Mele media player notes #3

Overview

After testing another half dozen Android video players(!), I'm getting happy with this setup:

• external hard drive, formatted as NTFS. This is connected to a Cisco E3200 router, then shared with the network.
• computer mounts shared drive, rips DVDs.  (On the workstation, I rip videos using Handbrake, the "Android High" preset.)
• Mele media player also mounts above drive, plays video files.

Android media player apps

Media players tend to be not so hot for choosing video files to play. Here's the current batch of Android software:

• "MX Player Pro" for playback.  It generally works well.
• "ES File Explorer" for finding video files.
• "CifsManager" to mount external network share with media files.

Android setup

• Use the workstation to find the right network parameters to mount your shared drive off the router.  In my case, the magic phrase was "//192.168.1.1/NTFS3/"
• Plug this in to CifsManager on the Mele media player
• Navigate to the above directory using Explorer. Save as a "Shortcut" to the desktop.
• Using the desktop shortcut, play one video, selecting "MX Player Pro" as the way you always want to handle videos.

After all this rigmarole you have a "Videos" folder on the media player desktop, which gives you a manageable list of videos stored on the network share.