ES File Explorer and Dice Player match made in heaven

[ponyo]

I know I'm late but I just discovered this so it's new to me. I've been wanting something that could browse my files on the computer and stream the videos. I've tried Mirage Beta, Splashtop Remote, and I wasn't truly happy with either. Mirage wouldn't play everything and would choke on some 720p and all 1080p stuff. Plus the quality was bad. Splashtop would play the videos but there is annoying picture to sound sync lag. And I'm too cheap to pay for Plex. Plus Plex server software prevents my computer from going to sleep so I stopped using it even for my GoogleTV.

With the free ES File Explorer and free Dice player app, I can access my movies and videos on my computer via smb shares and play it using Dice Player. And everything plays perfectly including the 1080p videos. It is match made in heaven and what I've been looking for on Android. I tested with both my Galaxy Nexus and 7" original Galaxy Tab. I was pleasantly surprised the Tab could play the 1080p videos flawlessly with its single core Hummingbird processor.

If you're looking to stream movies from your computer to your Android phone or tablet, I would strongly encourage trying out the ES File Explorer/ Dice Player combo. It's fast, free, and simply works.

 

[AzNKiD]

Do you know of any other app to stream media via network shares? I been using es file explorer for awhile, but for some reason I only get 600k/sec transfer rate with it in my 802.11G wifi. Dice would play xvid and other files fine, but once it tries to load 720p+ mkv, it would choke due to the bandwidth problem. Its not my network because my laptop can transfer files at full speed. I also used the wifi transfer app on the android market where it sets up a web server and uses browser on my server to transfer files at ~2.3MB/sec, which is the max for 802.11G. tried it different days, different channels, es file would only get 600k/sec. I have a network monitoring program on my file server and see the stats live, even file copy within es file explorer gets speed capped at 600k/sec. I tried astro as well, but they currently do not support video streaming.

what kinda of wifi network are you on, and can do you a speed test by coping a file to your phone?

EDIT - I am using GSM Galaxy nexus, Buffalo router running DD-WRT.

 

[amdhunter]

Dice Player is nice, but it has issues playing the 10-bit anime I put on it (software rendering, chops up on complex scenes.) I am hoping they fix this soon. I am also hoping they'll fix their payment system so I can buy the full version to get updates.

 

[Red Storm]

I've been using MXVideo player as my go to media player of choice. It works very well on the Nexus.

 

[amdhunter]

I've been using MXVideo player as my go to media player of choice. It works very well on the Nexus.

Thanks for the recommendation, will try it when I get home.

 

[Ig]

Dice Player is nice, but it has issues playing the 10-bit anime I put on it (software rendering, chops up on complex scenes.) I am hoping they fix this soon. I am also hoping they'll fix their payment system so I can buy the full version to get updates.

All players will have problems with Hi10P. Even on the PC side, Hi10P is software decoded. It will be a long time before hardware support for Hi10P is out.

 

[ponyo]

Do you know of any other app to stream media via network shares? I been using es file explorer for awhile, but for some reason I only get 600k/sec transfer rate with it in my 802.11G wifi. Dice would play xvid and other files fine, but once it tries to load 720p+ mkv, it would choke due to the bandwidth problem. Its not my network because my laptop can transfer files at full speed. I also used the wifi transfer app on the android market where it sets up a web server and uses browser on my server to transfer files at ~2.3MB/sec, which is the max for 802.11G. tried it different days, different channels, es file would only get 600k/sec. I have a network monitoring program on my file server and see the stats live, even file copy within es file explorer gets speed capped at 600k/sec. I tried astro as well, but they currently do not support video streaming.

what kinda of wifi network are you on, and can do you a speed test by coping a file to your phone?

EDIT - I am using GSM Galaxy nexus, Buffalo router running DD-WRT.

What program do I use to test my wifi network speed? I'm using Cisco E3000 N router running stock firmware. Most of my videos are 720p mp4 and few 1080p mp4. All are small size files. The biggest video is 3.3gb 1920x1080 with 2,526 kbps data rate.

 

[AzNKiD]

2.5mbits is a really low bitrate for a 1080p video, which might explain why you havent experience any choking problem yet. Most of my videos are h264 mkv of 8~12mbits which needs better transfer rate to handle. wifi is good enough for 720p, but no way it can handle 1080p videos.

I use DU meter on my server to monitor the current bandwidth speeds, but a easy to test it is to transfer a large file between your computer and phone via wifi. Find a 100mb file and transfer it, with 802.11N full speed, you should probably get it done by a minute or two. But if you are getting slow speeds like me, it probably takes 5+mins. anyways, I google the issue, and a lot of people are getting very slow speeds with ES file explorer, no solutions yet.

 

[ponyo]

I just copied 103mb video file. It took ~3 minutes 25 seconds so I guess I'm getting slow speed as well using ES File Explorer. Good thing all my videos are small. 🙂 So I guess while this solution works for me, it won't work for anyone using large high bit files like yourself. Thanks for the information. If you find better solution or a fix, please share it with us.