Mac Application for watching movies together via Internet?

By Glassed Silver
in Apple (macOS)

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Grand Master

Glassed Silver

Posted
Posted

Heya guys,

I'm looking for a software that will let my fiancé and me watch a movie (same file on both our Macs) together with synchronous play position and maybe audio-chat (maybe even video chat?) along with it.

It's important that those files are local and don't have to be streamed to her / to me, apart from youtube stuff maybe (bonus, but priority is local files)

I know I could google this, but I'm looking for Neowin user input as to what is good or best, what's a bargain, etc...

any input is appreciated!

Thanks in advance

Glassed Silver:mac

Grand Master

firey

Posted
Posted

What's wrong with using Skype for video chat and counting down from three before pushing play?

Aye, this seems like your best option. Just watch it in VLC hit the space to pause it right at the start, go on skype, get your popcorn, count to 3 or whatever and both hit space at the same time.

I know there are a lot of stream based ones such as the Justin.TV videos.. you could stream it and have her watch.. but it goes away from the whole local file thing.

Grand Master

.Neo

Posted
Posted

Don't really get what's wrong with curling up next to each other and watch on a single screen. Seems like the best and not to mention coziest solution. ;) If you can't be in the same room for whatever reason simply use Skype/IM/phone as suggested above.

Grand Master

Nick H. Supervisor

Posted
  • Supervisor
Posted

Don't really get what's wrong with curling up next to each other and watch on a single screen. Seems like the best and not to mention coziest solution.

Seriously, this is what I was going to say.

You're not asking for something that streams the video over the net so that you're both watching from different locations at the same time, you're asking for a piece of software that will synchronize a video file on two computers that are on the same network. Since you're not mortal enemies sharing that network (at least, I would hope you aren't if she is your fiancee) I can't really see a practical application for this. Even in a business environment, where masses of people in a building might need to watch a video at the same time, no one bothers having it perfectly synced.

If you insist on trying something like this, the best solution I can come up with is phoning one another's mobile, and counting down until you both hit the play button. Then turn on Skype (or whatever you feel like) and go from there. You'll both be watching the same file at almost the exact same second, and the video will show the expressions of the scene in front of the two of you.

Still, what's wrong with being together if you both want to watch something at the same time?

Thinking about it a bit more, if your internet connection was fast enough (and in a house environment, it's highly unlikely that it will be) and you were really insistent on doing this, you could RDP in to one machine and screen share. But as I said, with a bad internet connection one side is going to get one heck of a choppy video...

What the heck do you want this for? As I said at the start, there is surely no practical reason that someone would create this software?

Grand Master

Glassed Silver

Posted
  • Author
Posted

http://www.watch2gether.com/ - Not for movies but it works for youtube so that's sort of what you want

Not really, but thanks.

This does solve the youtube part of my problem, but not the movie part. :)

Seriously, this is what I was going to say.

You're not asking for something that streams the video over the net so that you're both watching from different locations at the same time, you're asking for a piece of software that will synchronize a video file on two computers that are on the same network. Since you're not mortal enemies sharing that network (at least, I would hope you aren't if she is your fiancee) I can't really see a practical application for this. Even in a business environment, where masses of people in a building might need to watch a video at the same time, no one bothers having it perfectly synced.

If you insist on trying something like this, the best solution I can come up with is phoning one another's mobile, and counting down until you both hit the play button. Then turn on Skype (or whatever you feel like) and go from there. You'll both be watching the same file at almost the exact same second, and the video will show the expressions of the scene in front of the two of you.

Still, what's wrong with being together if you both want to watch something at the same time?

Thinking about it a bit more, if your internet connection was fast enough (and in a house environment, it's highly unlikely that it will be) and you were really insistent on doing this, you could RDP in to one machine and screen share. But as I said, with a bad internet connection one side is going to get one heck of a choppy video...

What the heck do you want this for? As I said at the start, there is surely no practical reason that someone would create this software?

It's a long distance relationship.

Damn I'd LOVE to just cuddle and sit there watching the flick, but most of the time it's not possible.

I want this why? I just thought that there might be a more pleasant way of combining chat AV with watching the flick.

I have a 27" screen, so a windowed movie is perfectly fine, although I'd much prefer full screen.

On my fiancé's Macbook with 1280x800 however, the movie should be fullscreen and then guess what? AV chat should be integrated to have it float above the movie and work okay with maybe existing subtitles. (Think original audio track Animes etc...)

Streaming is POSSIBLE as I have 10MBit/s uplink, but I'd really prefer not to have to use it, as the quality lowers and it's just not necessary at all, cause the files exist in location A and B.

Why the unneeded redundancy?

I know there is an application like this, I forgot it's name however and am not sure about the AV chat part.

Thanks for all your input so far however! :)

Glassed Silver:mac

  • 8 years later...

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