To mark my 6000th post on Freaktab, I thought I would share something amazing I figured out this week.
I am not the developer for either of these apps...I'm just sharing the information and my experience.
Occasionally, I find myself in a place (like work) where I can't access a TV to watch something very important...like the Super Bowl, or an Arkansas Razorback Football/Basketball game. So I've been searching for a solution to beaming my home TV signal to my android tablet/phone. My cable company provides an app for this service...but it costs more money to upgrade...and I don't really care for the app they are using.
My home desktop PC is Window 7 64bit Home Premium with a very decent processor. For year's I've used the PC as a home DVR with 3 USB TV Tuners (2 HD off air and 1 SD on cable). I could always stream recorded shows with various apps, but I couldn't ever figure out how to get live TV to work.
I found a couple of apps that work together to accomplish this.
On the PC, I installed a server app called Remote Potato. http://www.remotepotato.com/ Just be sure you download the correct version of the server app, which supports Live TV. You may also need to install some other add-on's depending on the version of Windows you are running.
It's a free server that interfaces with the Windows Media Center to stream your content either across your internal network, or to internet access from the outside. It takes a little time, and holding your mouth just right to get all of the settings working properly. You must enable "port forwarding" on your router, and make some changes to your firewall to get it working...but I did it in one afternoon.
Their web site has all of the instructions you need to get this part set up. I had to do a factory reset on my router to start from scratch in order to get port forwarding to work...but after that it was simple. I also had to trash my AVG Internet Security to revert back to Windows Firewall before I could get it to work. Those are the only two challenges I had to contend with. The app will tell you an IP address you can use to access your stuff from both Home and Away (two different login's). It also allows you to use a password to gain access. You can also add many more servers to the list...but I just have the two.
Once you have everything set up correctly, you have an app called Remote Potato Server which runs on your desktop. You can turn the server off and on with one click. The server app settings gives you control of what you want to stream.
You can test the connection with your browser on your desktop PC.
Now, for the cool part.
In Google Play Store, there is an app called "Remote Media Center Live TV". There is a free version you can install just to test whether you can connect your device...before you invest the $8.99 in the working app. When you get the app, just enter the IP address and password as instructed in Remote Potato...and you will have access to everything you have set up to view/listen on your Windows Media Center.
Now the Live TV part is a little tricky. What it does is start a TV Show Recording, and then streams it...so there is a delay of only a few seconds in the output...but if you are away from home, you don't notice the delay (what's a few seconds, right?). You can pause the playback just like a DVR. You can select from a variety of video quality settings to you liking to either have the best possible quality, or lowest quality to save bandwidth/data usage. It seems that all of the bases are covered. They recommend using MX Player.
You can also schedule recordings and watch recorded tv through the app.
I've tested this on all of my Pipo tablets and my Samsung Galaxy 4, and the app works fine over both wifi and 4g.
There are some internet access points that don't allow this TV streaming...like at the hospital using their guest wireless...but I was able to set my phone as a mobile hotspot from there and watch TV with no problem.
I'm doing a little more research on whether this server can be run as a service...rather than having an open app on the desktop. Yesterday, I tested this setup at the firehouse...and one of my kids used the computer and exited out of the server app on me.....
It cut me off in the middle of watching the Olympics.....gif "ROTFLMAO")
My testing was finished at that point.
I hope this information can be of use to someone else....I kind of like it!!!!!!!!!!
I am not the developer for either of these apps...I'm just sharing the information and my experience.
Occasionally, I find myself in a place (like work) where I can't access a TV to watch something very important...like the Super Bowl, or an Arkansas Razorback Football/Basketball game. So I've been searching for a solution to beaming my home TV signal to my android tablet/phone. My cable company provides an app for this service...but it costs more money to upgrade...and I don't really care for the app they are using.
My home desktop PC is Window 7 64bit Home Premium with a very decent processor. For year's I've used the PC as a home DVR with 3 USB TV Tuners (2 HD off air and 1 SD on cable). I could always stream recorded shows with various apps, but I couldn't ever figure out how to get live TV to work.
I found a couple of apps that work together to accomplish this.
On the PC, I installed a server app called Remote Potato. http://www.remotepotato.com/ Just be sure you download the correct version of the server app, which supports Live TV. You may also need to install some other add-on's depending on the version of Windows you are running.
It's a free server that interfaces with the Windows Media Center to stream your content either across your internal network, or to internet access from the outside. It takes a little time, and holding your mouth just right to get all of the settings working properly. You must enable "port forwarding" on your router, and make some changes to your firewall to get it working...but I did it in one afternoon.
Their web site has all of the instructions you need to get this part set up. I had to do a factory reset on my router to start from scratch in order to get port forwarding to work...but after that it was simple. I also had to trash my AVG Internet Security to revert back to Windows Firewall before I could get it to work. Those are the only two challenges I had to contend with. The app will tell you an IP address you can use to access your stuff from both Home and Away (two different login's). It also allows you to use a password to gain access. You can also add many more servers to the list...but I just have the two.
Once you have everything set up correctly, you have an app called Remote Potato Server which runs on your desktop. You can turn the server off and on with one click. The server app settings gives you control of what you want to stream.
You can test the connection with your browser on your desktop PC.
Now, for the cool part.
In Google Play Store, there is an app called "Remote Media Center Live TV". There is a free version you can install just to test whether you can connect your device...before you invest the $8.99 in the working app. When you get the app, just enter the IP address and password as instructed in Remote Potato...and you will have access to everything you have set up to view/listen on your Windows Media Center.
Now the Live TV part is a little tricky. What it does is start a TV Show Recording, and then streams it...so there is a delay of only a few seconds in the output...but if you are away from home, you don't notice the delay (what's a few seconds, right?). You can pause the playback just like a DVR. You can select from a variety of video quality settings to you liking to either have the best possible quality, or lowest quality to save bandwidth/data usage. It seems that all of the bases are covered. They recommend using MX Player.
You can also schedule recordings and watch recorded tv through the app.
I've tested this on all of my Pipo tablets and my Samsung Galaxy 4, and the app works fine over both wifi and 4g.
There are some internet access points that don't allow this TV streaming...like at the hospital using their guest wireless...but I was able to set my phone as a mobile hotspot from there and watch TV with no problem.
I'm doing a little more research on whether this server can be run as a service...rather than having an open app on the desktop. Yesterday, I tested this setup at the firehouse...and one of my kids used the computer and exited out of the server app on me.....
It cut me off in the middle of watching the Olympics.... My testing was finished at that point.I hope this information can be of use to someone else....I kind of like it!!!!!!!!!!
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