Here is a quick tutorial on how to stream video and music to your expo with readily available freeware software with very reasonable results.
Difficulty Level: Medium (requires some experience on port forwarding settings)
Required software:
For your PC host computer (i.e. the computer you want to stream from) you need vlc media player. If you dont have it already get it. It rocks.
For your expo you need:
- tcpmp media player. If you dont have it already get it (can be found by googling tcpmp I usually find it works better when you install to device) instead of sd card. It too rocks.
- Total commander (can be found here
http://www.ghisler.com/pocketpc.htm
)
The following is a guide for streaming over a LAN (local area network) and internet. Option 1 allows you to stream over LAN and internet. Option 2 is LAN only. Option 2 provides the better streaming experience and should be used when on your LAN.
OPTION 1ON YOUR HOST PC (NOT YOUR EXPO)
1) Find your ip address go to Start\Run and type ipconfig. Want you want to find are your local ip and public address. Local ip addresses usually start with the folowing 192.168.x.x with the x's variable depending on the type of router you are using.
2) Access your router to enable port forwarding for your host pc on your home network. The procedure varies from router to router so I recommend you do a google search to find out how to setup port forwarding for your router. You want to enable port 8080 (start and end) and forward to your host pc's local ip number (the 192.168.x.x number you got from step 1) This only needs to be done if you plan to stream to your expo when you are off the network
and creates a potential security risk. You should disable port forwarding on 8080 when you are finsihed your session. Depending on your router diabling of ports can be done remotely using a remote desktoping tool.
3) Open vlc media player
4) click on the file menu and go to streaming
5) from the open dialog box go the file tab (it should be at this tab by default when the dialog box pops up)
6) pick the file you want to stream and press the small down arrow to the left of the stream button at the bottom. Pick the stream option (alternatively press alt + s)
7) in the oututs tab pick http leave the address section blank and make sure that the port is set to 8080. If it isnt change it to 8080 (it shoul be set at 8080 by default)
8) on the same page go to the profile section below and pick the encapsulation tab. in the drop down menu to the upper right of the profile secction pick Windows (wmv/asf) format. Press the stream button.
TIPS/TRICKS:-While on the same wifi or LAN network try UDP streaming instead of HTTP streaming
- Go to tools preferences in VLC. At the bottom there should be a radio buttons which say "simple" and "all". Click "all". Go the "stream output" settings and do the following:
check "keep stream output open"
change "stream output muxer cache" to greater than 5000ms I have mine at 9000ms
- If you have Coreplayer try changing the encapsulation to H264 while streaming. Video quality is significantly better at lower bitrates. At the moment i stream with a video bitrate of about 450 kb/s
- Using coreplayer and h264 streaming with the above settings I get very reasonable results over 3g network speeds. On wifi I increase the video bitrate to get better quality.
- once you have remote desktop setup to access your host remotely from your expo it is failry easy to setup and start streaming.
- With the exception of coreplayer which is well worth the asking price, everything above is free and you do not have a third party program such as orb installed on your pc/mac/linux.
ON YOUR EXPO
9) open tcpmp
10) Go to file/open file
11) type in the following in the dialog box at the top
http://yourlocalip:8080 (where yourlocalip is the 192.168.x.x address from step 1) and press go
12) wait a second or two for it to buffer and then relax and enjoy.
If it isnt working make sure you have allowed firewall access for port 8080.
You can set this up to work off your LAN by using your public ip address instead of your local ip (make sure you have set up port forwarding on your router as in Step 2). What I have done in the past is accessed my computer using remote desktop to setup up the stream and then logged off and accessed the stream using tcpmp.
You can setup vlc up with a HTTP interface to enable streaming but this is a topic for a more advanced tutorial.
OPTION 2 LAN Access only
1) Open total commander on your expo.
2) Double press \\Plugins at the top of the list
3) double press LAN
4) double press _Quick open
5) your server name will be your coumpturs NETBIOS name.
This can be found on xp pcs by right clicking my computer clicking properties. Go to computer name and click change. On the next page click more. There is a field called net BIOS name (it is usually capital letters of your host computers name).
6) Once you have entered your server name it should connect to your LAN. double click on a video file and you will begin streaming automatically.
7) an important thing to remember is that you may have a number of folders shared but in total commander you will only be able to access folders with names that are less than 16 characters. If your video files are in a directory that in a folder with a name larger than 15 character create a new shared folder with a name 15 characters or less and move your video files into them.
8) Because you dont need to encode the file on the host computer this option is smoother and better quality than option 1. However, you will not be able to do it when you are not on your LAN.
