Looking to implement media server for external machines

[puttsy]

There are scads of bits and pieces regarding this around these forums but none of them seem to be inclusive. This question has a lot of novice users stumped and giving up. Also, to make my situation worse, I can't code in HTML or CSS (Well, I know enough of the basics to read it and have an idea of what will occur, but can't create nor edit code effectively)

I am looking for a way to host my media files on my server (The machine with HFS installed) and access them from anywhere with internet. I simply go to my address, browse to the media folder and click on the video. (.avi, .mkv primarily. but .mp4, wmv and audio files eventually) This will get it to play within the browser without any obscure plugins. (Basically, use Flash plugin) I have tried RAWR themes and they do not work with .avi's it seems unless you use DivX, which still doesn't work well. (anonymous user access. Not good.) Currently I am using RAWR Live 3.0.1 so something that could be placed in their would be optimal. Also, The media will need to be transcoded but that seems pretty standard. This doesn't seem as if it would be too complicated (some have it working it appears, I just can't figure it out) but, I don't know where to implemnt code or the like.

Also, another minor problem is that some files seem to download instead of just opening in the browser. This could be because I am trying that on a LAN and not WAN but, I'm not sure. (I did add the extensions to the "open in browser" setting but it didn't work for the .bmp files and a few others I don't recall)

I did search and didn't find a good answer describing the solution. Also, I've tried TVersity but had odd issues using it. May give it another go but, a fully in-browser on client machine service through HFS (and a RAWR Theme) is optimal. I would also be looking to access the files through an iPod, iPad, and Android phone and Tablet)

[raybob]

Browsers are typically only capable of displaying jpg, png, and gif photos, as well as any flash-based video.  They are not natively capable of displaying .bmp, or playing music/other video.

To solve this, you use third party addons.  For playing music, you could add a simple <embed> tag which would typically bring up Quicktime to the user, or use this:   http://mediaplayer.yahoo.com/

As for video, there's no easy way to embed.  Using the <embed> or <object> tags for video will occasionally work with third party plugins on the user side, but only with few file types and often only after downloading the entire file (slow).  Without coding your own player, the only way I see this happening is to convert ALL of your video to flash (*.swf) and then <embed> it into the page.

http://www.w3schools.com/html5/tag_embed.asp

[rejetto]

i don't have a ready-made solution since i'm not into this matter, but your problem may be the media player included in rawr. You may need a different one.