Air Video
is simply the best iPhone on the fly video converter and movie player. If you
have a big library of video files, it is of course, a nightmare to
convert all those video files to an iPhone supported video format.
The
alternative is to use Air Video application which allows you to
establish a connection to your
computer, and access those directories
where all video files are stored. Then, play them all on on your iPhone or iPhone 4.
There
is no conversion involved from your side. You only have to connect to
your computer, and set up the location of those video files and directories.
AirVideo
supports many formats including wmv, avi, and flv (flash video). Therefore, it will
most probably play any file you have.
It does that by using the power of your
desktop computer
to converted
those videos and then stream them from your computer to your iPhone in
the appropriate iPhone format.
Air video is available for both Mac and PC. To get the best performance
of AirVideo you will need a
fast computer
as your computer will be
doing all the hard work of converting, and
streaming the video
files.
Therefore, your
desktop computer
needs to be fast enough
to deliver good performance high quality video playback on your iPhone.
There are 2 things that need to
set up before you can stream videos from your computer.
First you have to download
and install Air Video
server on your
Mac
or
PC, and second you have to
download Air Video from
the App
Store for your iPhone. There is a free version which is limited to three video files while the full version is $3.00.
The important settings that you need to get
started are very simple.
When you install AirVideo server on the
Mac
(shown on this example),
you will get a menu item added at the top of the screen.
Click on the Server Preferences to open the
preferences menu.
Click Yes, or No to
turn the server on or Off. Also, it is here where
you can add your directories that have the videos you want to stream. Click on the Add Disk Folder and select
your video directories one by one. As you add video directories, they will show under folder name below.
Then, click on the Settings
tab and
check start at login if you
want the server to start automatically
after a computer restart.
Click
on the Remote tab to "Enable Access from Internet (Experimental)".
This
option will give you a PIN that you can enter later when you set up
your iPhone App to connect from a 3G or
wifi
hot spot.
If you have set up Air Video server and added video directories, a
local wifi will automatically find the local computers and their video
directories.
Therefore, the Remote settings is very important as it will allow you to access those video files from a public
wifi or from 3G/Edge networks.
On the iPhone side:
When you
start the App, tap the Plus
button at the top left to add a
server or a computer that has all your videos.
Simply enter the server
PIN that was given to you in the Desktop preferences above.
If you
have port forwarding on your
router
set up, then tap the "Enter Address
Manually" button to enter your IP address. If you don't know what port
forwarding is, then just continue with the simple "Enter Server PIN" method. Once you
enter the PIN and save, your
desktop computer
will show up with the PIN shown underneath it.
Tap the computer with the pin to establish a connection with it.
All the directories and files that you added from the server set up will show up and you can browse your files by
tapping a directory to open it or tap a file to play it. You can also go back to the previous
directory by tapping the (slash) /
button located at the top left.
Tap the video file you want to play and you will get a menu with some
options that allow you to control the quality and the speed of
conversion. The most useful option is "Play with
Live Conversion" which
streams the video
from your
desktop
to your iPhone. It will give you a screen with options to start the video from last
position or the beginning, or seek a position.
Convert does the
conversion only, and then saves the resulted file on your
desktop computer
. If
you play an already converted file, you can then stream it with less load on the
desktop computer, as the file is already converted. The last
button "Conversion Settings"
allows you to control
many aspects of your converted file.
Tapping custom gives you three quality options. You
can set
your quality to Low Quality, Medium Quality, or High Quality and you
can set your default quality.
Select the preset based on the speed of your
computer, and the speed of
the network
you are connected to EDG, 3G or WIFI. If you are on wifi, start with High Quality, and then move down to Medium Quality if the video doesn't play smoothly.
Once you finish selecting the preset tap done to go back.
The Target Resolution button allows you to adjust your resolution to fill
your iPhone screen by using the slider shown on the left side. Also, you
can Reset to undo the changes, or tap Done when you are done.
Moving the left slider all the way up, fills the whole screen with video as shown.
The Quality slider
at the bottom allows you to adjust your video streaming quality. The
lower the quality the worst the picture, but the better the
streaming performance.
The Audio Stream option gives an
additional control of the data streaming.
If you disable sound, you
could increase your quality a little,
or maybe disable sound to get a playable video on a slow network.
You can
experiment with those settings to get your best video performance based
on the power of your
Desktop computer, and the connection speed.
Manage Presets, shown
on the top right, allows you to create your own ConversionPresets.
Tap on one of the three presets available, and another menu appears at the
bottom.
Tap Edit to go to
the setting screen or tap Make Default to make this preset the default
one.
The next screen after tapping Edit is the Conversion Presets screen.
In this screen, you can change the setting of your
Video Width, Video Height, and Quality percentage.
Also you can change the name of the preset. When you are done, tap Save.
After you are done with your modification,
tap the Back button two times
to go back to the video conversion screen.
Tap the Play with Live
Conversion button to try your you video performance with the new settings.
Repeat this process until
you get the performance you want. You might need go back and increase
or
decrease the quality.
Air Video supports iPhone video out feature, which
means that if you have a composite or a component video cable for
your iPhone, then you can connect your iPhone to your
TV.
Or if you have an HDTV and have an iPhone 4, then you can connect an iPhone HDMI adapter to display high definition video on your TV. Any of those iPhone cables or iPhone accessories will allow you to stream your videos on a big TV screen which is really amazing.
If you don't have one of those iPhone cables, I strongly recommend getting one.
Conclusion:
Air Video is an amazing iPhone movie player, for $3.00 it is worth every penny.
If you have a big video library that you want to watch on your
iPhone or iPhone 4 without conversion. Then, Air Video is the best solution.
The quality of the video is very good, and with the iPhone Video out feature
available with an optional iPhone Cable. You can get some stunning
video quality on a big screen.