jwcolby
jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com
Fri Jul 13 23:25:37 CDT 2012
I bought a Seagate Satellite to pack with videos to stream to tablets / phones for the kids on the vacation this summer. http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Satellite-Wireless-External-STBF500101/dp/B004Z0S7K6 It works though the interface is pretty stone-age. I am using DVD Catalyst to convert the movies on my server at the house to MP4s which can be played by the droids. So far I have converted and pushed 73 movies at about 80 gigabytes total. This beast basically creates a wireless network which any wireless capable device can request data from. Using the Kindle fire, I open the Dolphin browser, go to 192.168.0.1 and hit the wireless created by the Satellite. Select Videos and it displays a alpha list of every video that it found on the disk, sorted in alpha order. Double click on any .MP4 and it starts to play the video. Likewise with my Droid II or Droid Razor smart phones. The Satellite can (theoretically) stream to three different devices independently - different movies etc. In fact with the latest software, possibly as many as 7 devices. Of course that all depends on the bandwidth each device requires. It does in fact work. I have simultaneously streamed two different videos to two devices (the Kindle Fire and my Droid II phone). In years past we have used the typical DVD player with multiple display heads, with all the attendant "It's my turn to pick the movie" whiney stuff that kids are famous for. If this works... 100 or so videos to select from... A private WiFi right inside the car... A private WiFi in the hotel... A private WiFi at Aunt Janices house... Plus the Kindle at least can play a ton of games. -- John W. Colby Colby Consulting Reality is what refuses to go away when you do not believe in it