Is there such a creature? . . . Stupid question. Is there an App or way to use windows file sharing to stream video with out transferring it to my phone?
While I have a bunch of good questions about random things in the tech word, this is the most relevant at the moment for me. If you guys don't mind sticking around I have a few others.
I'm pretty sure there are apps that will let you do this, yes. I use ES File Explorer for SFTP, but it looks like it does windows shares as well.
+1
All you need is an SMB client and a media player that plays from a stream. The SMB client is included in ES and alike, VLC allow to enter a stream as source.
Another easy solution is to use a DLNA server. I have no idea whether Windows has this by default or not, but something like Twonky works great, and does all kinds of content.
if you want an app to do it for you and have a large library, i think you might be able to use Plex Media Server on the computer side and a Plex Home Theatre client-side (android) to do this.
I haven't tried this with Andriod, but its how I stream my movies and videos to all my devices at home. you can set up separate folders for actual films and for your home movies. worth it if your library is large. overkill if it isn't.
Its easy to set up and will grab metadata for commercial films and organise them in an elegant interface. its proprietary software, but it doesn't cost money. XBMC is an open source alternative that a lot of people use.