We've got high expectations. Not only do we want to be able to use our phones to make calls and send texts, but we also want internet access, games, apps that get us to social media, a music player as well as online music. We want to watch movies and read books and take pictures and -- whew, our little phone is starting to get a little crowded. And pretty much the same story goes for the iPad even with its bigger memory. Streaming music can take some of the load off, but if we could move a few of those episodes of Mad Men off our iOS devices, that sure would free up some space.
Video streaming apps to the rescue!
VLC Streamer ($.99)
Boy, did we have high hopes for Hobbyist Software's VLC Streamer. Apart from carrying the trusted VLC name, there were free and paid versions to test, and there were free and paid versions of the same developer's remote for VLC. That last app lets you turn your iPhone into a remote control for your VLC player on your computer. Run the player software once to set up, then anything you run from your VLC media player on your desktop or laptop can be controlled from your iPhone.
The set up for the remote was such a breeze that, as we've stated above, we had high hopes. Maybe we've been spoiled by the remote's ease of use or maybe we've been spoiled by other streaming apps, but VLC Streamer did not make us feel the love.
Streaming Fail
For starters, VLC on the desktop is known as the Swiss Army Knife of media players and there's a very, very good reason for that. If you've found the video or audio codec that stumps VLC, then you're pulling in obscure pirated video from Belorussian torrents or something from the very remotest corners of the online galaxy. Because this baby does it all. So when an app advertises itself using not only the VLC name but also with the claim that it uses "the power of VLC to stream movies to your device," how could we not expect great things?
Was set up easy? It wasn't without its complications and for reasons we can't fathom, VLC Streamer forces you to open your Systems Preferences panel to set a password every single time you start it. Even after you've set one. Every single time. Did we tell you how annoying this is? Plus, we kept getting messages that the VLC player had crashed.
Once started, the streaming server ran rather quietly in the background with a light memory footprint. And the app installed on our phone without a hitch. But getting these two to talk proved a little more difficult.
If It's Not Alphabetical, We'll Have Problems
Nor was navigating the app as intuitive as we'd want. Once the server is running and the app recognizes it, you are given a list of Visible Computers, including yours. When you tap your computer in the list, you're taken to a screen where you tap to "Add a movie." Here, you find yourself in familiar territory with your main user account on your Mac or your Documents folder on your PC. From here you can hopefully navigate to wherever you have movies stored on your computer. There's only one back button and that's back to the very beginning, VLC Streamer choosing an Up option at the very top of the list of folders you're navigating through. So tap wisely.
Navigatae Wisely, As You Might Be Looking a While
Do you have movies you're looking for in iTunes? Well, good luck. Since Apple keeps movies and TV shows in the Movies subfolder of the iTunes Music folder, you'll be tapping and scrolling for some time. And if you go looking for a file somewhere else, well, you can scroll back to this location again when you return. Also, for reasons we struggle with, folders aren't always listed in alphabetical order.
Get Used to This Button. It's How You Go "Back"
Well, that's all fine and good, just a bit of navigation trouble. Not quite. Did you use Handbrake to rip your DVDs into a universal Apple format so you'd have digital versions of these? Well, VLC Streamer seems to have a ton of problems processing these videos. What about the ever popular .mov format? That seemed to have issues too. In fact, a 9 second video at a 200 bitrate and a 15 frame rate failed to play for more than 3 seconds. Ditto a 10 second .mov file. A 2 second long .avi file processed for over five minutes without ever playing.
VLC Streamer isn't just difficult to navigate. Once you get where you're going, it's difficult -- if not impossible -- to even get the party started.
At $.99 you can't ask for the world, but you could ask for an app that does what it's advertised as doing.
Air Video ($2.99)
You'll drop three times as much coin on InMethod s.r.o.'s Air Video as on VLC Streamer, and it's money so well spent you'll practically beg the developers to charge you more. Since they include video out to your TV, you'll be offering up your pets, your retirement plan, and a few more bucks thrown into the bargain.
Those Handbrake ripped DVDs in universal Apple format we were talking about? Not even close to a problem. AVI files? Not to worry. Divx? Pshaw, now you're just fooling around. To tell the truth, we worked hard to find some kind of format to throw at this server and make it struggle. What we found is if it can't play your video file direct, it usually can convert on the fly. This really put us to the challenge and again, we tried to find a file format that would stump the app.
Finally, we hit success with a couple WMV files we downloaded to our Mac to test this baby. Air Video tried to convert to something viewable, but only the audio came through with choppy visuals. Of course, then we struggled to remember when we'd ever watched anything in WMV format and came up empty handed. For giggles, we tried the same test on our PC and got identical results.
A Bit of Stephen Fry Streaming to the iPad
As with all streaming from your computer apps, we had to download the server software to our main machines and set them up. Air Video Server practically set itself up in just a couple seconds, then ran unobtrusively in the background. The nice thing about set up is that you can specify which folders you want the app to access and it will automatically pull those up. No running through an entire list of every folder on your hard drive until you get to the one you want, then navigating your way back out to find a different folder. (Of course, the reverse of this is true -- forget to move a video to the folder you designate and it's as lost to you as if it didn't exist.) You can add and subtract folders at will, but you have do it through the desktop server software.
You Can Go Where You Want, But You Can Only Do Video
Once you've set up your computer as a server, tap open the app and, like VLC Streamer, you are presented with the list of computers running the software. The clean interface was a snap to work with. From there you're given the Play screen that includes the option of straight Play or then Play with Live Conversion (in case the video format is unusual). Strange format? You can set a video to convert to a playable version. Then back at your base computer, things start cooking. Want a little control over the conversion settings? That's an option too, including cropping your video, boosting the audio or disabling the audio entirely, and more. There's even the option to add the video to your iTunes folder which struck us as an odd, but interesting choice.
But let's back up here, because we passed over a definitely killer feature now. Play with Live Conversion lets you stream almost all non-Apple device friendly video. And not just over your local WiFi, but through the 3G network as well. Long car trip? Leave your computer running and stream everything to your device without worry. We tried this with long and short videos and even two hour, full-length movies topping 1GB didn't throw any hiccups. Not one single problem. Slap some password protection on it, and nefarious dudes can't go sniffing through your server's open doors. Plug it into your in-laws' TV miles away and enjoy your own movies, no problem.
Take Your Video Anywhere, Truly
Our only stumbling block with the whole of the app came from the headache of setting up access through our router for 3G. This is, obviously, not the developer's fault and proved just as big a pain for our next contender, but once we finally got the hang of it, we never had any problems after that. Of course, with an unlimited data plan (grandfathered in; sorry, late joiners) there's little to worry about. Your mileage is going to wildly vary on this aspect.
Stream to Me ($2.99)
We thought we were done. We thought Air Video took the cake until we tried Matthew Gallagher's Stream to Me. Our last swooning fit over Air Video's 3G streaming capabilities were still vaporously in the air when we heard about this sweet little app. While we've struggled mightily and failed to stream over 3G as Stream to Me claimed, we can only assume there's a server-router conflict that, once resolved with Air Video, ruined our router for any other app to come down the road. All our efforts are in vain. AT&T, you're safe from our greedy bandwidth hogging ways! (For now...)
Here's Our Videos, Nice and Neat and Ready to Play
Download and set up your server, just like elsewhere. Then in the app, you start at a Servers page and tap your computer from a list; from here tap-navigate your way through the folders you chose to share when setting up, and find your beloved media. Your lists of access are broken down into three categories: folders you've shared specifically, what's billed as iTunes Playlists but proves to be the whole of your music catalog, and ditto goes for iPhoto.
Our Music, Everywhere
While Air Video might have nailed the 3G streaming for us with relative ease once we've set it up, Stream to Me -- and its companion, desktop-residing ServeToMe -- doesn't just stop with the video access. How would you like as much folder access as VLC Streamer gave you, but with *real* capabilities? Want to look at pictures in iPhoto? Who doesn't? Or just maybe that spot of quiet at the party is crying out for a DJ assist? Stream to Me pulls up your iTunes libraries and makes every last jot and tittle available to blaze out clear and clean. Ready to show a film on your host's big screen? TV-Out lets you at it.
Ah right, because video is where things are at, right? That's where this party started, and we are happy to report that Stream to Me succeeds even where our beloved Air Video fails. Sure, we don't have any need at all to watch WMV files (and are kind of confused as to who might), but that one app can play on the fly and one app can't strikes us as a significant gap. Even the Air Video converted WMV vids that tripped up that app, Stream to Me handled like a pro. And Stream to Me gives us full access to those videos we downloaded but didn't put in the right folder, plus our music and pictures.
Would You Like To See Some of Our Thousands of Photos?
And quick and easy access to the vast majority of our media files from the confines of our iOS devices has been a dream of ours for some time now. Simplify Media scratched our itch back in the day but it was slow and buggy, and was eventually was bought up by Google for development cannibalism. What Stream To Me gives us is exactly what we want from our streaming servers -- access to sizable files we don't have room for on our mobile devices -- without hassle or complication and with plenty of speed.
Roll Tape: And The Award Goes To:
We were ready to crown Air Video as the app that not only broke VLC Streamer's heart, but tore off its corsage, stomped on it, and left the dance with its date, then Stream to Me comes along and makes Air Video work -- work! -- for that rank. Work, but almost sorta kinda fail.
Believe us, this is hard to say. By every measure, Air Video should win: best UI of the bunch -- heck, best UI in the world for this feature -- easiest set up that worked, even best menu bar icon, etc. But even if we give it access to our number one main folder, Air Video is single-mindedly stuck on movies. While we want videos reliably streamed, we also want the world, as I mentioned earlier, and so Stream to Me with its access to our three main media wins.
None of the apps reviewed were able to stream DRM-protected media, so we offer that FYI and not as criticism of any of the apps.
One last thing. The first of these two apps to add a Wake-On-LAN feature like RowMote, will blaze with glory. Having access to your files only works if your computer is awake to pass them along.Image Gallery
Sent from my iPhone
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