Quick and Dirty Streaming From Computer To Your Android or iOS Device [Tips]

Credit: The Guardian

Sometimes you just want to lie down and watch movies from the comfort of your bed instead of sitting down in front of your computer. If you have a laptop, go nuts, bring over the laptop to your bed and watch away. If you have a desktop, though, good luck with that. If you have a mobile device, just load it up with your movies and you're set, right?

But sometimes you simply just run out of space on your device. Sometimes people opt to be more economical and choose say, an 8 GB model and pocket the savings. Or it could simply be that you have more content you want to put in your device than what it could hold. Between apps and music alone, your device could already be reaching its max capacity, and you still want to shoehorn in a whole season of Game of Thrones to watch before you go to sleep.

Why not stream those bad boys and save space instead of reshuffling your device's files over and over? If you have a Wi-Fi router in place, then you're almost there.

The tl;dr version of what we'll do is to set-up shared folders on the computer and access those folders over the local network provided by your router using your iOS or Android device. Being that this is The Low-End Geek, though, I'll look at free apps that can do the job.


Let's set-up the shared folders first.

Sharing folders on your computer

Open Windows' file explorer and find the folder containing the media you're looking to stream. Right-click on it and select "Properties".

In the Properties window, click on the "Sharing" tab and then click on the "Share..." button.

In the window that opens, select "Everyone" from the drop-down box and then click on the "Add" button. Then click on the "Share" button. Close the Properties window.

If you're on a Mac, Apple provides a nice write-up on how to share folders. Regardless of OS you use, one will work just as well as the other.

Now let's move on to the devices themselves. If you're using Android, read on. If you're on iOS, move on the next section.

Android device set-up

First off, download these free apps.
- ES File Explorer
- MX Player

Once the apps have been installed, open up the ES File Explorer app, and click on the upper-left button.

In the menu that appears on the left, press the "Network" button, then press the "LAN" option that appears.

In the next screen, click on the "Scan" button at the bottom.

Wait for the app to finish scanning (you could also stop the scan once the link for your computer appears).

You should now see your computer (identified by an IP address) once the scan completes. Click on the computer icon.

In the screen that follows, enter the username and password you use to log-in to your PC.

You should now see some folders. Find the folder you shared on your PC and click on it.

Once that's opened, click on the media file you want to open.

Your device should now be playing the media you selected. If you don't have a default program associated with the file type you want to open, select it from the options that pop up.

Enjoy the fruits of a few minutes of your time.

As long as you have the proper app, you can open a wide range of media this way, like photos, comic books, PDFs, and music, to name a few. If you have a device that can output through HDMI, you could even have a basic streaming local media player for your TV without having to pay an extra cent or move your computer around.

iOS device set-up

Unfortunately, I have yet to find an app similar to ES File Explorer on iOS that's free and unrestricted. I tried out two of those, FileBrowserLite and FileExplorer Free. Both are free versions of apps designed to be gateway apps to paid versions, so you get nag screens. FileBrowserLite is worse in this regard, some actions have the user wait for 10 seconds and look at a nag screen before continuing.

So instead of seeking out a file explorer, let's just grab a media player app that can read directly from the network. I downloaded OPlayerHD Lite, a free app.

So this is your main screen. Wait for a bit for the Auto Discovery section to populate with your computer. Once it shows up, select it.

Provide the username and password you use to log into your computer.

You should now see your shared folders on the right hand side. Select the one where your media are.

Select the media file you want to play.

Huzzah!

Possible issue 1: Restarting the computer

You might find that when you turn your computer off and back on, the link you have in ES File Explorer doesn't work anymore. In that case, you have to re-scan the network in ES File Explorer/OPlayerHD Lite to find your computer again. This is because the default setting for most computers is to be assigned a dynamic address within the local network.

If re-scanning again and again bothers you, you might want to look into setting a static IP for your computer. Details here for Windows PCs and here for Macs.

Possible issue 2: Playback quality

If you're streaming standard definition videos and music, Wi-Fi signal strength shouldn't be too much of an issue. You might find that streaming full HD videos some distance away from the router might end up with choppy playback or pauses for the device to buffer video, in which case, setting up a signal-repeating router might help things out.

As usual, old reliable (for el cheap-o people like me) CD-R King can hook you up with cheap routers that can act as repeaters. Or you can use your old, unused ones - details here.

There you have it, free local streaming from your computer to your Android or iOS device. Give it a go and see how it works out for you.