Is it possible to stream DVDs to a tablet?

MickeyBlue617 · 12 Jan 2015 at 14:28

Hi all,

Hopefully i've posted this in the correct part of the forum- apologies if not.

What I am looking to do is stream my DVDs to my Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 through my home wifi network- a plug-and-play/stream option ideally. I want to be able to pop in a dvd disc into my bluray player or my PC in one room and stream it to my tablet to watch in another room and be able to navigate the dvd menus from the tablet as I would from the player/pc.

Now when I started looking into this, I expected it would be straight forward, that there would already be kit out there, or company software/apps, or that even my smart TV and Bluray could already do it and I hadn't realised. Now unless i've spent the weekend looking in the wrong place, it does not seem as straight forward to do as I had hoped above?

The options I have seen are:
1) rip my DVD collection to a hard drive (is that legal?) then 2) download various "free" apps and software littered with ads and trial and error until it works.
Or 3) buy a Samsung Slim Retail EXT Smart Hub NAS Optical that should be plug and play... however it's a 2012 bit of kit and from the reviews of the hardware and software invovled, it was dated tech back then, doesn't work well then/now with Samsung tablets and to date has no aftercare through Samsung post 2013.

I also looked into plugging my PC's external DVD drive into the tablet micro-usb to micro-usb, but from what I have read this would not work as the tablet would not have the appropriate drivers / there are no drivers for this sort of set up.

I would have thought that given that my smart TV and bluray allow me to stream from tablet to the TV through Samsung's AllShare and Panasonic's MiraCast, that one or both of them would have the ability to stream back to a tablet.

So I would be really grateful if anyone can give me any guideance on how to do this... if it can be done at all!

This is my home setup:
Samsung UE46F6320 Smart 3D TV with Built-In Wi-Fi
Panasonic DMP-BDT330EB Smart Network 3D Blu-ray Disc Player with Built-In Wi-Fi
Samsung Galaxy Tab 3
Virgin Media home wifi 5G & 2G
PC with TCP-Link wifi receiver

Just to add, I'm not looking to have to rip all my DVDs, to me that seems time consuming and I don't have the hard disc space for it either. …Or to get a Netflix or Prime subscription- I already own a DVD collection!

Thanks in advance for any help with this.

lude1962 · 12 Jan 2015 at 14:48

Is there a remote control app for the galaxy (to remote control your pc, it should mirror pc display),,, just a thought

AthlonXP1800 · 12 Jan 2015 at 14:51

I looked at Panasonic DMP-BDT330EB spec, it supported DLNA so you will need to enable it to able to streaming DVD to your tablet, bedroom or living room HDTV or mobile phones.

I did it with my Blu-ray drive streaming Blu-ray movie to my dad bedroom HDTV through DLNA.

slick rick · 12 Jan 2015 at 14:52

Install Splashtop streamer on the tablet, install Splashtop client on the PC, pop DVD in the PC and stream to tablet.

TheVoice · 12 Jan 2015 at 14:53

Install VLC on your tablet and try this on VLC on the PC maybe?

http://www.howtogeek.com/118075/how-to-stream-videos-and-music-over-the-network-using-vlc/

No idea if it'll actually work though. Most people just do the far simpler method of ripping the movies and streaming the files directly, as you've mentioned.

On an unrelated note, your signature is too big.

MickeyBlue617 · 13 Jan 2015 at 00:27

Thanks all for getting back to me!

lude1962 said:
Is there a remote control app for the galaxy (to remote control your pc, it should mirror pc display),,, just a thought

Not that I could find with that feature on Samsung's app list

AthlonXP1800 said:
I looked at Panasonic DMP-BDT330EB spec, it supported DLNA so you will need to enable it to able to streaming DVD to your tablet, bedroom or living room HDTV or mobile phones.

I did it with my Blu-ray drive streaming Blu-ray movie to my dad bedroom HDTV through DLNA.

Found the DLNA settings on the bluray player and got that to see the tablet, but it would only let me stream vidoes/pics etc from my tablet to the TV, not play DVD disks from the bluray player onto the tablet. Did you get your set up to play DVDs to a tablet or just another TV? I've downloaded VLC for Android and BubbleUpnP DLNA onto my tablet after searching DLNA on the Play store to see if that works as you mentioned above and will report back.

slick rick said:
Install Splashtop streamer on the tablet, install Splashtop client on the PC, pop DVD in the PC and stream to tablet.

Installed Splashtop- works brilliantly (once I reduced the resolution on my PC to match the max resolution of the tablet). My next problem though was that Microsoft have removed DVD playback from Media Player on Windows 8, so...

TheVoice said:
Install VLC on your tablet and try this on VLC on the PC maybe?

http://www.howtogeek.com/118075/how-to-stream-videos-and-music-over-the-network-using-vlc/

No idea if it'll actually work though. Most people just do the far simpler method of ripping the movies and streaming the files directly, as you've mentioned.

On an unrelated note, your signature is too big.

...I installed VLC on the PC for DVD playback- and i'm now streaming DVD's to my tablet!

So if I can get my bluray player to stream to my tablet, i'll be even happier!

Thanks again guys for all your suggestions to help me get this working! i'll report back when I have a chance to trial and error the DLNA options on my bluray player.

(Oh and updated my sig- thanks for pointing that out!)

AthlonXP1800 · 13 Jan 2015 at 13:41

MickeyBlue617 said:
Found the DLNA settings on the bluray player and got that to see the tablet, but it would only let me stream vidoes/pics etc from my tablet to the TV, not play DVD disks from the bluray player onto the tablet. Did you get your set up to play DVDs to a tablet or just another TV? I've downloaded VLC for Android and BubbleUpnP DLNA onto my tablet after searching DLNA on the Play store to see if that works as you mentioned above and will report back.

...I installed VLC on the PC for DVD playback- and i'm now streaming DVD's to my tablet!

So if I can get my bluray player to stream to my tablet, i'll be even happier!

Thanks again guys for all your suggestions to help me get this working! i'll report back when I have a chance to trial and error the DLNA options on my bluray player.

(Oh and updated my sig- thanks for pointing that out!)

Your Panasonic Blu-ray Player wont allowed to stream contents to your tablet? I checked the product description on Amazon, it appeared you are correct that Panasonic DMP-BDT330EB has DLNA Client that can access content stored on other DLNA-certified products even if they're in another room. Enjoy digital photos (JPEG), music (MP3, WMA) and videos (AVCHD, WMV) stored on a Windows 7 (or above) PC, for example, by simply connecting to a home network (LAN), either wired or wirelessly.

Not impressed! I expected all Blu-ray players have ability to stream Blu-ray and DVD movies from discs to other HDTVs, PCs, tablets and mobile phones. It seemed unfortunately Blu-ray players are complete waste of money, people would be better off spend money to buy Linx 7 tablet and cheap external Blu-ray writer drive instead.

Anyway VLC Player can stream Blu-ray and DVD movies from disc, I did it with VLC Player streamed Blu-ray movies to HDTV in dad bedroom months ago so now I have Linx 10 tablet, been tested stream Star Trek Into Darkness Blu-ray movie to Linx 10 tablet 30 mins ago, worked great and also tried stream it to my Galaxy S3 phone worked too.

TheVoice · 13 Jan 2015 at 13:48

AthlonXP1800 said:
Not impressed! I expected all Blu-ray players have ability to stream Blu-ray and DVD movies from discs to other HDTVs, PCs, tablets and mobile phones.

I've never known a BD player be able to do this and I doubt the hardware inside the average player has the power to transcode and stream video across a network.

RoyMi6 · 13 Jan 2015 at 14:13

TheVoice said:
I've never known a BD player be able to do this and I doubt the hardware inside the average player has the power to transcode and stream video across a network.

Yeah, what the hell. This is something I've never heard of. Transcoding a full bluray on the fly to be able to steam over a home network in a format that a mobile device can support isn't the easiest thing in the world (hardware wise).

Seriously interested in the model number of something that can do this.

It looks like you've already got a solution you're relatively happy with in my opinion you'd be better off ripping your DVDs/BluRays (which is legal in the UK) then use Plex to stream them.

Plex has clients for iOS, Android and pretty much every platform going and would even allow you to steam outside your home network (assuming you've got the bandwidth to allow it) fairly effortlessly.

AthlonXP1800 · 13 Jan 2015 at 22:59

TheVoice said:
I've never known a BD player be able to do this and I doubt the hardware inside the average player has the power to transcode and stream video across a network.

Majority of Blu-ray players has dual core ARM CPU which is powerful enough capable to transcode and stream video across a network just like low end mobile phones with dual core ARM CPU.

TheVoice · 13 Jan 2015 at 23:29

And yet none of them do it.

AthlonXP1800 · 13 Jan 2015 at 23:36

RoyMi6 said:
Yeah, what the hell. This is something I've never heard of. Transcoding a full bluray on the fly to be able to steam over a home network in a format that a mobile device can support isn't the easiest thing in the world (hardware wise).

Yes here are app on Android called Vidon XBMC that is capable to transcoding a full bluray on the fly with iso image for playback Blu-ray movie. Never tried it because my Galaxy S3 is only 16GB and don't have 64GB SD card.

http://www.vidon.me/vidon_xbmc.htm

1 year ago I found very good app for both Android and iOS called ArkMC acting as media player and also media server too, it capable to transcoding a full bluray on the fly to be able to steam over a home network in m2ts format. I was ripped Star Trek Blu-ray movie to removed AACS protection and uploaded m2ts files to my 64GB ipod touch 5G, tested ArkMC to setup as media server then choose my mobile phone to stream m2ts files over to Galaxy S3. 1GHz dual core Apple A5 ARM Cortex-A9 CPU is powerful enough to stream Blu-ray over network, it was amazing watched Blu-ray movie stream on my mobile phone.

http://www.arkudadigital.com/products/arkmc/

Forget to mentioned ArkMC also supported DVD format VOB.