Streaming From a Mac, PC, or NAS

  • Updated

Overview

Infuse is able to connect to many different devices using SMB, NFS, FTP, SFTP, FTPS, FTPES, UPnP, DLNA, and WebDAV to browse, download (iOS/macOS only), and play videos.

Enable File Sharing

Before streaming, double-check that SMB File Sharing is enabled on the device you wish to stream from. Details on enabling this will vary by device, but here are links to basic info for Mac and PC.

Create a New Share (iOS/macOS)

Once file sharing has been enabled, it's time to move to open Infuse on the iPhone or iPad to create a connection.

Step 1. Tap the Settings (gear) icon in the lower right corner, and select Add Files.

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Step 2. Once in the Add Files menu, any detected devices will be listed near the bottom in the Available Shares section.

streaming2.jpg

Step 3. Select the device you wish to connect to, and enter the username and password. You can also set a custom Share Name, which is only used for identifying the share in Infuse. Note: Leaving both username and password fields left blank will cause Infuse to connect as a guest, which may limit which files are available for streaming.

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Step 4. (optional) If no devices are detected, you can set up a connection manually by tapping the Other... item.

  • Share Name: A name used to identify the share in Infuse.
  • Address: Network address of the share. E.G. iMac.local or an IP address
  • Workgroup: (optional) Used when connecting to Windows PCs. The default workgroup name is: WORKGROUP
  • Username: Username used to log in to the share. (Note: If connecting to a Time Capsule or Airport Extreme set this to 'admin')
  • Password: Password used to log in to the share

Library features will not be available when connecting via UPnP or DLNA.

Create a Custom Share (iOS/macOS)

By default, Infuse will connect to the main share with all folders visible, but this can be customized so only a certain folder is available. This is done by setting up a share with a custom path.

To do this, you can follow the steps under #4 above that describe how a manual connection is created. The only difference being you can add a path after the share in the Address field, as shown below.

Some devices prefer one slash type over the other, so if "/" doesn't work you may try using "\".

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Create a New Share (Apple TV)

Step 1. Tap the Add button that appears after launching Infuse, and select the Shares menu.

Step 2. In the shares menu, Infuse will list all the devices it is able to detect on your local network. Select the one you wish to stream from.

Note: If no devices are listed, you can tap the 'Other...' option to create a share manually.

Step 3. Enter the username and password for the device, if required.

Leaving both username and password fields left blank will cause Infuse to connect as a guest, which may limit which files are available for streaming.

Step 4. After saving the device, Infuse will test the connect and prompt you to add one or more favorites. Favorites are quick links to folders that are displayed on the Infuse home screen.

Adding at least one favorite is required in order to access videos on Apple TV.

Step 5. To add a favorite, simply locate the folder you wish to add, highlight it, and tap/hold the select button to save it.

Device Specific Notes

Airport Extreme & Time Capsule

  • Username is admin
  • Password will be the Base Station (or Disk Sharing) password, which may be different than the Wi-Fi network password

macOS

  1. Ensure SMB is enabled on your Mac. More details here.
  2. At least one user is selected under 'Windows File Sharing' (as shown under 'Advanced Options' in the link above).
  3. Selected username and password are being entered in Infuse.

iCloud username/password cannot be used. If you're using an iCloud ID to log in to your Mac, you will need to set up a new 'Sharing Only' user as described here.

Windows 7 & 10

  • Set sharing permissions for the "Everyone" profile manually to access shared folders (required in some cases)

Windows 11

Original forum post

  1. Go to Control Panel Home
  2. Select Turn Windows features on or off to open the Windows Features box
  3. In the Windows Features box, scroll down the list and Enable “SMB server” (only the client was enabled since 3 years…)
  4. Select OK.
  5. After Windows applies the change, on the confirmation page,
  6. Select Restart now

Windows Server 2019

If low performance or buffering is present, adjust the following values.

    • Set-NetTCPSetting -SettingName "DatacenterCustom" -MinRtoMs 300
      Set-NetTCPSetting -SettingName "Datacenter" -MinRtoMs 300

Ubuntu (SMB)

  • Samba enabled
  • AVAHI (Bonjour) enabled
  • Leave Workgroup field empty

Ubuntu (NFS)

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SettingUpNFSHowTo

Troubleshooting

If you are having trouble when using SMB, or are seeing slow speeds you may try adjusting the 'SMB Version' option found when editing the share details.

smb-version.jpg

  • Auto (default) - Automatically select the best version of SMB for your device
  • SMB3 - Connect with SMB3 only
  • SMB2 - Connect with SMB2 only
  • SMB1 - Connect with SMB1 only
  • Legacy - Connect using an alternate SMB implementation which is compatible with certain devices (SMB2 and SMB1 only)

SMB3 has an optional encryption feature which adds an extra layer of security. However, in some cases having this enabled can lead to lower performance due to the added security overhead. If you are using SMB3 and seeing slower than expected speeds, you may try disabling "Transport encryption" (or similar) on your server. This will allow you to take advantage of the improved connection security of SMB3, but with the same speeds as SMB2.

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