Stream video from SkyDrive directly within the Pictures Hub with a click

As much as we try to offer the absolutely best coverage of all things Windows Phone, we have to admit MobileTechWorld has been on a roll with the latest Mango 7712 update and have unearthed quite a few very cool secrets. Previously the site discovered how to stream music and video content on your SkyDrive to your phone by using the Office Hub's new SkyDrive implementation. While that feature was quite cool, we still felt it sorely needed some spit shine to make the whole experience more seamless and, you know, to avoid using the Office Hub just to get your music and videos. Luckily at least part of that has been answered with a new method discovered to stream your videos directly within the Pictures Hub and as a bonus it's all done on the SkyDrive-side of the equation.

All you have to do is upload your videos to a folder in SkyDrive then change that folder's type from the default 'Documents' to 'Photos'. Then make sure you have SkyDrive syncing setup on your phone, navigate to the Pictures Hub, tap on the folder and you should be able to stream your videos directly from there. Now don't go crazy uploading your entire video library to SkyDrive just to stream it all as there are a few caveats to this. First of all, SkyDrive has a 100 MB limit per file so unless you're going to be chopping up your 1080p copy of Gone with the Wind into 30 or more clips we recommend you avoid longer videos. Second is that Windows Phone can only natively stream .mp4 videos so those ripped YouTube videos of dogs talking and fails aren't going to work.

That being said, this is definitely a big improvement over using the Office Hub and IE9 to view your media and this gives us just a little bit of hope that Microsoft is working on adding SkyDrive streaming to the Music+Videos Hub as well.

Via: 1800PocketPC
Source: MobileTechWorld