The ability to stream media from device to another can come quite
handy, especially when the device on which the media is stored has a
small screen, and you have a larger screen available. There are many
technologies out there that make this possible such as AirPlay, DLNA and
Miracast, with DLNA being the most widely supported one, thanks to its
open nature and the sheer number of major manufacturers it has on board.
If you have been looking for an easy, no-frills way of streaming videos
from your Android phone or tablet to other devices on your network such
as Roku, Apple TV, Xbox, Google TV, Samsung SmartTV or any
DLNA-compatible device, AllCast by Koushik Dutta should put an end to your search.
For those unfamilar with Koush, he’s the guy behind the famous ClockworkMod custom recovery, Superuser, DeskSMS, TabletSMS, Carbon and more. Coming back to AllCast, it is currently in beta, and installing it will require you to first join its Google+ community and then sign up for its beta access (links provided at the end), upon which you will be provided with the link to install it from Play Store.
Once installed and launched, the app presents you with its minimal, single-screen UI that’s dead-simple to use. Simply select a video stored locally in your Android device’s Gallery, pick one from your Dropbox or Google Drive cloud storage, or choose one from a DLNA server on your local network. Next, you’ll be shown a list of all available devices on your network that can be used for playback. This includes Roku, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Apple TV, Google TV and other smart TVs by several manufacturers, Windows PCs with Windows Media Player configured for DLNA streaming, and any other DLNA-capable device.
Upon selecting a playback device for the first time, you will also be offered to set it as your default device for future playback, in which case it’ll be shown in the upper part of AllCast’s UI, and you will not have to select it each time you pick videos to stream with AllCast. Once a video starts playing, AllCast provides you with playback controls that include a volume bar, a seek bar and buttons to restart, pause/play, and stop playback. In case you want to do other things on your phone or tablet during playback, go ahead – AllCast will continue streaming the video in the background, and you can control it at any time using its notification shade controls.
Here’s how a video streamed from AllCast looks on a PC while playing in Windows Media Player.
What makes AllCast better than many other DLNA and video streaming apps that I’ve tried in the past is how simple it is to use – it just works, with no needlessly complicated UI features to navigate. Give it a shot and if you are already using another app for the purpose, you’ll be quite likely to make the switch.
Join ClockworkMod Google+ Community
Sign up for AllCast Beta
For those unfamilar with Koush, he’s the guy behind the famous ClockworkMod custom recovery, Superuser, DeskSMS, TabletSMS, Carbon and more. Coming back to AllCast, it is currently in beta, and installing it will require you to first join its Google+ community and then sign up for its beta access (links provided at the end), upon which you will be provided with the link to install it from Play Store.
Once installed and launched, the app presents you with its minimal, single-screen UI that’s dead-simple to use. Simply select a video stored locally in your Android device’s Gallery, pick one from your Dropbox or Google Drive cloud storage, or choose one from a DLNA server on your local network. Next, you’ll be shown a list of all available devices on your network that can be used for playback. This includes Roku, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Apple TV, Google TV and other smart TVs by several manufacturers, Windows PCs with Windows Media Player configured for DLNA streaming, and any other DLNA-capable device.
Upon selecting a playback device for the first time, you will also be offered to set it as your default device for future playback, in which case it’ll be shown in the upper part of AllCast’s UI, and you will not have to select it each time you pick videos to stream with AllCast. Once a video starts playing, AllCast provides you with playback controls that include a volume bar, a seek bar and buttons to restart, pause/play, and stop playback. In case you want to do other things on your phone or tablet during playback, go ahead – AllCast will continue streaming the video in the background, and you can control it at any time using its notification shade controls.
Here’s how a video streamed from AllCast looks on a PC while playing in Windows Media Player.
What makes AllCast better than many other DLNA and video streaming apps that I’ve tried in the past is how simple it is to use – it just works, with no needlessly complicated UI features to navigate. Give it a shot and if you are already using another app for the purpose, you’ll be quite likely to make the switch.
Join ClockworkMod Google+ Community
Sign up for AllCast Beta
