Feb 24 Podcast #519: Skifta - May your stuff be with you.
The concept of 'cutting the cord' is more than just dropping cable or satellite to get rid of a monthly bill. It's also about the freedom and convenience of being able to access whatever content you want, whenever you want it, and on whatever device you'd like to play it back on. As smartphones and tablets continue to proliferate, we can only assume they'll play a big role in that new world. Qualcomm hopes Skifta can help get you there.
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Skifta - May your stuff be with you.
The concept of 'cutting the cord' is more than just dropping cable or satellite to get rid of a monthly bill. It's also about the freedom and convenience of being able to access whatever content you want, whenever you want it, and on whatever device you'd like to play it back on. As smartphones and tablets continue to proliferate, we can only assume they'll play a big role in that new world. Qualcomm hopes Skifta can help get you there.
What is it?
From the Skifta.com website:
Skifta is an easy way to control, play and enjoy your music, videos and photos at home and on the move. There's no uploading to the web or syncing to your phone. In fact, you don't copy or move your stuff at all. You just leave it where it is. Then, whether it's somewhere on the Internet or on your computer at home you can access your stuff remotely using your smartphone or tablet.
And here's the magic bit.
Not only can you access your digital media from anywhere, with your smartphone or tablet you can also stream it to DLNA-Certified™ and UPnP-compatible TVs, IP-connected stereos, PlayStation 3 game consoles, Windows 7 PCs thousands of other connected consumer electronics devices anywhere.
So, you can take your digital media with you, without actually taking it with you.
How it works
At its heart, Skifta is an Android app (Android 2.2 and above) for playing back and sharing media. Sorry Apple fans, no iPhone or iPad support yet. To be honest, Skifta probably butts heads with AirPlay, so there may never be support for it on Apple devices. The biggest difference is that Skifta is built on the DLNA and UPnP specifications, which should make it a bit more generally available outside the Apple ecosystem. The app can be a player, a server, or what you might call a "bridge" between a server and a player.
As a player the Skifta app can connect to DLNA servers and play the content directly on your phone or tablet. The server can be local using a wifi connection, or can be accessed remotely using a 3g or 4g connection if you install the Skifta desktop application and register for an account. The player itself relies on the codecs and playback functionality of your Android device, so not all file types will play on all phones.
As a server, you can use any DLNA player, like a PC or a PS3 or Xbox360, to view, watch or listen to the content from your phone or tablet. Did you take some great pictures you'd like to show your friends or family? If they have an Internet connected TV with a DLNA app, you can throw your photos up on their big screen in no time. Or you can share music at a party or movies for movie night. It's very simple. Skifta is able to find some DLNA players on the network and push content directly to them. For others, like the PS3, you have to use the player itself to connect to Skifta on the phone to view or listen to the media.
But the real magic comes in what we call, for lack of a better term, "bridge" mode. This allows you to use your phone to connect a DLNA server, either local or remote, to a DLNA player. If you've installed the Skifta DLNA desktop app on your movie server, you can play your movie collection on any DLNA player, anywhere in the world where you can get 3g or 4g data. The folks at Skifta are also madly at work adding "channels" you can add to play back Internet content using the Skifta app. The selection is limited right now, but should grow over time.
Up next
As you can imagine, using your phone or tablet as the middle man between the server and the player is less than optimal. Ideally Skifta would simply connect the player to the server and remove itself from the equation altogether. Although we couldn’t find any definitive statements about this at the website, we did read some hints to this effect at some other sites. So if we’re thinking about it, and others are as well, you can imagine Qualcomm is too.
So that would leave us with a platform that allows you to connect any media server, be it your own collection of photos, movies or music, or an online content source, with any network connected player. Forget cable and satellite, guides and DVRs, movie and music servers. All you need is a tablet. Browse around on your tablet, find something you want to watch, and send it to your TV. Or if you want to watch it in multiple rooms or on multiple screens, send it to all of them. No more remote controls either, just a tablet and a screen. That’s it.
Reader Comments (4)
HI guys great Show as always:
On the cord cutting segment you guys were talking about more people getting their shows online, well I'm scared that of all those cable companies are gonna start amping up the prices of internet to cover the costs form loosing cable cutters...so far I've been lucky to secure a 12 month locked price for my internet but I know someone in the company is already plotting with the idea of increasing fees.
On respect to that email mentioning that you can get NFL sunday ticken on PS3, he actually forgot to mention the cost which hovers at around $300 for the whole season.
Keep up the good work and I just want you guys to know that both my wife and I use the HTguys Amazon link and I have since become an Amazon prime member and so far I think it has already paid it self, no to mention I love having my stuff in 2 days!!!
Hi George,
Thanks for the feedback and thanks for your support!!
Ara
I think that Plex is a better alternative to this application. Plex is available on Mac, IOS, Windows, and Android. It is a beautiful interface. MyPlex makes it easy to access your content from your phone or any computer using the Plex client. It is available on some LG TV's, Google TV, and Roku. You can install it on a jailbroken AppleTV.
The Plex Media Center or Server is available for Mac, Windows, and Linux. It is easy to install and setup.
It does pretty much what this app does, is free, and is available for more platforms.
Alan
Thanks for the info on Skifta!
I can't wait to try it out as I have just upgraded all my HT components, and I also own an Android phone.
@Alan--FWIW Plex may have been free for Android when you wrote your post, but as of today it's $4.99, and Skifta is still free.