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Is there any way to stream a video from my iTunes library to my iPhone 3GS? I have a couple of videos sitting in the 'Movies' folder of my iTunes, but when I start up my iPhone iPod application, it doesn't show anything in the 'Video' tab. What am I doing wrong?

For completeness, I'm using a PC.

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  • try AirVideo inmethod.com/air-video, they have a free version, you can use in windows or mac, any video file, they support a lot of them.
    – balexandre
    Mar 17, 2011 at 16:21

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With iOS 4.3 you can enable home sharing while you are in the same wifi network. First make sure home sharing is running in iTunes. Then on your iPhone go to Settings - iPod, and then enter your home sharing account info.

Then, when you go to the iPod app, you can select the shared library.

As long as these videos are encoded the correct way, they should play through home sharing by streaming to your phone. I have tried this with music and movies on my iPhone and iPad.

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  • I forgot about Home Sharing, works like a charm! Only drawback is that I'm apparently going to have to convert every video to mp4 to get them into Itunes. Maybe I should go look for some mass conversion tool...
    – Sam
    Mar 16, 2011 at 22:21
  • I actually just converted a lot of my movies using iVI. Its free in the Mac App Store. Now I can play them on our Macs, iPhones, iPad, and Apple TV. Manage it all through iTunes.
    – jmlumpkin
    Mar 17, 2011 at 0:43
  • I'm using a PC unfortunately, but a colleague has suggested HandBrake, which I'll give a try.
    – Sam
    Mar 17, 2011 at 14:01
  • Does this still work with IOS 5? I have a 3GS, and cannot figure out what I am doing wrong. I'm not seeing my shared library.
    – user12866
    Oct 27, 2011 at 15:54
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Air Video can stream any movies on your computer (including in iTunes) to your iPhone, over WiFi and 3G. It'll even do real-time transcoding, so if the video is in a format the iPhone can't normally play, it'll convert it in real-time.

One thing to keep in mind is that videos purchased through the iTunes Store are DRMed, and as such 3rd party programs can't typically stream them. Air Video will setup a direct stream of the file to your phone, going through Safari. The problem with this is that the usual over-the-air encryption can't take place (because Air Video can't read the DRMed file), so your computer streams the entire file. If it's a big HD file, this will chew up a lot of bandwidth, and take a long time to start.

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  • Yes I have Air Video (and its great), but need to stream it through Itunes because I want to rout it to my tv afterwards and only Itunes or Youtube is supported by my AV cable.
    – Sam
    Mar 17, 2011 at 13:58
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I am not familiar with streaming videos through iTunes, I use PLEX.

Its a free media server for Mac, and they have a $4.99 client for iDevice, it works great and is able to read your iTunes library.

Was also EXTREMELY simple to set up.

Hope that helps.

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  • Thanks, I kindof forgot to mention I'm using a PC, not a Mac. I'll add that info to my question.
    – Sam
    Mar 17, 2011 at 13:57
  • The server is available for PC as well.
    – level42
    Mar 18, 2011 at 14:27

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