Stream Videos to Tab from external HDD

[Tergazzi]

I did not write this up, so a thanks goes to the original author of this... Ahmad Rafiq from HACKSlurp. I just thought it was very useful, and may be worth adding to this forum, so enjoy!

Do you have a large collection of movies and pictures stored in your external hard drive and you just can’t decide which stuff you want to move to your Android tablet’s 32GB SD card especially when you are traveling? You can actually stream data directly from your portable hard drive to your tablet essentially increasing the storage capacity of your tablet beyond SD card.

Here is how you can do it!

Step 1
You need to prepare your external HDD by formatting it to FAT32. If you have stuff in your hard drive, which is in NTFS state, you should move it temporarily to some other media while you prepare your hard drive.

This is perhaps the only downside to this procedure. But depending on your usage you can make this step worth your effort. This is just a one time only step so don’t be afraid to carry out the arduous task of moving your items from and to your HDD.

Step 2
Connect your portable HDD to your tablet.

Step 3
Make sure your USB switch state is set to ‘Host’. Get this free USB Mode Switcher app (requires ROOT access) if you don’t know how to do it.

Step 4
Switch to your file manager app and wait for it to detect your hard drive. It might take sometime for the app to detect your external drive during which time you should keep refreshing, but once it has detected, the streaming is flawless.

If you have followed the above steps properly you should now be able to watch your HD movies on the go!

The same procedure can also be applied to nearly any USB device like pocket drives etc. This can really come handy as you can transfer your documents from your pen drive to your tablet and edit them on the move!

I work full time, so I havent been able to test this on the sony S, but I plan to this coming weekend (tomorrow), I will add notes as to what I discover, after paying around with it a bit. I know it works on my Acer Iconia, lets keep our fingers crossed!

 

[xaviorffviii]

You say you need root access in order to do it successfully. I don't think anyone's made an exploit to obtain root access for the Tablet S yet. If I'm wrong, you better be sure to tell me how to obtain!! So many things I want to do once I get root!

Good luck though, i'm highly interested in this idea of external hard drives and thumb drives.

 

[Tergazzi]

Yeah that root access part kinda threw me too. Im gonna try it this weeken, and will report back. I am also going to see what I can do to root this bad boy! I hope I can make something work.

 

[jonnyboy_merritt]

Ok I've just hooked I'm my usb hard drive and so far i'm having mixed success.

Firstly the usb powered option did not work. The light on my HDD came on but i couldn't feel it spinning.
I attached a mains connections to it and it started to spin. A message popped up on the tablet saying "Recognising media" it asked if i wanted to open the Sony data transfer app that comes pre-installed. I declined and tried to view the files via a couple of different file managers but couldn't seem to find the HDD in either of them.
So i went to the Sony data transfer app and it recognised it fine. from there i can either stream from the HDD of transfer the files to the tablet. All the files tested were 720p TV & BD rips and they worked fine with MX Video player.

Sorry this so long winded but hope it helps.

I did all this without going through targazzi's method.

 

[ps3taker]

Probably not what you are after but if you have a nas drive you can connect to it wirelessly very easily using built in dlna app. It plays mp4 3gp etc videos no problem and i imagine other files will be supported as long as you have an app to deal with them properly. Another option is file expert app from the market - i mapped same drive as a network drive in it and can see all files. Haven,t bothered putting an sd card yet

Sent from my Sony Tablet S using Tapatalk

 

[Vinny1967]

Probably not what you are after but if you have a nas drive you can connect to it wirelessly very easily using built in dlna app. It plays mp4 3gp etc videos no problem and i imagine other files will be supported as long as you have an app to deal with them properly. Another option is file expert app from the market - i mapped same drive as a network drive in it and can see all files. Haven,t bothered putting an sd card yet

Sent from my Sony Tablet S using Tapatalk

I was able to connect my PCH using dlna and I could see all my files but couldn't play most of them and the ones that I could play were stuttering.

 

[jhepoy]

I was able to connect my PCH using dlna and I could see all my files but couldn't play most of them and the ones that I could play were stuttering.

I used to have an issue with my DLNA server as the videos either have no sound or the video is stuttering. After several trial and errors, I was able to find the right setting for most of my DLNA devices. I use Freemake video converter (it's free, Google it)... then use Freemake to convert the videos to MP4 with bitrate not more than 1400 kbps, and AAC (stereo) audio format. Hope this helps.

 

[Tergazzi]

well i didnt get a chance to play around with it over the weekend, I ran outta money before I could buy the USB cable for it. (Sad seeing as how its only $14, but thats life when your married with kids, and in the military, dumping your money into stuff to prepare to go to a field excercise for a few weeks)

 

[sixthday]

requires ROOT access?

So your Sony Tablet S been rooted already?

I did not write this up, so a thanks goes to the original author of this... Ahmad Rafiq from HACKSlurp. I just thought it was very useful, and may be worth adding to this forum, so enjoy!

Do you have a large collection of movies and pictures stored in your external hard drive and you just can’t decide which stuff you want to move to your Android tablet’s 32GB SD card especially when you are traveling? You can actually stream data directly from your portable hard drive to your tablet essentially increasing the storage capacity of your tablet beyond SD card.

Here is how you can do it!

Step 1
You need to prepare your external HDD by formatting it to FAT32. If you have stuff in your hard drive, which is in NTFS state, you should move it temporarily to some other media while you prepare your hard drive.

This is perhaps the only downside to this procedure. But depending on your usage you can make this step worth your effort. This is just a one time only step so don’t be afraid to carry out the arduous task of moving your items from and to your HDD.

Step 2
Connect your portable HDD to your tablet.

Step 3
Make sure your USB switch state is set to ‘Host’. Get this free USB Mode Switcher app (requires ROOT access) if you don’t know how to do it.

Step 4
Switch to your file manager app and wait for it to detect your hard drive. It might take sometime for the app to detect your external drive during which time you should keep refreshing, but once it has detected, the streaming is flawless.

If you have followed the above steps properly you should now be able to watch your HD movies on the go!

The same procedure can also be applied to nearly any USB device like pocket drives etc. This can really come handy as you can transfer your documents from your pen drive to your tablet and edit them on the move!

I work full time, so I havent been able to test this on the sony S, but I plan to this coming weekend (tomorrow), I will add notes as to what I discover, after paying around with it a bit. I know it works on my Acer Iconia, lets keep our fingers crossed!