iStream for Windows Home Server

So, for those of you who have been following the recent release of the HP MediaSmart Server 2.5 Update, you will be aware of the application for the iPhone and iPod Touch, called iStream, that enables you to connect to your Windows Home Server and stream your digital content.

This assumes that you have already installed and configured the HP MediaSmart Server 2.5 update and have enabled remote access and media sharing.

INSTALLING iSTREAM

So, if you have an iPhone or iPod Touch (2nd generation, not the 1st generation model), there are two ways you can get the iStream application.

The first is to launch iTunes on your computer, click on the iTunes Store and do a search for MediaSmart. You will then see the HP MediaSmart Server iStream application (as shown in the screenshot below).

Click Get App to start the download and then just connect up and sync your device to install it.

You can also read more about it by clicking on it.

The other way to get iStream is to do a search in the App Store directly from your device.

CONFIGURING iSTREAM

Once you have installed iStream via whichever method you choose, just select it from wherever it has been placed on your device.

Then you need to tell it a few details about your server, specifically the server details, the user account name and user account password used to access the shared content.

For server, you will need to type in the full domain, for example WHATEVER.homeserver.com (where WHATEVER is the name you used when you configured remote access for your Windows Home Server. If you only want to stream internally on your home network you can just type in the name of your Windows Home Server, but remember that outside of your network that just isn’t enough information to connect!

If you connect to more than one Windows Home Server, you can press the History button to see the servers you have already connected to, making it quick and easy to reconnect.

The details you enter will then be verified, and if successful you will see the 3 familiar shared folders – Music, Photos and Videos.

If you want to change the settings at any time, just press the icon in the bottom left hand corner and then press Open Settings to return to the settings page, or Go Home to return to the 3 folders page.

If you press the About button on the Settings page you can see information on the iStream application.

So let’s take a look at each of these in turn and see what you can do.

MUSIC

If you want to listen to your music, just press the Music button. You will then have the choice to display your music by Album, All Tracks, Artist/Album, Folder, Genre/Artist/Album or Playlist.

So let’s say you want to see all the albums, just press Album to see what you have available.

Select the album you want to listen to and you will see a list of song titles and information, plus the ability to shuffle them and listen to them in a random order.

When you have chosen the song you want to listen to it will start playing and you will see information on the song, artist, duration and more.

If you click on the List Music button on the top right hand corner you will see a view of all the songs on that album.

One thing you need to remember is that because you are streaming the songs from your Windows Home Server, over the Internet (if you are listening to it outside of your home network) that bandwidth plays a really important part of the process.

I was very happy to see that I was given a warning message and the song would not play because I was on a low speed connection. I would much prefer this than think it will work fine and have the song stopping every few seconds – so well done HP!

The Playlists menu is interesting as it shows you what you have most played, last played, recently added or even highly rated. This makes it very quick to find something specific that you might want to listen to.

PHOTOS

If you want to look at your photos, just choose Photos and you will see a menu offering you All Photos, sorted by date, folder and also playlists again.

Choosing All Photos will list all of your photos in a small thumbnail list with the photo title. As you can see from the screenshot, my photos are not called anything useful so it is difficult to find something specific without scrolling through the whole list.

This is where the little icon in the bottom right next to Refresh comes in very handy. If you press this the view is replaced by a page of thumbnails, making it much easier to look through and select something.

To look at a picture, just press one! Depending on your connection speed it may take a moment or two to load.

Then the picture is displayed for you in all its glory.

You can then choose to look at photos before or after that particular one, or even press the button on the bottom right to start a slideshow of all your photos.

You can also rotate your device to show the pictures in landscape or portrait mode, which is nice.

You can also view photos by date or folder, and then there is the playlist option, exactly as you had with Music, just with less choices.

You can also look at your photos at the same time you are listening to music, which can make for a nice effect.

VIDEOS

So now that we have looked at streaming your music and your photos, that only leaves your videos.

When you press Videos from the main list, you have the option of All Videos, a specific Folder or Playlists yet again.

Selecting All Videos takes you to a list of all the available videos. You can just choose which one you want to watch. As you can see, you are offered the “mobile” quality videos by default. It is important to remember that only videos that have been converted by the HQ Video Converter that came with the 2.5 update will be displayed here. This means that only H.264 encoded videos, those in .mov and .mp4 format.

If you choose the Folder option you can see all of the folders available.

FINAL THOUGHTS

So that was a look at the iStream application. Is it any good? Well simply put, yes. This is a must have add-on if you have an HP MediaSmart EX485 or EX487 Server and an iPhone. Its easy to install, asy to use and is great for showing off with 🙂

Just remember that your streaming experience is reliant on your available bandwidth and your Mobile connection.

Whilst I know that non EX485 and EX487 owners out there are not happy that this update is not available to them, I would imagine it won’t be long before someone releases software and add-ins that do pretty much the same thing. Just hang in there.