Play movies off local network with an ipad

[Grayfox]

I want to allow my nephews ipads to be able to play movies that I have on my hard drive over wifi.

And since I do not use ipads or anything else apple I do not know which app is good that will show all movies and that is also free or cheap, that has no ads and easy for a 5 year old to learn to navigate.

I also do not want to install any software on this PC.

I do have VLC installed but I cant seem to get it to play the files as I cant get past the "SMB Authentication Required" Screen even though my username is correct

 

[Lain]

Plex

...would be your best bet, but it would require you to install software on the PC.

 

[Sanji Himura]

Plex

...would be your best bet, but it would require you to install software on the PC.

I would sadly have to agree. There are others, but they require as much installation on your PC.

 

[TB]

Second for PLEX. I've had it for about a year and it works beautifully.

One thing to verify, though:

I have the PLEX Pass (their premium membership) so I can't verify but one of the reasons I upgraded was you could only watch one minute of the video on the mobile device. Paying the, if memory serves, $5.99USD for the app removed that limitation.

 

[Jump_Ace]

It sounds like authentication is required to access the folder on your hard drive. A simple windows share should solve that original issue. Even if you just make an account on your pc called 'movies' with a password '1234' or whatever should do. Then give that new user permissions for the shared folder on your hdd. No additional apps necessary, just something like the free VLC app to get installed on the ipads.


Jerome