[Xoom General] gnackattack:
Most of the information in this post is covered in various threads but I was recently looking for various options for playing video on my XOOM and found it frustrating having to look all over the place. I'd like to try and make this a comprehensive guide to playing video on the XOOM, including streaming over wifi, playing directly from the device etc.

Before you read on...

This isn't always a necessary step, but whenever you plan to interact with your device via USB you should ensure you have the latest version of the USB drivers from Motorola. In my case I was able to access the XOOM and move files to it without any specific drivers, but it's a good idea to keep them up-to-date to avoid potential frustration. Of course if you need to use ADB, you will absolutely need the latest drivers or you'll have no luck at all.

Playing directly from the XOOM

This is obviously the simplest solution, copying the video files onto your XOOM and playing them directly. This won't be the most appropriate solution for those of you with extensive digital media libraries, but we'll cover solutions for that later.

Plug your XOOM into your PC using a micro-USB to USB cable, one of which is typically provided in the box. You'll see your device pop up under "Computer" (Windows 7 & Vista) or "My Computer" (Windows XP).

Double click the device and you'll see that you're able to directly access the device's internal storage.

Double click that and you'll now be looking at all the folders and files on your device

You can now copy files to the device as though it was any other folder on your computer. Feel free to create a folder (I use one called "Files from Computer") if you'd like to keep your copied files separate from the system created stuff.

Choose your player! With all the files copied over to the XOOM, you're ready to play them but you'll first need a decent player capable of playing a range of formats. A couple of my favourites are:

vPlayer

Rockplayer

If there are others that should be added to this list, let me know.

You're all done - either of the above players should be able to play most video files, though I can't say I've really pushed them as most of my files are just XviD avi's. In my experience I've found vPlayer to be slightly better than Rockplayer especially when it comes to seeking, but Rockplayer's free version is an ad-supported full version and vPlayer's is just a temporary trial so it comes down to preference and willingness to pay for a little extra functionality.

Streaming over Wi-fi

This is going to be the preferred solution for many people, since it doesn't involve any copying/moving of files and will allow you to access that media library that you've spent so much time meticulously organising. There's a few different approaches here, I'll cover the simplest approach first.

Streaming from TVersity

If you already have TVersity set up, then you won't need to do much at all and you can skip straight to step 3. Otherwise, you can follow these directions to get it up and running.

Head to TVersity.com and grab the latest version of TVersity. I won't go through the setup and so forth as it's all pretty straightforward and is covered well in TVersity's own documentation.

Once you have TVersity set up, add your video directories to the library and (optional, but preferable) give your computer a static IP address on the network.

Open up your browser on the XOOM and navigate to "YOUR-IP-ADDRESS:41952".

You should see a TVersity page load up with various navigation options. From here it's pretty obvious how to drill down through your folders and locate any file you'd like to play. When you click a file to play it, you will be able to choose which media player you'd like to handle the file in. I've found vPlayer is capable of seeking and will play it quite nicely, but Rockplayer works well also, just without the ability to seek.

Mounting a Network Share

This is more complicated for the novice user (me, for example) but it works well enough and the end result is a little more user friendly once you get there. The major drawback with this one is you must root your device for this method. If you don't want to root your device, you'll need to use one of the other methods discussed in this post. This method allows you to mount a folder that you've shared over the network so that it can be accessed on the tablet as though it's actually a part of the tablet's file structure. This means that almost all video players should simply play the files without too much trouble (at least, theoretically; I can confirm vPlayer and Rockplayer as working with this method).

There are two apps capable of mounting shares, but before we get into that we'll need to ensure you have a CIFS module installed. If you're like me, you're probably wondering wtf a CIFS module is. When you root your device (I used the "one click" process described in this thread) you'll need to find a "cifs.ko" file that matches the particular kernal you've installed. If you use the aforementioned method, you'll find a cifs.ko file you can use inside the zip file (inside the "timat" folder).

Once you have the module use Root Explorer to copy it (or use adb to push it) to this location: /system/lib/modules/cifs.ko and then reboot your XOOM. If you have adb installed on your computer, you can use these steps to verify that it's loaded:

adb shell
lsmod

You'll be wanting to see the CIFS module in the list as a loaded module. If it's not loaded try typing:

insmod /system/lib/modules/cifs.ko

If you get an error like I did saying "exec format error" it means you've got the wrong cifs.ko for your kernal, so you'll need to poke around some more and locate the right one.

Congratulations, if you've made it this far you've completed the hardest part - the rest is easy.

Make sure you have an actual folder shared to "Everyone" on your network. Optionally, but preferably, give your computer a static IP address. If you don't do this you'll need to change your settings every time your computer gets a new IP.

Install "Mount Manager" or "CIFS Manager" from the android market. I'll give instructions for CIFS Manager but Mount Manager is just as good and works just fine if you'd rather use that.

Open CIFS Manager. You'll need to do this from the "My Apps" section of the market because for some reason it won't start from a shortcut or from the apptray - annoying!

Open the app-menu and select "Add New Share..."

Your share path should be: "IP-ADDRESS/FOLDER-NAME"

Your mount point will be the location you'd like to mount the share to on your internal memory. By default it likes to mount in "/mnt/cifs/FOLDER-NAME", but this is really up to you. Pick whatever you like here and then go to the next field.

Username/password will be a valid account you can use on the computer hosting the share. I just used my regular Windows 7 account here.

Click "Save Share".

Long-press the new share you've created and then select the option "Mount" when it comes up.

If all is well the icon on the right will turn green and you can now access your share by browsing to your mount point in your favourite video player.

Encoding video for optimal playback

-- COMING SOON --

Conclusion

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I had a lot of trouble filtering through all the different posts on this topic and it took a lot of time for me to eventually find and experiment with each of these different options. Hopefully I've saved you all some time and helped out with some of the sticking points you might encounter. If anyone has anything they think I should add, just let me know.

I do plan on adding a section for streaming over 3G, but since I haven't tried it myself (I have a wifi-only XOOM) I can't really contribute to that side of things yet.

If you catch any typos or errors in the above text, please let me know asap and I'll fix them right up. This is my first thread here, and I haven't even made 8 posts yet so I couldn't include external URLs, I'll go through and edit some useful links in as soon as I'm able.