Air Video is a $2.99 application on the Apple App Store that connects to free streaming server software that you install on your Mac or PC. Once installed and setup (see below for instructions) you can watch almost any video content on your computer on your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch by streaming it through the Air Video application.

If the file is in a suitable format for your device it streams over your Wifi network. If not, and here is the first beautiful thing, Air Video will convert it on the fly and then stream. You select ‘Play with Live Conversation’ wait a few seconds and there you are, watching your show. It gets better. Air Video has a remote streaming option which means you can be on a wifi network away from home or simply operating on 3G and still watch that very same content no matter where you are.

Here’s what you need to do.

Step 1
Download and install AirVideo from the Apple App Store. It will cost you the princely sum of $2.99 Note that this is a universal app which means it contains a version for the iPhone and iPod Touch as well as a version for the iPad. Once you’ve paid once you can install the software on any other Apple devices you own for no further cost.

Step 2
Download and install the free server software for your Mac or PC.

Step 3
Setup the Air Video server on your PC or Mac. Choose ‘Add Disk Folder’ to add access to folders that contain the media content you want to be able to stream. Note you can also add iTunes playlists. This is most useful fro video podcasts but video content bought from Apple won’t stream since it has DRM (Digital Rights Management) copy protection.

Step 4
Setup AirVideo on your Apple iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad. This involves staring the app and clicking the ‘+’ sign to add your server. Your computer should appear. Just select it and you are ready to go. Your content should now stream directly or stream with live conversion.

Step 5 (optional)
If you want to be able to access your content when you are away from your home network (but still connected to the web via wifi or 3G) you need to enable Access from Internet by checking the box (see picture above) in the ‘Remote’ tab. If you do this I strongly recommend you set a password in the ‘Settings’ section (see below). You will need to enter this password just once on each Apple device you want to connect with.

That’s it. Now you can watch any of your content on your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad without any cables or any hassles.

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