How to Stream Media without Buying Any More Gear
So, you'd love to get the movies, music, and photos from your laptop to your living room, but you don't want to buy another box, right? Well, If you have a game console, you're in luck. ZOMG IT'S SOOOO EASY.
Getting Started
Seriously, on a scale of one to ten, streaming from your console to your home theater stack clocks in at super freaking simple. All you need is a wireless router (which you probably have), a console (which we're also assuming you have), and 10 minutes of setup time (come on, you know you have that!). One of the newer Wireless-N jobs is your best choice for buttery smooth HD-streaming, but it's not a must have. Wireless-G will work, and an Ethernet cable is actually your best option for glitch- and interference-free streams. Everybody's got one of those. OK, let's get to this.
Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 plays really nicely with Windows (surprise!). When you combine the 360 with Windows 7's Windows Media Center, the Xbox 360 gets complete access to all the content on your PC, and can pipe it right into your TV. The 360 mirrors the same front end of your PC's Windows Media Center, and videos, photos, and music all plays as easily as it does on your machine.But you don't just have to stick with PC—the 360 streams great with your Mac too. You'll need Vuze, a free, third-party streaming software (that's also a bittorrent client), to get it working, but there's actually an advantage to using Vuze: it converts any file to the proper format, meaning you can watch video codecs and formats that aren't officially supported by Microsoft. There may be some buffering time, but it's worth it for the ability to watch the movies you get from alternative, legally gray areas of the internet. The Windows Media Center solution, on the other hand, is limited to the file formats Microsoft officially supports.
Here's how to set up your Xbox 360 as a Windows Media Center Extender:
• Fire up your 360 and go to the My Xbox Channel
• Select the "Windows Media Center" option (should be the 7th tab)
• Go through basic setup and it will display an 8-digit setup key—write that down.
• Head over to your PC, start up Windows Media Center and click Tasks > Add Extender
• Punch in the code
• Congratulations! You have now infected your living room with Internet porn.And here's how to make Vuze work with your Xbox 360:
• Download Vuze here and install it
• Turn On "Devices" in the left panel of Vuze
• Turn on your Xbox 360 (an Xbox 360 icon should now pop up under "Devices" in Vuze)
• Drag and drop the video file you want to play to the Xbox 360 icon
• Go to the My Xbox Channel on your 360
• Select the Video Library tab on your Xbox 360 and select Vuze as the source
• Find the movie you've just dropped in Vuze and stream away
PS3
Streaming to the PS3 is wonderfully simple on both PC and Mac. Why? Because of a lovely little piece of software called PS3 Media Server. It's free, open source, and ridiculously easy to use. PS3 Media Server transcodes videos on the fly, which means your PS3 can stream pretty much any file type known to man. That's great and all, but the best thing about it is that there's hardly any setup. Once you get PS3 Media Server running, all of your computer's files are on visible on your PS. There's no need to pre-designate specific folders for streaming purposes.Here's how to set up PS3 Media Server:
• Download PS3 Media Server here and install it to your computer
• Turn on your PS3
• Open PS3 Media Server on your computer
• Click on the PS3 Media Server Icon under the videos tab on your PS3
• Find your movie (song or picture)
• Make popcorn
Wii
Given its lack of HD support, the Wii isn't exactly the most powerful streaming solution around. But if it's all you got, you can definitely turn it into a solid option. The key to Wii streaming using the Opera browser to access your computer's content. You'll be using a third party streaming service called Orb, because Orb has a lovely webapp that you only need a browser to access. When you head to Orb's website, you'll be brought to a rather snazzy app that's surprisingly easy-to-navigate with the Wiimote. Movies are played through Flash, and, even though it's just a webapp, Orb on the Wii gives you most of the functionality you'd get with using Orb on the Xbox 360 and PS3.Here's how to get Wii to stream:
• Download Orb here and install it to your computer
• Set the folders you want Orb to access (i.e. your Movies folder)
• Go to the SHOP channel on your Wii and download Opera.
• Open Opera
• Head to mycast.orb.com and plug in your Orb login deets
• Choose the category you want to stream, and knock yourself out
***
Special thanks to Leslie for this how to's inspiration.If you've always wanted to learn how to do something but didn't know where to start, feel free to ask us how to here.
Send an email to Casey Chan, the author of this post, at cchan@gizmodo.com.
Your version of Internet Explorer is not supported. Please upgrade to the most recent version in order to view comments.Xbox360 question. I have several thousand videos in a directory. The 360 only displays 1009 files, no matter how I break it down. The same applies to sub directories, only 1009 display.Since it lacks all manner of library functionality, I rarely use it, preferring XBMC. But if I could actually see all of my videos, I might use it for some things. If I push the videos through XBMC as my streaming source, the 360 sees them all. Likewise, streamed through Tversity or similar apps. It seems to be a limitation of the xbox. Anyone know why this is? Reply
I use a Windows XP machine to share pictures, video, and music to two 360's in my house, and I don't use the Media Center Extender because it's a difficult and slow interface. I use Windows Media Player on my XP machine, and Library Sharing which the 360s can automatically detect. This works great and I can even stream my MP3s while playing my 360 games using the standard 360 media playing feature.I've used Orb, TVersity, and PlayOn, and the default 360 interface with the Media Player on the XP and the 360 through "My Pictures," "My Videos," and "My Music" is by far the best experience" Reply
notbenjamin promoted this commentBoomdiggity! approved this comment
when I try to connect to my 360 I get the configuration error 'an error was encountered while configuring your computer for use with this extender.'This is after I've entered the extender code and the 360 says its downloading something.
Any ideas why? Reply
slightly off topic, but I have about 150 DVD's and 15 or so Bluray's I want to rip to a hard drive for streaming. Can anyone recommend a good program for the task ( If it doesn't do Bluray ripping it's not a big deal)Also if anyone can recommend a good forum for questions like these, that'd be great. I love this community but the questions are always off topic so I feel bad Reply
Cyb3r_Punk promoted this comment
Keep in mind the PS3 Fat & Slim are only 802.11g, while the new Xbox360 is 802.11n. Replylearniiburn promoted this comment
TVersity is equally as simple to set up. It's free, and it will transcode almost all of your content for the 360.In fact, there are half-dozen DLNA servers that can do this for both the 360 and the PS3. So if you have both consoles in your home (on separate TVs, for example), you could use TVersity for consuming media on both devices simultaneously without as much as a hiccup. Reply
On the Mac sideI recommend Rivet for 360 and medialink for PS3. Both run in the menubar and are lighweight and straightforward. Reply
John Herrman promoted this comment
Alternatively, for Mac to Xbox360 streaming, I use Connect360.It allows you to stream pictures, music, and movies from your mac to your xbox on the same network.
The full [legal] version is $20
[www.nullriver.com]unless you get your hands on a less than legal copy...
there is a trial version, but you're very limited on the amount of media you can stream. Reply
If you're on a mac and want to share your music, photos, and videos/movies to your Xbox 360 over LAN, try out Connect360.Works great and pretty much idiot proof.
I also have to say it's pretty quick and plays most movies, but whatever you can't play you can always use Handbrake to encode it to a compatible format.
For music it also retains your playlists from iTunes too. Reply
Tried it on the PS3 a ways back, loved it.
After moving I forgot about it, also because my computer monitor is my game TV...
Tried it recently on the 360 and it's horribadslow, I don't know why, I am using a Arcade+20gb HDD, the interface just lags all the freaking time.I am thinking with the fall update that this will be fixed, because as with the rest of the interface being sped up this should be as well. Reply
I use an old Xbox with a somewhat sketchy DVD tray that I bought at the thrift store for $15. XBMC is awesome for standard def stuff. Reply
The PS3 has been treating me and my family well as a movie streaming device. The crappy thing about Wireless G is that when I try to stream certain TV rips (720p) like BBC's Life, either connection (most likely) or the PS3 itself (least likely) is inadequate enough for me to stream them smoothly. Other 720P rips like Top Gear I have is fine.The PS3 is in the same room as my wireless router. I am thinking about getting some CAT5 cable or something.
But other than that, its pretty damn solid. Reply
Mac Mini with DiNovo Mini keyboard. Its all you need for playing games, streaming content for the web, and playing movies you download. PLUS with transmit's web interface you can start torrents on the Mini from anywhere on earth and let the Mini sit and download all day and night. Reply
I've used orb and I like it ok. It was relatively unreliable for me but works. I've used weezo as well which I love because it's updated a lot, open sourced and forces me to bone up on my french (only on the beta pages). I've also used playon and even though they're charging now, I'd still have to go with them for dead simple and technophobe installations. I wish the wii had an easier version like xbox and ps3. Although the media center extender didn't serve my purposes when I had an xbox but I can't remember exactly why right now. Now I built my own boxee box because I couldn't wait for it to come out and everything (mostly) works as I intended. Although hybernation (or sleep) causes boxee to crash and rescan folders. I'm sure there's an easy fix somewhere. At least I can fix it! amiright? Reply
PS3 Media Server actually works with Xbox 360 as well, ironically. I use it all the time. ReplyCasey Chan promoted this commenthollohill was starred
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Friday, 22 October 2010
How to Stream Media without Buying Any More Gear
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