Best way to stream movies

Question

I'm trying to make a front end for all my music and video files on a spare PC I have but have come up against a bit of a road block. I originally wanted to stream the movies (avi, mpeg, flv etc) using a flash media player but after a bit of searching it seems that flash can only stream flv's. Obviously, I don't want to convert my whole hard drive into flv#s.

The only other option I've been able to find is the following code...

<object classid="clsid:02BF25D5-8C17-4B23-BC80-D3488ABDDC6B" codebase="http://www.apple.com/qtactivex/qtplugin.cab" height="195" width="340" name="CRUNKCinema" align="left">
    <param name="src" value="/path/to/video.avi">
    <param name="autoplay" value="true">
    <param name="controller" value="true">
    <embed height="195" width="340" align="left" src="/path/to/video.avi" autoplay="true" controller="true"></embed>
</object>

But this seems very intermittent, sometimes the video doesn't load at all. Also there doesn't seem to be any buffering using this option.

Could someone suggest a better solution to my problem? Thanks!

Answer 1

Why reinvent the wheel? Look at XBMC or boxee.

edit: with most media players these days you can also share your libary directly so another media player can see it. or simply export the media directory as a network share and import it into the media player you're using on the other pc (however SMB is not so great for streaming in my experience, unless over ethernet).

Answer 2

If you want to play these files in a web browser, then converting them all to FLV (or MP4, or whatever suits you) might actually be the best bet. (Something like MediaCoder could make this feasible.) No matter what else you do, chances are some of your videos use codecs (if not file formats as well) that aren't handled.

But if you simply want the videos to play on the PC, not necessarily in a browser, then a regular desktop app (like VLC) can solve the problem without converting, and as Frank suggests, if you try one of the popular media-box apps you'll probably find they already do everything you were planning and a bunch more besides. :D