Streaming video player, Picasa?

[Oliver84]

So one of my biggest hopes with my droid has been to be able to stream my Movies so that I don't have to keep them all on my droid. Movies can fill up that SD card pretty quickly. So I've been looking for an affordable way to keep my movies in a "cloud" and just access them when I need to.

I've just had this thought and wondering if anyone else has used Picasa to do this. I just bought 20gb of space from google for $5 which can host a good chunk of movies. I noticed you can upload .AVI files into picasa and actually access them through the new 2.2 gallery and watch the movies streaming. I don't know if this was common knowledge to everyone, but to me it for sure was news. Only problem is that it's very touch and go. Some movies work, some don't. I've only tested it so far with small clips, is there a file size limit to this?

If anyone else has tried this, with success, please share. Thanks!

*Update: File size limit is 1GB. Still doesn't explain why smaller files that do upload say they can't "playback" on my droid. Anyone else seeing this?

 

[Oliver84]

Ok, so nobody seemed to care but I figured it out anyways. Picasa DOES let you play these AVI files on your droid. It just takes a while for it to fully load/decode? on your droid. I just loaded a full movie into Picasa and at first it didn't want to play through my gallery app but a few hours after the upload, it played perfectly. I don't know why this hasn't gotten much attention, but I think it's amazing. $5/year for 20 gb of space and you can store your AVI's there instead of on your phone and stream them whenever you want? The quality's really good and it's fully integrated with you account through the gallery app. Isn't this awesome? Or am I missing something here?

 

[Fault]

If you mean non personal movies, like full length movies and such, check the post in my signature

 

[Oliver84]

Thanks for the info. However I was more interested in having streaming access to my personal movie database. It's cut and dry, just go to gallery, click on the movie, and it plays. Your link seems great but it's far too complicated for me. (which is probably why it's free, cuz it's not for everyone). I couldn't find a good stream of any of the movies I tried. I'd either get lost in it's maze or find one that says it's no longer on the server.

With your own database, you don't have to worry about that. I have access to all my "back ups" whenever I want and it's simple and clean. Thanks though!

 

[feyvorite]

What app did you use to get access to your videos. I've been using Picasa Tool Pro and have not yet had success.

 

[tallnerd1985]

I finally got it to work this morning but I am having issues trying to figure out what formats the Picasa uploader likes. I have an Avi that was originally encoded in DivX5 with CBR MP3 for the Audio that streamed perfectly to my Droid but in Picasa's FAQs, it says it can accept MP4 with H264 codec(Which is what I have all my mobile versions of my movies in) but it wont recognize the format.

Lastly, if I try to encode a DivX in a AVI container like the original movie that played fine, it uploads but it says the file is not supported on my phone. So I am lost on a way to encode movies to a smaller size with picasa and Droid.

 

[Oliver84]

I believe Froyo let's you sync Picasa with your gallery. That's how I access it.

Also, if you get "file cannot be played" give it some time. I guess google encodes it or something once you upload it. You only have to wait once but it can take hours depending on the file. I had a file that would not play, I left it there and it played just fine the next day.