Media Streaming Windows 11

[Domenec Reynolds]

Enablethe built-in media streaming feature on Windows 10 or Windows 11 using "Media streaming options" under Control Panel's Network and Sharing Center. You can also install a third-party app like Plex, Jellyfin, Kodi, or Universal Media Server to turn your computer into a DLNA media server.

DLNA media streaming lets you stream video and audio to a huge range of devices, from smart TVs to set-top boxes and even game consoles. For this to work, you'll need to enable or install a DLNA media streamer on your computer.

DLNA stands for "Digital Living Network Alliance" and it is used to describe a group of technology companies that worked together to establish a set of interoperability guidelines between 2003 and 2017 when the organization was dissolved. Within the context of streaming, DLNA is used to denote a commonly-agreed upon standard for local media streaming across a network.

This may also be referred to as universal plug and play (UPnP) streaming. UPnP is the networking protocol that the DLNA servers and clients use to discover one another, while DLNA certifications refer to a whole class of devices incorporating servers, players, renderers, controllers, and even printers.

The important thing to note is that if a device advertises DLNA compliance, or that it is capable of streaming using DLNA or UPnP streaming, you can use it to natively play back media from a DLNA server.

Many boxes you plug into your TV, including the Roku, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and even some smart TVs themselves offer DLNA ("Digital Living Network Alliance") streaming support. They can stream video files and music over the network from your PC---as long as you set up a DLNA server on the PC first.

Using UPNP is easier than you might think, as the server software you'll need is built into Windows. There are also third-party DLNA servers with more features, and you can run them on any operating system. It's up to you which method you want to choose---we'll cover both and give you a variety of options for third-party DLNA streaming servers. Here's how to set up DLNA on your machine.

There are many different pieces of software that can function as DLNA servers, but if you use Windows then you don't necessarily need to install anything special to get started. To enable the DLNA server built into Windows 10 and 11, open the Control Panel and search for "media" using the search box at the top right corner of the window. Click the "Media streaming options" link under Network and Sharing Center.

You can now customize your streaming settings. The default settings allow all devices on your local network to access the media files in your media libraries, and that's fine if you're on a local network with only devices you trust. You probably don't need to adjust these.

If you want to stream video, music, or picture files, add them to the Videos, Music, or Pictures libraries. You don't have to move the files to the current library folders---you can add new folders to the libraries. On Windows 10 and Windows 11, you'll need to unhide the libraries to access them.

For example, if you have a bunch of videos at D:\TV Shows\, you could right-click the Videos library, select "Properties," click "Add," and add the D:\TV Shows\ folder to your Videos library. The files would still be stored at D:\TV Shows\, but they'd be visible in your Videos library and available for streaming from other devices.

On a Roku, you must first install the Roku Media Player channel and open it. DLNA servers on your local network will appear in the list, so you can select your computer and stream media files from it. Most smart TVs will list available DLNA servers as separate inputs when browsing sources, just make sure you're connected to your local network first.

In addition to browsing your shared media library from the device, you can use the Play To feature to find media on your computer and start playing it directly on the networked device. Or use the DLNA media-streaming features to share media between your PCs.

The Windows DLNA server is the easiest and fastest one to set up, but it's not necessarily the best option. Due to the way DLNA works, you can only stream certain types of media codecs, for example. If you have other types of media, it just won't work.

Other DLNA servers improve this by offering real-time transcoding. If you try to play an unsupported file, they'll transcode it on-the-fly, streaming the video in a supported format to your DLNA device.

Many different media servers support DLNA, including the immensely popular Plex Media Server. Set up Plex on your computer (or a Plex alternative) and use Plex DLNA streaming on another device to access your media. Plex's own media player offers more features, but DLNA streaming allows you to access your Plex library on devices that don't have a Plex client or web browser, but do offer DLNA support.

Jellyfin is a free open-source Plex alternative that works in much the same way, also offering DLNA media streaming. It too features a DLNA media server that broadcasts your library to devices that lack a Jellyfin client app. Alternatively, if you use the media center app Kodi you can also enable DLNA media streaming under Settings > Services > UPnP/DLNA.

If you'd rather just run a DLNA server on your computer, consider Universal Media Server. The project is based on the now-discontinued PS3 Media Server and is available for Windows, macOS, Linux and as a Docker container. It boasts a large number of features including a web interface, online media streaming, and transcoding.

When you think of streaming video or audio, you probably imagine services like Netflix and Spotify. Though hosting your own media server and streaming over a local network seems less relevant than it once did, DLNA ensures excellent compatibility between computers running media servers and the client devices on which the media is consumed.

This standard's strength is still its wide ecosystem of supported devices. Even though it's not always an ideal solution, it's useful to be able to link a wide variety of devices together without any third-party apps.

Almost all of the best smart TVs will support the standard, though most will have their own app stores and can use services like Plex natively. Some even have AirPlay built in, which you can also use to stream content directly to your TV locally.

By default, the media streaming functionality is unavailable in Windows Server Essentials and Windows Server 2012 R2 with the Windows Server Essentials Experience role installed. To add the media streaming functionality in these versions, download and install the Windows Server Essentials Media Pack from the Microsoft Download Center.

Digital media refers to audio, video, and photo content that has been encoded (digitally compressed). Encoding content involves converting audio and video input to a digital media file such as a Windows Media file. After digital media is encoded, it can be easily manipulated, distributed, and played by computers, and it is easily transmitted over computer networks.

Examples of digital media types include: Windows Media Audio (WMA), Windows Media Video (WMV), MP3, JPEG, and AVI. For information about the digital media types that are supported by Windows Media Player, see File types supported by Windows Media Player.

Watch videos. Your server can be used to store and stream large collections of videos and recorded TV shows to your computers or other playback devices on your network. You can stream videos to an Xbox 360 or to a computer by using Windows Media Player.

Play music. When you turn on Media Sharing for the Music shared folder, you can access your music from devices that support Windows Media Connect. You do not need to enable or configure any user accounts to stream from the Music shared folder after sharing is turned on.

Present photo slide shows. You can store your digital photos in the Photos shared folder on your server and then access them from any computer or from an Xbox 360 that is connected to a TV in your home or office. You can watch photo slide shows, which is like turning your TV into a large picture frame.

Copy-protected media can be played back only on the computer or device that you used to purchase it. Copy protection prevents you from playing media on more than one computer or device, even if you copy the media to your server and play it from there. However, you can store the copy-protected media on Windows Server Essentials and continue to play back the media on the computer or device that you used to purchase it.

Windows Server Essentials makes it possible to perform common administrative tasks by using the Windows Server Essentials Dashboard. The Media tab of the server Settings page of the Dashboard provides the following:

When you turn the media server on, content that you share in the media libraries will be available for play on devices on your network that are capable of receiving streaming media from your server. You can stream most types of digital media files. Some of the more common types of files that you can stream include:

To play a file, simply locate a song, video, or picture in a shared folder, double-click the file, and the content will stream from the server to your computer and play. For information about how to find and play the digital media files that are stored on the server, see Play Digital Media.

Either another computer on your network or a device known as a digital media receiver (sometimes called a networked digital media player). Digital media receivers are hardware devices connected to your wired or wireless network that you can control by using your computer ?even if your computer is in another room.

You can share music, videos, and pictures from Windows Server Essentials by streaming files to any supported digital media receiver (DMR) such as computers, mobile phones, televisions, digital media receivers, extenders for Windows Media Center (including Xbox 360), and other personal electronic devices.

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