Now that I’ve been using my iPad for a while, there are certain programs I can’t imagine living without. One that I use on an almost daily basis is AirVideo, a delightful solution for streaming video across a local network. It’s a downloadable computer-side program that runs to stream video from any accessible location to devices. An application is available for both the iPhone and iPad for only $2.99.
Using the desktop app is incredibly easy, just add in whatever root folder you keep your media in. This can be on a local drive, or on any accessible usb or network storage. Using the client-side application on the iPhone or iPad, you can drill down into subfolders to quickly find what you’re looking for. This is incredibly convenient for quickly catching up on a show or movie. I can be watching something within 30 seconds of turning on my iPad. It’s much easier than having to add things into iTunes and then waiting for the AppleTV to sync.
I’ve found that videos encoded in handbrake at AppleTV quality stream fine over my 802.11G network and look great on the iPad. That high of a quality is too much for the iPhone 3GS. Fortunately the developers of AirVideo thought this through, and provided an option to have the computer streaming the file convert the video on the fly. There seems to be about a 10 second delay when starting up playback of the video, or jumping around using the timeline. Once it’s streaming I haven’t yet experienced a hiccup.
If you’ve got a cache of video media that you’ve been meaning to catch up on, I highly recommend AirVideo for streaming to both the iPhone and the iPad.
Note: As indicated in the program description, AirVideo will not allow you to watch DRM protected video. So no streaming of things you’ve purchased on iTunes!
