Android/Apple Home Theater Apps

[3db]

I installed this .... waiting for my micro usb to hdmi cable to show up. Should be a fun hour of play.

 

[3db]

Here's a thread that shows you how to stream movies from ripped in ISO from WD to an Android device...

http://androidforums.com/threads/streaming-isos-from-western-digital-to-tab4.894508/

 

[3db]

The "Color Tiger" App is a keeper. It has the metal to control everything I own. I wish I knew then what I know now about this app as it would save me a lot of time in the end. I will get to that shortly. I also want to extend my thanks to the great support I have received from Color Tiger. Kudos to you.

Now that I've been through this app thoroughly... I would recommend the following steps;

1. Once you pick a remote based on highest percentage compatibility, go through all of their functions to see if the functions are responsive. If not responsive or semi responsive (repeated pressing of the command to get a response), edit that remote and choose "other compatible commands" and search through the list for the same command that is troublesome. Many times, you will see many devices listed with that command. Cycle through them all to see which command (function) is most consistently responsive and save that to the remote being edited.
2. Repeat step 1 for each device that you own.
   
3. Build your smart remote with the functions of all the underlying remotes in steps 1 and 2 that are most pertinent to control your devices.
   
4. Build macros and add them into your smart remote.

Things I would like to see as an improvement for this app are

1. Group individual commands/controls together so that they can be moved as a group; ie digits 0-9 as a group: pause,play rewind, fast forward, and stop as a group.
   
2. I would like to see "chapter skip" and "chapter back" symbols added to the symbol library
3. Allow changing the color of custom shapes and the color of symbols in the library.
4. Offer a larger color palette.
   
5. Allow for the addition of backdrop colors when making a smart remote to differentiate the owner of the functionality of the various remotes comprised to make a smart remote. What I did to get around this as make the keys brown that control the AVR, blue for the Western Digital, Orange for the cable box, purple for the BluRay,and blue for the Vizio display as shown below. I have reserved the green and yellow keys for macros.
   
6. A manual would he helpful as well.

To summarize this product; I definately recommend this product for anyone wishing to control their non networked devices through IR. This product simply works and works well. The support has been stellar and courteous.

 

[3db]

The Family room remote now with color to help sort out which buttons act on which device.

 

[3db]

My last two remotes

 

[3db]

I have XBMC now kown as kodi working on my Samsung tablet. It seems to work really well. I'm now looking for more channels to get me regular TV shows.

 

[3db]

I installed this .... waiting for my micro usb to hdmi cable to show up. Should be a fun hour of play.

I used this app yesterday on my tablet which is not in the list of supported devices. I also used miracast as I don't have an HDMI adaptor for this device as of yet.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.thx.tuneup.free&hl=en

Through miracast, I was able to set the contrast and brightness levels but the app kept crashing during the color and tint setup whenever I attempted to launch the required camera function. I don't know if miracast or that the device not being officially supported is the problem. The one issue I'm running into with Miracast is the downmixing of 5.1 channels into stereo, not useful for speaker identification

Despite my limited success, I did find that my brightness and contrast levels were definately off and I got an overall improvement in picture quality.

I have sent an email to THX asking when they plan on supporting the Samsung Galaxy Tab 4.

 

[3db]

I volunteered to be a beta tester for the Color Tiger "Anymote" remote control application. I redid all of my remotes using some of the bug fixes and incorporating new features. Here's what they look like.

The basement remote is a universal remote I created with macros (green keys) to turn on equipment and set them to the correct inputs, load the correct memory settings, etc (yellow keys) to turn equipment off again where power toggles weren't available. Its built on the individual remotes for each piece of equipment. Each individual remote is assigned a color and these colors are promoted to the universal remote. If you look at the bottom, there are buttons to call up the individual remotes with all the functionality for each piece of equipment that isn't required at the universal remote level. I can also toggle back to the universal remote from each of the individual remotes used to build the universal.

 

[3db]

Here's the universal remote for the family room and all of its supporting device rmotes.

 

[Hobbit]

I have XBMC now kown as kodi working on my Samsung tablet. It seems to work really well. I'm now looking for more channels to get me regular TV shows.

I've been playing around with Kodi. My thoughts are very mixed. It seems at least half the channels don't work well, or hardly at all, and the other half have poor quality streams; either poor video quality or poor feed. Worst of all it's very time consuming trying to figure all this out. The good part of it is just about anything you could ever want to watch is there... somewhere So far, Genesis has been the best option for stable HD feeds.

 

[3db]

I've been playing around with Kodi. My thoughts are very mixed. It seems at least half the channels don't work well, or hardly at all, and the other half have poor quality streams; either poor video quality or poor feed. Worst of all it's very time consuming trying to figure all this out. The good part of it is just about anything you could ever want to watch is there... somewhere So far, Genesis has been the best option for stable HD feeds.

I ran into the same thing as you did a couple of days after posting about Kodi. My apologies for not updating the thread. I find it a hit n miss: there are days where some channels that streamed before won't and visa versa.

 

[3db]

I just did an OS upgrade on my Samsung tablet with the upgrade Android OS known as "lollipop". It survived.