I am always on the lookout for ways to get my content on to my mobile devices and I have found a new service that looks like it could be a winner. Zumocast is a services then enables you to stream video, music and pictures to any PC via the web and there are apps for the iPhone and iPad.

The service is made up of a application you install on your host PC (requiring Java) and a web interface the PCs, there is an iPhone and iPad app to access the content from an iOS device. From the PC application you can select the folders you want to share, as well as streaming videos, music and pictures you can also download the content.

Once you have created an account and have shared out your folders you can log in to Zumocast.com and stream the content to your PC. I shared my DVD rip folder and could stream the vob files to my netbook via the browser, I also got it to stream WMV files but unfortunately not WTV files (Media Center TV files) which is a shame as if it did it would be a complete solution for me. I have been able to use MCEbuddy to convert WTV files to mp4 and that worked fine

The other piece of the puzzle is the iPad app, this enables you to stream or download the content directly to the iPad. As with the web app I could stream VOB files, WMV files, mp4 files but not WTV files. Streaming video files seems to work well over my LAN and using a mifi so this looks like being a good solution for when I am on the road. The app seems to adjust the frame rate depending on the available bandwidth and using the mifi I didn’t suffer any buffering problems, I did find that it placed a load on the host PC while it was transcoding the files but it didn’t cause any issues.

At the moment the service is in beta so you have to signup at Zumocast.com and if you want the iPhone/iPad app you have to registered the UID of your device and then they email you a link to download the app. I found it took a couple of days to get my iPad app, the app is not in the app store so they send you a link to download the app. I guess once the service is out of beta the app will be in the app store but I am not sure if there will be a charge for apps or the service, at the moment it’s all free

Overall it seems to work well for a free service and if they added WTV file support it would be the perfect solution for me.

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Selecting the folders to share

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PC usage while streaming

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Web UI

 

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iPad UI

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Streaming Video

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Resuming Video

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Streaming music

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Viewing photos

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