Windows 7 Play-To in Action

Can I play-to another windows 7 machine?

That's really amazing.

"Windows 7 will automatically find devices on your home network that are DLNA compliant (with the digital media renderer role) allowing you to right click a photo, video, piece of music etc. and PLAY-TO (send it) to a DLNA device like the Roku Sound Bridge radio, digital picture frame, or Extender for Windows Media Center (such as the Xbox 360) where it will immediately begin playing."

Can it do this too?

Windows 7 will automatically find applications your taskbar that are Windows compliant (with the ability to render audio, video or images) allowing you to right click an photo, video, piece of music etc. in the app and SEND-TO (patch it) to another app like the audio/video recording app, audio/video broadcast app, enlarged into any connected display, or Extender for Windows Media Center (such as the Xbox 360) where it will immediately become available for further processing.

Now that's something worth looking in to! However, is there a specific reason why Gabe is not demostrating video playback? This video put me into a frenzy and I immidiately went online trying to find a good buy for a TV which I would be able to "Play To" from my Windows 7 computer. My question is how does this fit into the Windows 7 DLNA experience and what video formats will I be able to playback?

From the DLNA.org website I'm able to find information about streaming capabilities and such but what if I have strange "video format X" which my media player on Windows 7 is able to play, will I still be able to Play To my TV, which does not support "video format X"?

Will Windows 7 be able transcode and stream strange "video format X" to any DLNA capable video device?

Can we hope that the new Windows Media Player can play all the media files available out there, natively (just like VLC does) or do we have to still continue to play the codecs game?

@leidegre:

Play To works with all media - music, pictures, videos, and recorded tv. There is a table of the containers and formats natively supported by Windows 7 on the Engineering Windows 7 blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/blogfiles/e7/WindowsLiveWriter/MediaStreamingwithWindows7_12FCB/image_54.png

Any media codec/container will be supported in a transcode operation so long as it plugs into the Media Foundation (MF) platform. The rule of thumb is: if it will playback in Windows Media Player, we should be able to transcode it into another format playable by devices. As you can see from the above table, Windows 7 already supports that vast majority of containers and codecs, and can transcode between them.

Note; however, that Windows 7 only transcodes into lower resolutions in various formats; we don't upscale. This becomes particularly important for HD content. We always offer the native format/resolution to a device; however, if a device does not support the native format/resolution, they will only be offered SD versions of the file in various other formats and resolutions. A recent example I came accross was an AVC-HD file. The TV I was streaming to only supported MPEG-2 PS, so Even the file was available in all its HD glory, the device could only play DVD quality MPEG-2 version of the file. I loved that the file played back because we could transcode it; however, I wish it was in HD.

When you're making purchasing decisions, look for products that have the "Compatible with Windows 7 logo", which means it is both DLNA certified and meets a bunch of Windows requirements, and also supports a bunch of formats natively.

Best,

Gabe

@Peppeddu,

See my other comment with link to format/container support.

I have a DLNA-able Philips tv connected to my home network, but I can't use "play to".

I'm guessing Windows 7/WMP would find the tv automatically if it was "play to-ready".

Or what? Am I supposed to do something for it to find my tv?

From what I understand, it may be DLNA certified but not a DMR (digital media renderer) which is what it needs to be for "Play To" work.