If you want to look a video on a tablet or smartphone (or laptop) and the file is on a server in your network, you can do this very easily with vlc.
One big advantage: The video can be consumed by many devices - so the movie can be watched on e.g. 3 tablets...
What do you have to do?
Install vlc on your computer (i used a ubuntu laptop) and start vlc.
Next step is to open the menu: media -> stream... (or press Strg-S):
Then select the video on your disc with "+Add":
After that click on "Stream" and this window will open:
Click "Next" and then choose "HTTP" and press "Add"
On the next window you have to enter the port and URL, where the devices have to connect to (in my example, the ip of my laptop was 192.168.178.39 - so the URL is 192.168.178.39:8080/test)
Then you should select this setting and click on the wrench (="settings"):
Here you have to select "Keep original audio track", otherwise audio will not work:
Last window before the streaming starts:
Copy the string to your clipboard
:sout=#transcode{vcodec=h264,scale=Auto,scodec=none}:http{mux=ffmpeg{mux=flv},dst=:8080/test} :no-sout-all :sout-keep
After that install vlc on your device, start it and enter the URL:
Press "Verstanden und weiter" ;-)
and here we go:
If you want to skip the wizard, just open vlc with the string from your clipboard
(you have to escape the curled brackets!):
vlc test.mp4 :sout=#transcode\{vcodec=h264,scale=Auto,scodec=none\}:http\{mux=ffmpeg\{mux=flv\},dst=:8080/test\} :no-sout-all :sout-keep
