Stream Videos to iPhone using Air Video
Posted on June 15, 2010 at 5:49 am
I’ve previously written about a program called HandBrake that you can use to convert videos to iPhone format easily. It’s free and pretty easy to use. If you have files that are not in the format supported by the iPhone, HandBrake is one of the best conversion tools.
The only issue is that it can take a long time to convert videos depending on what kind of format they are in. For example, if you download a lot of high quality movies that are in MKV format, you might have to spend a few hours converting those videos.
Also, it ends up eating more space on your local computer and on your iPhone. Another way to watch videos is to stream them from your computer directly to your iPhone.
Air Video is a nitfy little program that lets you avoid having to convert and copy your videos to your iPhone in order to watch them. Instead, it run a little server on your computers and lets you stream videos from those computers to the iPhone app.
Using Air Video is a simple two step process. First, download and install the Air Video Server software onto your PC or Mac. Once the program is up and running, you simply add the folders that you want to share.
Then, go ahead and download the Air Video app from the iTunes store. Note that the iPhone app also comes in a free version too, so you can download that first and see how you like it. Click the Add button to add the computers to your server list.
Then you can browse the folders that you set to share by tapping the computer name. That’s it! Now you can enjoy your movies, TV shows, and anything else on your computer on your iPhone.
Air Video has some nice features that make it worth the price. Here are some below:
- Automated discovery of servers on your local network using Apple Bonjour
- Ability to stream video across the Internet by specifying an IP address and port number
- Ability to share iTunes library and iTunes playlists
- All videos are converted live, which allows you to play them immediately without having to convert
- Ability to adjust quality and resolution during playback for each video individually
Overall, Air Video is a pretty polished app for quickly streaming videos to your iPhone or iPod Touch. If you are tech-savvy, you can access your PC externally and stream your videos anywhere.
The cool thing is that Air Share works over 3G also, so you don’t always have to be connected to a Wi-Fi network to stream the videos. Defnitely check it out if you have a large collection of movies and videos on your Mac or PC and don’t want to convert everything. Enjoy!
» Filed Under Smartphones
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Can Handbrake accept MKV format? I thought it only accepts MPEG (including DVD) format.