Android OS

The wonders of ES File explorer...

I discovered you can connect to the Local Area Network using ES File explorer. So now I can connect to my USB hard drive attached to my WDTV Live and wirelessly view my videos on both of my Android devices. The crappy 8gb storage on my HP Touchpad is irrelevant now, I don't need to store most of my videos on it. How cool is that? With MX Video Player even subtitles are working.
I shouldn't be surprised with ES File explorer. It can do Sky Drive, Google Drive, even box.net. A 10/10 app.

I think the Western Digital TV (WDTV) Live streamer would be a huge hit with students, since we tend to watch online content. I got it mainly to watch BBC iPlayer and Netflix, and the odd video from USB, on my television-- I've never been one to watch stuff on a laptop/PC; it just doesn't feel right. For streaming content it's excellent. Besides being able to beam your media over Wifi all around the house, you can watch stuff from your laptop/PC/media server via WDTV directly on your television. It also does DLNA. It's simply awesome for £80! Out the box there's nothing like it, it'll destroy Apple TV and plays just about every type of file out there. Big thumbs up for this bargain piece of kit!

Wouldn't ever use anything but XBMC as a media player, anything else is settling for second best. Should be out on Android in a few months, and already out for the Raspberry Pi (mine should be here in a few weeks).

But you'll need a laptop or pc to run that, or a jailbroken Apple TV (old gen, which doesn't do 1080p?). The WDTV Live works out the box. No jailbreaking, hacking, installing or messing around which most people aren't prepared or capable of doing. Plus it's a tiny box.

My PC is connected to my TV, however I also run it on my original xbox. The raspberry pi is £30 and runs it, only needs an SD card, and is way smaller than your western digital with a much better interface and much cheaper.

I'd like to see the performance of that.
I don't believe the Xbox can handle high bitrates that the WDTV can, and won't do any media above 720p will it? The WDTV on the other hand will handle anything you throw at it. The software is not as good as XBMC but it's the hardware that attracts users and that's why it's so popular.

The xbox is 11 years old, of course it can't. The raspberry pi can though.

Well I'll be interested in that (if it works) for another room in our house. Cool, I'll keep an eye out for it (although I think it's gonna be laggy and may struggle in real life usage, also will require booting up like a PC which is not good enough for an 'under the television' box).

which is not good enough for an 'under the television' box).

MX Player rocks. Not only does it seem to play any format on the fly, it's got lots of nice little features. The screen lock is good, especially when you got a smudge on the screen and want to wipe it off without stopping the video lol It lets you easily choose different audio tracks and subtitles too-- it even lets you adjust the sync of subtitles! Normally you need a Windows program to do that.

Also nice little quick action features like swipe up/down on the left-hand-side of the screen adjusts brightness, the right-hand-side of the screen for volume. This saves exiting the video to adjust brightness.

Anyway, my two pennies worth on an excellent app. Best video player I've come across so far.

Used in conjuntion with ES File Explorer and it can play files over a network.

MX Player rocks. Not only does it seem to play any format on the fly, it's got lots of nice little features. The screen lock is good, especially when you got a smudge on the screen and want to wipe it off without stopping the video lol It lets you easily choose different audio tracks and subtitles too-- it even lets you adjust the sync of subtitles! Normally you need a Windows program to do that.

Also nice little quick action features like swipe up/down on the left-hand-side of the screen adjusts brightness, the right-hand-side of the screen for volume. This saves exiting the video to adjust brightness.

Anyway, my two pennies worth on an excellent app. Best video player I've come across so far.

Exactly what I'm doing
Funny you mention that. My brother has an iPhone 4 and can't access shared videos on the network without paying for an app. +1 to Android.

I have Mobo player as well, which is quite good too but has fewer features. The stock player is rubbish.

Negged you by accident when trying to press quote, sorry.

If he jailbreaks though he can get XBMC which destroys every player on android sadly. I can't wait for XBMC to be released on android, will be epic.

possed to fix that.

ds ics leak now available!!!!

MOTHER****ING YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Epic geek day!

Got my new PC running after borrowing a GPU from a mate, then this!?!?!? **** yeah!