+ Access all your PC or Mac files & folders. This VLC Remote Control App lets you control VLC Media Player on your desktop or laptop and allows you to browse, play your computer files as well as YouTube videos. Download StrymTV app for windows PC Laptop / Desktop or Mac Laptop 2021.Trot back to the 16th century and corner famed prognosticating monk Nostradamus, and it’s quite likely that when posed the question: “Will those living in the year 2013 be able to call up any media programming they like from a single box?” he’d respond with an enthusiastic “Mais oui!”VLC Remote. Filmage Player plays almost any video and audio types, such as MP4, AVI, FLV, SWF, WMV, MKV, MP3, M4V, etc.POWERFUL MEDIA PLAYER Built-in powerful media player with multiple fe. Filmage Player is a free media player on Mac. Filmage Player is the best media player for Mac that plays video and audio files with all formats, including MP4, FLV, WMV, VOB, AVI, MOV, and more.Advanced DLNA streaming server for Mac and Windows. But the ultimate goal—watching exactly what you want to watch when you want to watch it—remains elusive.i Sedora Media Server 2.2. Progress has been made, via cable and satellite services that deliver a trillion channels plus on-demand programming, as well as set-top boxes that have access to online music and video services. Developed and released by Gabest.Sadly, we know only too well where this one sits in the cleric’s win/loss column. Srt files only and requires VLC v2.2.0 or up).Media Player Classic is a free software program that lets you play multimedia content on Microsoft Windows PC devices.
Home Media Player Mac Laptop 2021For another $200 you can purchase a Mac mini with a i7 processor and a 1TB hard drive. That mini includes a 2.5 GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor, 4GB of memory, a 500GB hard drive, and the Intel HD Graphics 4000 chipset built into the motherboard. But is it the perfect solution for those anxious to cut the media cord? I spent a month with one to find out.I chose the $599 base-model Mac mini for my media experiment, largely based on its price and performance. Turns out that Apple produces a device fitting that exact bill: the Mac mini.Small, not obscenely expensive, and capable of accessing media locally as well as online, the Mac mini has a lot going for it. What many of us want is a device as intelligent as a computer but one that’s at home in the living room, attached to a big-screen TV. It makes for a less-than-satisfying group-viewing experience, and it’s hard to shake the feeling that you’re, well, sitting in front of a computer. It carries a gigabit ethernet port, for when wireless isn’t fast enough. The mini has an IR receiver and comes with Apple’s remote, so it can be controlled from the couch. It includes four USB 3 ports for plugging in additional storage devices and media peripherals. Unlike most of today’s Macs it still retains a FireWire 800 port (though it also has a Thunderbolt port). It includes an SDXC card slot for directly accessing the pictures stored on a camera’s memory card. It sports an HDMI port, which allows you to jack the computer directly into your TV or HDMI-compatible AV receiver. We can manipulate AV receivers, disc players, high-definition TVs, and game consoles without shifting our keisters from the couch, but when we think of controlling a computer we all-too-often turn to a keyboard and a mouse or trackpad.Before these were commonly available in wireless form, incorporating a computer into a media cabinet screamed “kludge!” It forced you off the couch and to the floor where you’d tap away on tethered input devices to locate the media you wanted.You can, of course, control some media applications with the $19 Apple Remote, but it doesn’t allow you to manage the Mac’s entire interface. You can find such drives for around $30 that are every bit as good as Apple’s $79 USB SuperDrive.While a computer can be a terrific media player, one element has traditionally stood in the way of every media rack bearing something like the Mac mini: Convenient control. However, external USB removable media drives are inexpensive and they operate just like an internal drive—allowing you to play movies and install disc-based software. If you still depend on DVDs and CDs then you may be annoyed that there’s no slot in the front of the mini for your discs. Iboost app for macPaired with the mini, these apps let you control its interface much as you would with a real wireless keyboard and trackpad.The Touchpad app allows your iOS device to become a wireless keyboard and trackpad.If instead you want to tap on your iPad as if it was the Mac’s screen, you can choose a VNC app such as the $25 iTeleport, $10 Splashtop Remote Desktop, or $20 Screens. One of a variety of apps can turn your iOS device into both a wireless keyboard and trackpad.For example, both Evan Schoenberg’s $5 Rowmote Pro and Edovia’s $5 TouchPad turn your iOS device into a virtual keyboard and trackpad. Turning to iOSIf these devices still seem too bulky, you may instead choose to use your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad as a controller. When placed snugly together, the two input devices become one unit, which can be used on your lap.Twelve South’s MagicWand turns two input devices into one. If you’re handy in the workshop, you can probably cobble together a controller tray, but for $30, Twelve South provides the more elegant MagicWand, a rounded half-cylinder (not shown in the image below—it’s under the cylindrical top edge of the keyboard and trackpad) that accommodates the battery ends of these Apple wireless devices. While you, as the techie of the clan, may feel perfectly at home with the system you’ve set up, other family members won’t touch it because they find it too complicated. The other is making that control family-friendly. Each of them requires that you install and run free server software on the Mac, which allows the iOS client to make the connection and project your Mac’s screen to your iOS device.Remote control is certainly one major challenge of using a computer as a media device. Currently there are a couple of media-center applications that you can use to control not only your locally stored music, images, and videos, but also Internet-based media streams: XBMC and Plex.XBMC is an open-source media player and entertainment hub. Apple appeared to have no interest in opening it up to streaming media from other companies.Thankfully, third-party developers are more open-minded about this kind of thing. While it did make browsing media easier, it was almost entirely limited to the media in your iTunes library. The Plex interface consumes the entire screen, making it seem like you’re working with a dedicated media player rather than a computer.Regrettably, Plex can’t play all the media you might want to access. It will make sure that it appears in the Plex player.Once you’ve added the streaming media channels you desire as well as the music, movies, and images stored on your Mac (or a local network server), you can navigate to them easily using the Apple Remote, a keyboard, or one of the iOS apps I mentioned. You choose the kind of media you’d like to add and then tell Plex where it’s stored. This is a free application and one that isn’t difficult to configure. Of the two, I find Plex easier to use thanks to its slick interface and the ease with which you can add not only local media, but also Internet streaming services such as Hulu, The Daily Show, PBS, YouTube, Vimeo, Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, Pandora, Shoutcast, and Spotify.Viewing Plex from an iPad running the Screens app.Using Plex with your local media means configuring the separate Plex Media Server. Instruct your loved ones to click on this folder and then click on the site or application they wish to launch.(Some readers will wonder why you’d need to use HBO Go in a browser when you have to be an HBO subscriber in order to access HBO Go and therefore can watch it on your cable or satellite receiver. Alternatively you can create a folder full of aliases and drag them to the dock. If you wish to watch HBO Go, launch Safari, travel to and then drag the icon from the address field to the desktop to create a Web location file that, when double-clicked, launches your browser and takes you directly to that site. For example, you might hold down theandkeys and drag iTunes from the Applications folder to the desktop, thus creating an alias. There are some simple (and not-so-simple) things you can do to make the experience easier for them.The first is to place aliases of applications and sites they’ll want to visit on the desktop. It also lacks on-demand content such as HBO Go or a cable or satellite service’s catalog of streaming movies and TV shows that can be played in a computer’s Web browser.If you want to play such media, you must leave Plex, which can cause a problem for the family because they’re now confronted with a computer interface, which less-savvy users may find confounding. Those people must use the iOS app or a Web browser to enjoy this content. DirecTV, for example, does carry some HBO content on demand, but not the complete HBO Go service.
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