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Comment by xyzzyb | Hacker News Reader

Try hosting your video files on a Plex media server paired with the Plex iOS app.

No need to copy files to the iPad, Plex streaming works great even over 3G. You can register your server with myPlex then sign on Plex clients to make getting to your video collection super easy.

Custom video categories are fantastic for keeping track of programming screencasts. I just setup my Plex with Peepcode, Destroy All Software, and Railscasts categories and am very pleased with the setup. If I start watching a video on the Roku box on my TV, I can pick up where I left off on the iPad or my iPhone whether I'm at home or not.

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That doesn't really solve for the parent's use-case of

> It's actually the reason we stopped taking the laptop while away for the weekend. I just put a movie on the iPad for VLC and we are good to go.

though. You'd need to bring something to run Plex on.

Plex runs on a computer at home. You then stream that computer's media over the Internet on the iPad/iPhone using the Plex app. To make things super-easy you can register your home Plex server on myPlex and sign into it using myPlex on the iPad/iPhone.

Bam! No need to bring a computer OR move files to the device. You can even stream over 3G with pretty decent quality.

I think the previous poster understood the technical details and was implying that internet access is not always there. Also a lot of people have limited mobile quotas so wouldn't want to use their 3G connection for streaming something.

Some people go where there is no 3G/WiFi coverage. Sometimes it's also financially not feasible to do this (think roaming costs).

Example - a ferry trip from UK to France. No 3G for about 1.5hrs, or in other words - no 3G for a average length movie.

Try a month in Japan. Not even the same basebands. You want Internet? Get yourself a new device my friend!

That works so well on an airplane without wifi, or a tent in a valley in the wilderness :)

> That works so well [in] a tent in a valley in the wilderness

Much like a laptop.

This isn't going to work at all on most airplanes.

It's a nice idea, but it's not really going to work when you're on the move with spotty phone coverage (let alone on a plane). A solution involving local storage is a hundred times better.

Or you can use AirVideo. It converts while it streams or you can have it just do the conversion and dump it in iTunes so it will sync to the ipad automatically for offline usage.

Sure, but then you'll have to use up precious gigabytes for video storage. Via plex I have streaming access to my entire video library.

Dude it's 2012...gigabytes haven't been precious for over a decade.

Neither has bandwidth. :-)

Only 3 GBP / MB when roaming. Remotely viewing a movie with a high-res encoding might only cost approximately the same as a car.

Why don't you just buy a local pre-paid SIM? Though I guess most of the time I'm travelling I'm on vacation, so don't need to be reachable on the usual number. That might be an issue if you're on a delegation.

That's fine in theory, but you have to find a reasonable deal, find a shop to purchase it in, familiarize yourself with how to charge it up, and all in the time you spend in that country. I've found it burns at least half a day - usually not worth it. Most of my leisure travelling is motorbike touring, and I may spend each night in a different country, or cross borders several times a day (mountains with interesting roads are frequently on borders).

If my travel was simpler, sure, it's somewhat workable, and I do have e.g. a German SIM. But it's usually better to just rely on hotel wifi, cached maps on phones, offline GPS on bikes, etc.

When travelling it often is. Mobile data rates are still prohibitively high in most places and wifi services have low caps.

Only if you are at 'home'. If I where to use 3G on my phone when traveling in the US, I'd pay $17/MB! Even a 3 hour drive from my house (a trip a regularly make) will put me in a new country and I'm paying $7 for the first 50MB and then $3/pr additional MB. That makes watching movies kind of expensive.

While offline?

Not so much. If you're going to need to view video away from data service or WiFi then, yeah, you have no choice but local storage.

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