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View Full Version : Proper "Pull from server" streaming.


squiggs1982
04-20-2004, 12:08 AM
Hi all!

Right. I've searched this and other forums for about two weeks now and have failed to find a definitive answer on the feasability of, what I consider, to be proper streaming.

I can happily broadcast a file through media encoder and watch it on my ipaq 4150 in media player. It works lovely. However, this is very inconvenient! What I want to do, is sit with Resco file explorer, browse to the file on my HD and open it in media player or pocketMVP on the PPC.

Now, to clarify, I CAN do this for the most part, but it's awful. On media player, it w i ....l sta...rt an....d stu...t...ter like nothing on earth! On pocketMVP, the only file I've actually managed to play was a very short movie trailer (about 2.5 megs) and even then, it sat for about five minutes presumably coopying the whole thing to memory before playing it. When it finally does play, it was fine, but anything larger than that (say an TV show) will just hold on the spinning pie thing forever.

I've played around with all the settings on MVP and taken up suggestions in other posts, such as playing with the cache size and the index, but to no avail.

Basically, my question is can this be done or is my 4150 just not up to the job?

I'm in my house, with a g capable access point (although I know the ipaq is only b) and the files are either DIVX for MVP or the others are suitable for media player. The same thing works fine on my laptop, you'd never know it wasn't local content. Is my 'paq just a wimp?

Thanks!! :D

Tom W.M.
04-21-2004, 12:08 AM
Well, a Pocket PC can only handle a maximum bitrate of 300-400 or so (I've heard higher with WMP9), and most files on your PC are probably at least 500 kbps. and likely much, much more.

I've wondered myself whether there is a freeware program that would act as a server on my PC and allow me to broadcast or serve up on-demand my DivX AVI video files as MPEGs. Anyone?

squiggs1982
04-21-2004, 12:17 AM
Ah, thankyou Tom! That's all I was after, just some form of confirmation, one way or another. At least I can stop pulling my hair out now!

Your suggestion of such a program is, however, intriguing! Any developers up for the task?

Tom W.M.
04-27-2004, 10:46 PM
I've wondered about VideoLAN (http://www.videolan.org/), but I've never tried it myself as a server. I've used the player and it's very fast.