Can you stream video to a PB?

Question

I just got a PB - is there a way to stream video to a PB the way that you can with an iPad using Air Video?  Either on your LAN or over the net?

Answer 1

Yes you can stream media you have in your home network to the playbook.
The playbook will play an AVI or MP4 on your PC, if you setup sharing this folder using http.
But then, only those videos will play which the playbook supports - and this is a very limited amount.
Better install a media server. No coding required, just a little editing of an xml file + some free software.
its not perfect, but, works acceptable for me.
download tversity. This is an implementation of an upnp mediaplayer for Windows.
The playbook is able to playback streaming media of different kinds, but it has serveral limitations, like not AC3 supported in an AVI or no mkv playback.
With tversity, you can setup a profile so that everything gets transcoded to Windows Media9. You need a Windows PC however (dont know, if there is a media-player software for mac or linux which is able to transcode to Windows Media9). Also, the PC you use should be not something old. Use a modern I5 or I7, otherwise, it wont be able to transcode all your movies in realtime.
After installation of tversity, setup the path to your library. During that, open the advanced settings of the libary, and set transcode to always.
In the transcoder settings, set Video resolution to 640x384
in when to transcode, specify "always"
choose Windows Media 9 for the encoder settings
save all,
terminate the service
open the folder where the program is located
you find a "profiles.xml"
open that with notepad or wordpad
search for xbox
below that, you find a line that reads:
<HTTPHeader outServerUA="Microsoft-Windows-NT/5.1 UPnP/1.0 UPnP-Device-Host/1.0 Microsoft-HTTPAPI/1.0&#x0D;&#x0A;" inUASubstr="Xbox|Xenon"/>
replace that with:
<HTTPHeader inUASubstr="PlayBook"/>
A little down in the xml file, still in the xbox profile, you find:
<maxVideoInfo width="1920" height="1080" bitrate="20000000" fps="60"></maxVideoInfo>
replace this with:
<maxVideoInfo width="640" height="384" bitrate="2000000" fps="20"></maxVideoInfo>
maybe choose a higher fps, that wont hurt.
Save the file,
start the media server services
go to you playbook,
in the browser open http://ip.of.your.pc: 41952
now, you can enyjoy most of your movie collection.
What will not work perfect for me:
The html menu for browsing the library looks old-fashioned
Some movies will stream, but will be interrupted every few seconds for a half second. Dont know, if this is the playbooks fault or a problem with the tversity. Since the stream plays fine when simulating the playbook with a pc, I guess this might fix itself during the next PB updates.
What is nice:
in addition, tversity will also transcode for your blackberry, if your PB battery is down, you can continue to watch on the tiny 2.5inch blackberry screen.
btw: contrary to the documentation the PB does not support RTSP streams.