When iOS 4.2.1 came out on November 22nd, several users were disappointed to find out that there was no AirPlay option in the iPhone’s Camera Roll or Photos app. If you have some videos shot with your iPhone and you want to stream them to the new Apple TV, you’ll have to import them into iTunes on your computer first, then sync them back to the iPhone.
There’s no direct Camera Roll -> Apple TV streaming option, and as Daring Fireball’s John Gruber wrote weeks ago, this might be because of the different bitrate of high-def videos recorded on the iPhone.
Air Home video, a $0.99 tweak available in Cydia, brings a solution to this problem: while you still won’t be able to see an AirPlay icon in the Camera app, Air Home Video will let you compress videos in a few seconds on the device to get them ready for AirPlay streaming. It provides a quick compression technology that enables you to select a video, choose the high or low quality version, compress it on device and stream it via AirPlay.
To do this, you’ll still need to fire up the Air Home Video app on your homescreen, whose only functionality is to pick videos already in your camera roll. Not that big of a deal, it takes seconds to open the app and choose a video. The only drawback is that videos will need a live compression first, and high-def ones might need some seconds more before they are ready to be streamed. I tried with a 90 seconds long video and compression took 20 seconds. Not bad, and works like a charm.
Air Home Video works as advertised and finally brings on-device streaming of camera roll videos to the iPhone. iPad is supported as well. No iTunes or cables required. Recommended.
