to listen over mobile data networks, it could stream it to you as 128kbps MP3 file for example (on-the-fly transcoded from for example your high-quality FLAC).
@jjwa - That's an excellent answer! Thanks for that, I think I need to take another look at Subsonic.
So I was wondering if there was a way to stream my pictures and videos from my Mac to my Transformer. I have google music for my music so that isn't really an issue, however I'd like to be able to hook my tablet to any tv and view the pictures on my Mac. I know it's probably easier done over LANwifi but it'd be nice if I could do it anywhere.
I assume once I get my mini hdmi cable it will be easy to hook it up to the TV, but getting the media is where I am stuck.
I use Subsonic (http://www.subsonic.org) to stream all my music and video's to my phone and tablet (or any other device)...
The server can be a mac, you can access your media via the web or via an android, iphone, pc widget/app... there is a lot out there...
It doesn't support image viewing (by default), but there is a mod which enables picture viewing support...
You can take a look at http://media.schattorie.nl, apps are available in the market...
does it cost monthly?
So I just got Plex, seems to work thus far. 4.99 for the app and the server on my mac is a free d/l. Just need to see if it works over 3g now...
Just picked up one of these an hour ago. Comes in 500 gigs worth of wireless happiness.
I'm dumping video clips I took with a digital camera, pictures, ebooks and my music onto it now.
The way you connect to it is it creates it's own wireless network that you connect to to access the drive. So looks like you lose wireless internet connectivity while accessing the drive.
Haven't tried to access it from the doubleshot yet, but i'm impatiently awaiting the transfer to finish.
I'm pretty sure this will alleviate the lack of decent storage space all phones and tablets suffer from.
I'll post back later today with how well it works and a link to the device's product page. Making links in posts is tedious on the Nook i'm typing from.
Edit:
Product webpage
I bought mine from BestBuy for $199.99+tax. So far worth every penny.
I can't wait to hear the results. Carrying around a movie library in conjunction with the Doubleshot's TV Out function sounds pretty awesome!!
Okay, slept and took my lady out for dinner.
Now that i'm back, the info is fully copied over and the device is charged.
First impressions are pretty great.
Comes with a proprietary usb cord to connect to a computer with, supports up to usb 3.0 (sweet!)
Also comes with an AC adapter to usb, and a car charger to usb. The coolest tiny little car adapter i've seen on the market to date, btw.
The usb cord that plugs in for just power to the device connects to the device through the tiny, round power input and not a straight usb connection.
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Connecting wirelessly to the device is done one of two ways:
-Any web browser
(mixed results with both opera mobile and the stock browser)
(web browser preferred for downloading content from the wireless HDD to the MT4GS)
-Through the Seagate GoFlex App (preferred for video or browsing content on the wireless HDD)
Browsing the contents of the drive is much, much preferred through the Seagate app, it works much better.
Yes, you can stream media directly from the device to the MT4GS and output to a television. ( As noted above by siani_8 - the whole reason I got the drive in the first place )
Video:
You can play video using QuickPic Which is my current and favorite gallery app, but it falls short on video due to one big failing: no option for soft decoding.
It doesn't matter playing video on the device itself, but as soon as you output to television ( from the MT4GS in general, not just the wireless HDD specifically ) you MUST default to soft decoding on any app you use or you will get skippy video on the television screen.
Can't help it, it's a limitation of the device. The hardware decoding (at least for an .avi file ) can't both output to television and keep up with decoding the video. It's okay, though, because with a dual-core Gen3 Snapdragon and a hefty amount of RAM the MT4GS is more then capable of soft-decoding without a loss of performance.
To this end, i'd love to point you in the direction of Mobo Player - my absolute favorite video player on any android device. Handles .avi and other file formats, is free, and works fantastically well.
So, quick recap so far:
Use the Seagate GoFlex app to access the wireless HDD, and when you tap on a video use Mobo Player to view it.
Enable soft-decoding by default in Mobo Player, and you'll be able to plug into a television and watch any movies you want streamed directly from the wireless HDD.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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Pictures:
You can view pictures from the wireless HDD using the GoFlex app.
Trying to download pictures to the MT4GS from the wireless HDD using the GoFlex app is not functional, but viewing is fine. Trying to download pictures or folders of pictures results in force close of the GoFlex app.
Recommend to use the web browser for downloading, but the GoFlex app for viewing.
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That's what i've got so far.
This thing is pretty awesome, i'm happy with my purchase, and watching Hackers as I type this up.
With any new technology, i'm sure there will be hiccups (such as the app force closing when trying to download pictures) but so far it seems pretty solid.
The info is on the device and works on several computers tested on (win xp an win 7) so far through usb.
Tried accessing it from my MT4GS running my own custom ROM, a hacked up version of the stock OS, and also from my Nook Color running the latest CM7 stable.
From both android devices the wireless HDD was no problem to connect with and use, and works just as you would imagine it should when you buy it from the store.
I think this is the beginning of a new future in mobile storage, and honestly, streaming video straight from my pocket to a television couldn't be easier.
Definite win, more info to come over the next few days as I play with it more.
Thanks for the post. I was on the fence about picking this up for my droid tablet
My friend has one of those and loves it.
Sent from my HTC myTouch_4G_Slide using xda premium
Sometimes I have trouble connecting to it, but not often.
I haven't tried to use the app for it in ages, which is probably a lot better by now.
I also haven't checked for firmware updates - ever - so it's likely some of those small hiccups are rectified.
Either way, it's way awesome, nothing like walking around with some 400 gigs of space just a button push away.
You can even just reach in a pocket or backpack and press the button then just do your thing walking around or whatever with access to whatever is on it.
Very handy, very nice despite it's small aggravations from time to time - for the prototype commercial product of what they will all be like in the future i'm thoroughly impressed.
Doesn't get hot when running from the battery, either, even in hard drive zipper case in my cargo pockets.
All in all, a solid win and definitely a quality offering for a new product type launch.
If I could go back to the store with the cash in my hand and stand in front of it to make the choice over, i'd get it in a heartbeat without hesitation.
Hey all!
I would like to know if there is a way to create a linux computer, which would communicate to a Android tablet for input/output functions.
Ideally I envision a small (like mini PC) linux computer sitting in my room. The tablet would be dockable to it it- where it would act as a simple touchscreen interface for the linux computer. Press a button, and the tablet can be removed as an Android tablet.
The tablet could access files (like music) on the linux computer and hopefully control something like a sound card also.
Perhaps a linux computer could run android? The tablet portion would simply be a wireless touchscreen essentially.
Any thoughts?
I haven't done much of that, but I'm sure that it is possible. Also, the Lenovo U1 comes close, although that is a laptop with Windows instead of Linux.
the majority of the functions would not be needed through a hardware I/O interface, all you would need is client server software on both devices.. If you really had to use a hardware interface you could use USB host mode i suppose and create a tcp/ip connection but this could be done over WiFi or Bluetooth.
android devices can already control many features of windows box's like vlc remote, xbmc, boxee and many more, it can also control the desktops mouse..
Linux wise, it shouldn't be much different..
You could just create a custom ui with loads of buttons that go to macros on the machine doing things like volume 0 -50 -100% etc
The lenovo U1 is tight!
What about more of the tablet just being the remote for a computer basically.
Take sound processing for instance- Android only does 2 channel and has very little in processing abilities- power amp is the most I've seen.
In a computer environment however, you can have way more channels, and lot more options like crossovers, time delay, parametric EQ, filters, etc. Things I doubt are possible on an android since they often require sophisticated sound cards not to mention eat up battery if they were possible.
What I want is to have a computer do that processing work, but have a simple tablet control the programs on the computer. I'd prefer to not have a custom UI since I like how people are very comfortable with android and it works very well. Also- perhaps you could use your phone to also control the computer.
I envision this:
A user would be laying in their bed, grab the tablet and select some music from the computer hard drive. Then they could control the sound and playback devices from the tablet. The processed sound from the computer goes to a home receiver as a digital signal, and the room fills with perfect sound. Then they decide they want to watch a blue ray. They toss it in the computer and it plays on their tablet with the sound coming from the receiver.
Have you thought about running vnc. or another type of remote desktop software , you could have the desktop wired up to the receiver etc , and just tell the computer to play the music or movie from the tablet .
Most remote desktop software have very crappy frame rates so playing back video this way kinda sucks but logmein ignition does surprisingly well on my tab211 when controlling my mac to do very similar things
( sorry I missed that post from anarchyuk completely , I was reading through pretty quick and missed it , so you can ignore this post )
Sounds like what I do with my android tablets via Skifta (free on Android Market0 using DLNA protocol.
Skifta app is installed on my EVO3D phone, Kindle Fire (running ICS Beta), and TF201.
When Skifta starts, you select your media source. In my case, 10TB Synology 411j running built-in DLNA media server.
Then select the Playback device. Which could be the tablet itself, my HTPC (XBMC/win7 connected to my home theater), or straight to my TV (Samsung LN46C750 has ethernet and accepts DLNA push request.)
Once source and playback targets are set, I just browse to whatever music or video I want and boom,it plays.
Highly recommend the Synology rigs. They also have built-in Dynamic DNS and OpenVPN server. Their DS Audio app (also free) allows my phone to connect back to my NAS over cellular network and play any song on the NAS via streaming.
Heck, if you plug an USB sound card like the SIIG audiowave 7.1 into the Synology's USB port, it can be an DLNA audio playback device, too.
Hi!
I've recently purchased a small WiFi travel router that also allows me to plug in my external hard drive (HDD) so that my Android phone can access the files wirelessly. It was originally formatted NTFS but I couldn't get Android to read the files when I connected wired via an OTG cable. Would the same be true for accessing the files wirelessly? What file format would you use for the drive? It's 3TB so if I use FAT32, I'll have to have 2 paritions. However, this probably has the widest compatibility. I also have streaming media boxes that I use when traveling & it would be helpful if they could also read the files since occasionally, the wifi in hotels isn't up to streaming from online services. This would either be an Amazon Fire TV 4k box (previous gen, not current) or a Roku box.
Thanks so much in advance!