The files with movie icons overlaid are supported to stream and you’ll find that Internet Explorer is the browser that will provide best video support. Certainly video streaming from the home server is less successful than Music and Photos and I’d look to see some improved transcoding in place to support faster streaming and less buffering.
Mobile Access
Both Android and iPhone apps are available to connect to the HomePipe service and your media. We tested the iPhone app which streamed music and photos over Wi-fi very well, with video again less successful, requiring the file to be downloaded from the server before playback could start. Word documents and PDF files are also supported for viewing on mobile devices, but there is no editing function. Where Wi-fi is not available, a strong 3G signal is required for effective streaming.
The HomePipe mobile interface looks great and is easy to use, with content listings pulled down from your server very quickly, even with large music collections. A single file view is available, and you can stream files with a single click, or press the arrow for file details.
HomePipe uses an embedded media player, which unfortunately dies not multi-task on iOS4 at this point, so the app will need to stay open on the handset for music playback. Files can be shuffled and repeated, with the usual media controls available at the bottom of the screen.
The video experience still needs work, as files needed to be downloaded before playing – which defeats the object of a streaming service, surely. Meanwhile, photo browsing was as easy as music – selecting a file to view will initially show a low res version for a quick look, and a higher res version can be selected if required.
HomePipe is a new service and certainly there’s work left to do to improve aspects of the service. Clearly a standalone Windows Home Server add-in for the client would be very useful, and the service could be improved with by displaying album art for music, as well as the ability to configure shared files locally as well as via a web browser. But HomePipe’s web interface is very good indeed, as is the mobile client, and as such the service shows a lot of promise. Clearly with any cloud streaming service, the issue of available bandwidth both locally from server to cloud, and then from cloud to client is a limiting factor – but if you have a decent uplink, and Wi-Fi available on the road, you should have a great experience.
If you’re interested in streaming music, video and photos to your mobile device whilst on the road, the make sure you check out HomePipe.
