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iPad questions?
Alcdrew
01-06-2010
I may have found a way of talking myself into buying an iPad, but first I need to know a few things.

Can I stream Music, Videos and pictures from a NAS to the iPad over my home wifi? and have it playing through a bluetooth speaker?
Currently all my music, video and photos are on a network attached storage device so the 3 laptops used in the house can access everything individually, and I have a bluetooth surround sound speaker what I'd like to do with the iPad is use it as a home media device so it can be attach to the wall and (in order of priority)[LIST=1][*]streaming music from the NAS with playback on the bluetooth speaker[*]stream video from the NAS, or internet with sound played back through some bluetooth headphones. [*]when not in any of the above used situations to permanently show a clock.[*]be a digital notice board for family notes[*]streaming photos from the NAS as a photo frame[*]sync with my office outlook to be a digital calender. [/LIST]
john_locke
01-06-2010
Originally Posted by Alcdrew:
“I may have found a way of talking myself into buying an iPad, but first I need to know a few things.

Can I stream Music, Videos and pictures from a NAS to the iPad over my home wifi? and have it playing through a bluetooth speaker?
Currently all my music, video and photos are on a network attached storage device so the 3 laptops used in the house can access everything individually, and I have a bluetooth surround sound speaker what I'd like to do with the iPad is use it as a home media device so it can be attach to the wall and (in order of priority)[LIST=1][*]streaming music from the NAS with playback on the bluetooth speaker[*]stream video from the NAS, or internet with sound played back through some bluetooth headphones. [*]when not in any of the above used situations to permanently show a clock.[*]be a digital notice board for family notes[*]streaming photos from the NAS as a photo frame[*]sync with my office outlook to be a digital calender. [/LIST]”

1. If it's an iTunes library, yes.
2. If the video was H264, yes, 3rd party app likely required
3. Yes
4. Yes
5. Via a 3rd party app, yes
6. Depends how the calendar is shared - would have to be on a webdav server I think.

You should have a good look through the App store for iPad to see if anything fits your needs. I suspect it might be a bit "appley" for you, if your stuff is just on a normal NAS. However, there might be a twonky type server/client thing that can do the lot.
Steve Pearce
01-06-2010
You can stream video from any network source using an app called "Air Video". I don't know of an equivalent for music however.
davisa
01-06-2010
Originally Posted by Steve Pearce:
“You can stream video from any network source using an app called "Air Video". I don't know of an equivalent for music however.”

Air video requires server software to be running on your Mac or PC in order to transcode on the fly. I stream from my ReadyNAS to my iPad, but my Mac needs to be on in order to do the conversion.
TheSoulBrother
01-06-2010
Air Video is amazing. Doesn't just let you stream video (of any format) over your home network, but across the net. It utilizes http adaptive streaming if you are receiving the video on a 3G connection - so it's just really solid from a performance perspective.

NAS works fine provided your computer can see the drive. I use an Alias to the NAS, which is placed in my Movies folder on the Mac. Air Video picks up the content fine.
Alcdrew
01-06-2010
Having had a quick look on the iTunes store something simple like the filebrowser should work well enough for video steaming. I don't want to have to have a computer on as well or that defeats the whole point of the iPad for me.

A photo frame app that will show photos from my chosen NAS folder and randomly change the photos every x minutes would be great.

Re: the music play back (as this is really the main use) my music is stored in \\NAS\NetHDD\Music folder and iTunes on my PC stores and plays back from that folder. So can I link the iPad with that folder? So it shows and plays all my music? I wouldn't have to sink it with my PC? Just want to understand how this works on the iPad.
john_locke
01-06-2010
no, I think you'll have to use a streaming app to do that. I'm afraid i'm not an iPad owner yet so don't know what you need....there will be a solution somewhere though, i'm fairly confident.

*edit* there seems to be one called Stream To Me but it involves server side software.

I do it a different way meself - the iphone remote application controls itunes on a headless mac mini which is looking at the NAS, so I get the audio wherever I need it via the optical output or via remote speakers on Airshare. I don't like bluetooth for music, too low bandwidth imho, and you can come out of the application to do other stuff while itunes plays on.
psionic
02-06-2010
It synchs calendars with Outlook by default if you use a cable. It can synch automatically and wirelessly too if you use MobileMe or Google Calendar or some other WebDAV server etc. It can also synch with MS Exchange Server.
davisa
02-06-2010
Originally Posted by Alcdrew:
“Having had a quick look on the iTunes store something simple like the filebrowser should work well enough for video steaming. I don't want to have to have a computer on as well or that defeats the whole point of the iPad for me.

A photo frame app that will show photos from my chosen NAS folder and randomly change the photos every x minutes would be great.

Re: the music play back (as this is really the main use) my music is stored in \\NAS\NetHDD\Music folder and iTunes on my PC stores and plays back from that folder. So can I link the iPad with that folder? So it shows and plays all my music? I wouldn't have to sink it with my PC? Just want to understand how this works on the iPad.”

I asked on the ReadyNAS forum and the opinion was that most NAS boxes are just not powerful enough to do real-time conversion. Ill probably end up building my own as I agree with you - I want to stream directly from the NAS, like I do with everything else. For now though, Air Video is very good.
simon69c
07-06-2010
Media Link Player Lite for iPad can be used to stream audio direct from a NAS (it is basically a DLNA audio client). It's pretty basic but it's free and seems to work OK. I believe Air Video will be adding audio support at some point, but for now Media Link works fine for me for the music I don't have synced onto the iPad itself.

I'm hoping that iPhone OS 4 will include support for accessing shared iTunes libraries as my Synology NAS includes an iTunes music server (in addition to DLNA), and that functionality would allow me to access all my NAS music through the iPod app itself. I'm a bit perplexed as to why it wasn't included in the first place!
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