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InnerTube: broadcast your videos to multiple PCs

June 20, 2011 By 8 Comments

If you have many PC’s or laptops in your household, with video files and movies scattered all over the place and different hard drives, then consider this: InnerTube is a small software that lets you easily set up a web server on one (or more) machines, and broadcast your videos to any number of other PCs or laptops.

This free software employs a simple web interface through which you can watch your videos. It uses the DivX Webplayer browser plugin and supports a number of common formats (AVI, MKV, M4V). Videos can be streamed and watched or otherwise downloaded on the remote machines.

The reason you might use a web server like this one rather than, say, something like Dropbox to share your media is that with InnerTube you can stream your media rather than download it locally. This is important insofar as your video library is likely to be hundreds of gigs in size.

Here are some pros and cons.

PROS:

  • Fairly easy to set up: launching the server is a one-click affair.
  • The web-based player is excellent: and supports full-screen playback. The install instructions are fairly clear. What may be unclear, though, is that you don not need to install the DivX player on your machine, just the DivX Web player in your browser.

CONS:

  • Does not support some major formats:specifically, WMV and FLV.
  • Does not display some supported videos in the list of videos: some file extensions that ARE supported nonetheless do not appear on the list unless you go in and edit the index.php file in the server machine; e.g. MPG, MP4 (the latter worked when renamed to MV4).  I was able to edit the index.php file so it sees these, which shouldn’t have been necessary.
  • Locks you into a folder structure: however, if you have your media library organized just so, you can keep it as is and use symblic junctions to clone your files into the folder structure used by InnerTube (this very cool freeware can make this quite easy).
  • InnerTube Screenshot 2Installing the DivXplayer Webplayer: you only need the web player, but the installer will give you several options you don’t need. Choose the Webplayer only as per the screenshot to the right.
  • Ads: appear on the the the movie list screen, but these can be removed easily via editing the index.php file.

The verdict: this software is excellent yet flawed. It works really well and does exactly what it is supposed to do, but has some minor annoyances that are described in the CONS section above. It could and should have covered all video files straight out of the box.

Although I haven’t tried it, InnerTube can (probably) be used to broadcast your media files to remote locations over the internet if you configure your router to allow it to do so.

Version Tested: 1.0

Compatibility: WinAll.

Go to the program home page to download the latest version (approx 2.61 megs).

You can also download it here via Brothersoft.


 
 
 
Samer Kurdi

Samer Kurdi

Has been reviewing software since 2006 when he started Freewaregenius.com
Samer Kurdi

@freewaregenius

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June 20, 2011
Samer Kurdi
8
  • kelechi francis

    I don’t have any credit card- please how do i subscribe your products

  • ?

    lol…

  • IT4U

    I recommend using the older DivX Webplayer:
    –> http://download.divx.com/divx/oldversions/DivXWebPlayerInstallerv15.exe
    For one, this older version doesn’t convert videos so you can download them after you have watched them by just rightclicking the player.
    (This might not be useful in this app but in general on the web it is)

    One possible downside:
    This older version doesn’t support .MKV – so if you need that ignore this post…

    Cheers

  • Pingback: MogBlog » Blog Archive » InnerTube – Freeware web server for streaming video

  • Morely the IT Guy

    It’s unfair to blame the software for not supporting all video formats; firstly, there are dozens of formats, some of the truly obscure, and secondly, due to the way Windows was designed, a filename extensions (e.g., MKV or MP4) does not necessarily correspond to what’s actually *in* the file. I’ve gotten RAR files named AVI, for example. This is a flaw in the operating system, not in InnerTube. I use Windows (some would say “abuse” it). But a proper OS examines the file to determine what type it is, rather than relying on what amounts to a plain-text sticky-note slapped on the file.

    • Samer

      @ Morely: I see your point. However, by changing one line in the index.php file I was able to get this software to recognize MP4 and MPG extensions, which it played perfectly. Seems like quite an unnecessary omission on their part.

      As for there being dozens of formats I would say this: the formats that it does play are adequate for most users (AVI, MKV, and with a slight tweak MP4 and MPG), should cover 85% of user’s needs. Add support for FLV and Windows media to this and you would probably cover 99% of user’s media files.

  • http://paleografie.tk Cerberus™

    I have been using Orb for a while. Never seen any ads. It streams anything to anywhere else. I’m not in anyway affiliated or whatever.

    The stream can be accessed from mycast.orb.com as a .asx stream, which you can play with any media player. It even works on my ancient Windows Mobile 6.0 phone from 2007, with its regular browser and media player. Of course you first need to sign up and install the program on your computer where the videos/songs are, then point it to the folders that you want it to access. You can then search your files and open a stream from the website on any other device.

    The website can be a bit sluggish at times, but the streams work well. It measures what quality your connection can take and adjusts the stream accordingly (you can also set it lower if you experience hiccups. Or you could just open the stream (in, say, VLC player), go make tea or something, and, when it’s 10% done, you can start watching your episode of Will & Grace with a large buffer (you can rewind without erasing what the stream has already been downloading, at least in VLC).

    You can also open a stream starting at any point of time in the video if you have watched the first half on some other computer or something.

    • Samer

      @ Cerberus: thanks for sharing this very interesting feedback. I will be looking at Orb; right now I am trying to determine the best way to stream to my iPhone. Best regards!