Mobile Media Streaming

DominionZA

DominionZA

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Edenvale, Gauteng
Okay, so we are off on holiday again. Everyone in the family has their own Android tablet and these are the primary entertainment devices when in the car.
Normally everyone just plays games or browses the net (if reception in the area we are travelling).

I want to get media streaming working in the car so I could take along a library of movies and TV Shows and stream to all the devices. I got this working 10 minutes ago and had to share.

What is needed.
1. I mobile wireless access point.
I am using a 3G Router A683. It supports up to 8 connected devices (and pretty good range too) and can share the 3G connection from your 3G USB Dongle.

2. One Android device with enough storage to hold all your content. Will call this one the Media Server.

3. VidCoder. This is a handy UI frontend for Handbreak. This is used to compress your existing content to save space but still look good on your devices. I use the Android HD profile

4. Movies and TV Shows (or whatever else you want to share).

5. Twonky Mobile from the Play Store (there are others but Twonky works well for me).

How it is done.
All devices must be connected to the same wireless access point.

1. Using VidCoder, compress all the content you want to store on your media server and transfer it to your media server.

2. Fire up Twonky Mobile on the media server. Give your library a name and enable sharing. Set the player to this device.

3. Fire up Twonky Mobile on the other devices, and set the server to whatever you named it in 2 above. It will auto discover available servers on the network. Set the play to this device.

And there we go... You can fire up Twonky on your other devices and browse/play content from your mobile media server. I have tested it with 2 streams so far and working well. The real test will be in the car just now :)

I rushed out this little guide as we are about to leave. If anyone has questions (or suggestions), fire away.
 
Really awesome idea, I'm guessing if you have one of the USB connectors you could connect an external drive or flash drive and have space for more stuff to stream?
 
Nduimiso said:
Really awesome idea, I'm guessing if you have one of the USB connectors you could connect an external drive or flash drive and have space for more stuff to stream?
Click to expand...

You are onto something!
Will give that a try just now. Never saw options for USB host in the web GUI when I was setting up the 3G, but will fiddle. That would be awesome.

The streaming in the car worked well. Once hooked up the kids did not complain once about the streams. They watched a few TV Shows on the way here (4.5 hours or so) with no problems.
Very impressed.
 
Mike Smit said:
You are onto something!
Will give that a try just now. Never saw options for USB host in the web GUI when I was setting up the 3G, but will fiddle. That would be awesome.

The streaming in the car worked well. Once hooked up the kids did not complain once about the streams. They watched a few TV Shows on the way here (4.5 hours or so) with no problems.
Very impressed.
Click to expand...
Let us know if you get that working, you could set up a media server when you go away on holiday and really take things to the next level
 
Mike Smit said:
You are onto something!
Will give that a try just now. Never saw options for USB host in the web GUI when I was setting up the 3G, but will fiddle. That would be awesome.

The streaming in the car worked well. Once hooked up the kids did not complain once about the streams. They watched a few TV Shows on the way here (4.5 hours or so) with no problems.
Very impressed.
Click to expand...
Do you think there will be enough power to power a USB hard drive? I somehow doubt it. Unless u get a usb-hub that can receive power from the car
 
Pakka said:
Do you think there will be enough power to power a USB hard drive? I somehow doubt it. Unless u get a usb-hub that can receive power from the car
Click to expand...

I doubt it too. Will probably need a cable that splits so you can source power from a USB Sickert in the car.
 
Pakka said:
Do you think there will be enough power to power a USB hard drive? I somehow doubt it. Unless u get a usb-hub that can receive power from the car
Click to expand...

I am able to plug in and power an external HDD on my Asus TF101+ dock...
 
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