One of the major media points on Maemo 5 and the N900 is the ability to pull DLNA-certified streams. Many a nice piece of hardware, such as the PS3, XBOX360 as well as any out-of-the-box Windows computer (XP, Vista and 7) support it. There are also a plethora of excellent free media streaming clients for Mac OS X, Linux or your platform of choice. Here’s how you can get the best use out of it for home media, and get the WOW factor too.
Firstly, you’ll need a computer. Chances are you have one. Next, if you’re using Window – you only need Windows Media Player 11 which is a small 25MB update and a library. You need to enable sharing and let WMP rebuild your library.
Since I keep a tight ship network, I allow all devices to find the shared library. If somebody is on my network, it means they’re physically connected – and I have bigger problems than them streaming my Shania Twain collection.
Now, ensure you’ve got proper network connectivity. Get your N900 on the LAN (WiFi is your best bet) and simply open up the media player.
You’ll notice the small text at the bottom, it will contain your computer hostname and the folder share (Mine is a virtual machine I call VBOX, and you can see VirtualBox is my shared media folder). Tap it and you’ll be brought into a listing of the folders/shares and you can go through the categories.
Pick a song and it will start streaming. Less than half a second to buffer and it starts playing. No up/down/transcoding. It’s essentially the exact same as if you had the MP3 on your device.
Not only does this include music/audio, but pictures and video can be streamed also. No need to burn a DVD, SVCD or transfer it. Grab the TV-Out cable that came with your N900 and stream it on the fly (resolution maxes out at 720×480).
Many people already have this setup for streaming to a PS3, set-top box or PMP. You can include your mobile phone in that setup now. With the power of Maemo 5, the N900 can also host streams thanks to Rygel. This means you can share media from your N900 to any DLNA equipped device. Many of my friends have a PS3, so when I go over – I’m already packing 48GB of music and movies. Get a lot of jealous looks from owners of those ‘other’ smartphones while wirelessly streaming near HD content.
Perfect place to stop and make way for another article to come next week for setting up Rygel as a DLNA server for sharing. Leave your comments below, let us know how you use your N900 for media!
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Simon has written 8 articles for your enjoyment.
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