Has anyone gotten Windows 7 Play To to work? | The Coffeehouse

Bas
It finds lightbulbs.

I have 3 Windows 7 PC's and one XBox 360 in my home network, but when I click the "Play To" thing in Media Player, it simply says "No Devices found". Has anyone actually gotten this to work?

ManipUni
Proving QQ for 5 years!

Windows Firewall?

Are they part of your homegroup or whatever?

Bas
It finds lightbulbs.

In reply to ManipUni

#Oct 27th @ 1:44 PM

All part of the homegroup except the 360.

CKurt
while( ( !succeed=try() ) ) { }

In reply to Bas

#Oct 27th @ 1:59 PM

Works fine here.

You should open up Windows Media Player on the machine you want to stream to. Then you can right click on music/video's and select 'Play To'.

Also, in the target machine in Media Player hou have to click on "Stream" at the left to and select "Allow remote control of my Player"

Kryptos
Backup People!

Doesn't worl with the xbox 360 native. If you connect the XBOX360 to a MCE PC it will then appear. It works well, it would be nice if MS made the xbox it self DNLA compliant.

Bas
It finds lightbulbs.

In reply to CKurt

#Oct 27th @ 2:34 PM

You should open up Windows Media Player on the machine you want to stream to. Then you can right click on music/video's and select 'Play To'.

Shouldn't that be the machine you want to stream from? If I need physical access to the computer that's going to play it there's little sense in using play to.

Also, in the target machine in Media Player hou have to click on "Stream" at the left to and select "Allow remote control of my Player"

That worked.. partially. I can now get the machine to show up in the list, but when I actually try to play things to it it either says "media not supported" (this is a regular WMA file) or "obtaining media-information from mediaserver failed" when I try to play music that's on my WHS. I guess this only works with music stored locally? Perplexed

Doesn't worl with the xbox 360 native. If you connect the XBOX360 to a MCE PC it will then appear. It works well, it would be nice if MS made the xbox it self DNLA compliant.

Huh. So what Ben Reed is saying here is basically not true? No wonder they didn't actually show it in action. Lame.

CKurt
while( ( !succeed=try() ) ) { }

In reply to Kryptos

#Oct 27th @ 2:35 PM

Maybee to work with Xbox it has to be in Media Center Extender mode? Not sure don't have an x-box, but pretty sure you don't need an extra media center pc to do it.

Kryptos
Backup People!

In reply to CKurt

#Oct 27th @ 3:24 PM

<Quote>Huh. So what Ben Reed is saying here is basically not true? No wonder they didn't actually show it in action. Lame.</Quote>

Yes. I don't think the question on the video was understood.

RLO

I have gotten it to work while my 360 is in extender mode. Why they do not support it from within the 360's NXE environment, I have no idea. On top of that, I wonder also why the Zune HD doesn't act as a DLNA device as well. You would think that having wifi and HD out through a dock, they would have added that in as well.

Overall, a nifty feature, but I haven't been impressed so far.

CKurt
while( ( !succeed=try() ) ) { }

In reply to Bas

#Oct 27th @ 3:24 PM

No I did mean the target computer. You have to open up Windows Media player on that computer (do nothing else). The on the computer you want to stream from right click on a file and select 'Play To'. Sorry for the confusion.

And about the Xbox it only seems to work when your Xbox is in Media Center Extender mode (You however can set it up to alway boot in MCE Mode).

Bas
It finds lightbulbs.

So has anyone managed to use computer A to play music stored on computer B to computer C? I can't play anything off my home server to another PC. It seems to only work with music stored on the same computer from which you choose Play To. Which is weird, because the whole library sharing thing is supposed to make Windows 7 agnostic of where your content actually is, right?

CKurt
while( ( !succeed=try() ) ) { }

In reply to Bas

#Oct 28th @ 3:37 AM

I can't try it (only have 2 computers). What I was able to do was play music stored on computer A on computer A but controlling it from Computer B.

I guess you have to wait for the new Power Pack/Service Pack for Windows Home server. It was seposed to be ready at launch of Win7 but they had to delay it for a few weeks. The new PowerPack makes Home Server play nicely with windows backup, libaries,... So it might just fix your problem to.

Kryptos
Backup People!

In reply to Bas

#Oct 28th @ 3:37 AM

As far as I can work out, it appears to me that DNLA support is part of WMP12. So they would have to allow you to install WMP12 onto WHS and it should work.... Smiley

MrTea

In reply to CKurt

#Oct 28th @ 3:44 AM

it might be because i'm running the beta of pp3 for WHS, but i use my Netbook to play music from my Home Server through my livingroom pc....so it is possible. TV died, which was my WMC setup, in the living room, so it's currently the only way i can listen to my media around the house.

but as stated, and a bit annoying at first, you have to leave media player on at all times if you want to use the service on the pc. as well, that pc isn't able to go into sleep mode if it's setup as well. ....not ideal, but it's still a pretty cool feature.

Bas
It finds lightbulbs.

In reply to MrTea

#Oct 28th @ 1:59 PM

Ah, so it is possible. Good to hear. I'm a bit wary about installing the PP3 beta on my WHS... beta software and all, plus the fact that I'm still not over the fact that WHS destroyed all my stuff and it took them six months or so to patch. I guess I'll wait for the final release...

But yeah, it's still a pretty good feature, especially for the "I want this to play on my media center but don't feel like finding the remote and browsing through the menus" scenario.

eddwo
Wheres my head at?

I tried to use this a bit and while it partially worked I didn't find it very usable, I assumed it was because I was still running the RC.

I have a Linksys DMA2200 extender connected to a TV which talks to a desktop machine running Windows 7.

I initially tried to pick a file stored on a WHS share to play on the extender using a copy of W7 on my tablet.

WHS Music Folder -> W7 RC on Tablet (Play 2 Extender) -> W7 RC on Desktop -> MC Extender -> TV.

This didn't work, I always got the 'obtaining media-information from mediaserver failed' message.

Going back to basics I tried playing one of the sample media files that ship with Win7 which succeeded.

So I copied the media file I had been trying to play from the home server into the sample media folder, and tried playing it again, but it still failed.

I found that if I copied the file into the sample media folder on the W7 desktop machine that was running the MC extender I could then play the equivalent file stored in the same folder on the tablet.

I can only assume that 'Play To' doesn't actually stream the file to the extender, or to the desktop running the media centre interface, instead simply passes the local path of the media file to the machine running the media center interface which plays its local copy through the extender.

So it only works if both machines have access to the same set of files on the same path, as is the case with the sample media files, but doesn't allow you to play files stored only on one machine via a media centre extender connected to another.

sammyB

In reply to eddwo

#Oct 29th @ 5:13 AM

I got this feature to work, after much testing. Not sure I learned why it started working, so perhaps this post is really just INSPIRATIONAL.

Installed Win7 Home Premium on a laptop. Have 3 total dlna clients - 1 xbox premium, 1 xbox elite, and a samsung lcd tv that has a dlna client built in(I think that's only true with this current year's models).

I can not play any .wma to any of the 3 devices.

I can play mp3s stored on the win7 laptop and also mp3s stored on my Windows Home Server (HP MediaSmart EX485, with no powerpack 3 beta). I also successfully used "play to" to see jpgs on both xbox, and a transformers 2 .avi to both xbox. I could pause/ffw/rwd from the small 'play to' list, but could not control the playback from the xbox itself.

I got 4 seperate errors at various times. I'll paraphrase due to my faulty memory...

- Can't control the client

- obtaining media-information from mediaserver failed

- media not supported

- device isnt ready

I had no trouble, at any time, with my win7 windows media player FINDING my 3 devices.

In the end, I rebooted the win7 box "1 more time" and it all just worked.

If I had to guess... I don't believe your devices (xbox, for example) need to have network access to the media that sits on your WHS. I think you only need to ensure that your win7 machine can access the song on the WHS. I do, however, have that same WHS media available directly from my xbox's dlna interface (thats the non MediaCenter one on the dashboard).

Consider me a working example. Any questions you have... I'll do my best to answer.

Kryptos
Backup People!

In reply to sammyB

#Oct 29th @ 8:49 AM

Intresting, where is the dlna interface on the xbox?

dahat

In reply to Kryptos

#Oct 29th @ 12:37 PM

There isn't one... the closest thing is that when the 360 running in Media Center Extender mode (and connected to a Win 7 MC) it can be remotely controlled via Win 7's Play To functionality (or another UPnP/DLNA device that supports the control operations)... and that all is technically managed by the Win 7 Media Center side of things.

Other than that the 360 can only see/play content stored on a UPnP ContentDirectory (or locally attached drive)... but can only be controlled locally via the controller or remote.