With Windows Media Player 11 you can use media sharing to share your media library with other computers and devices, such as an Xbox 360. For example, if you have a laptop computer and you are laying in bed and want to listen to music located on your desktop computer in another room, you can use media sharing to access an album located on your desktop computer.
Another situation you might use media sharing in is on an Xbox 360. Many games on the Xbox 360 let you play your own soundtrack in place of the soundtrack included with the game. Using media sharing in Windows Media Player 11 you can access a playlist or album on your Windows Vista PC from the Xbox 360 and play it on your television (complete with visualizations), or just as background to a game. Let’s take a closer look at how to configure a Windows Vista PC and Xbox 360 so that the Xbox 360 can access the media library on the Windows Vista PC.
To Configure Media Sharing on the Windows Vista PC:
1. Click Start, All Programs, and Windows Media Player.
2. Click the arrow under the Library button in and then click Media Sharing (see Image 1). Windows Media Player 11 lists all devices that have been allowed or denied access to your Media Library.
Note: Because you must explicitly grant any Windows Media Connect device access to your media library, when a new Windows Media Connect device is discovered on the network it is automatically added to the Media Sharing dialog with a yellow and black exclamation point. The yellow and black exclamation point means that you haven’t allowed or denied the device access to your media library. As a result, it does not have access to any of your media. If you own an Xbox 360 that has been turned on and is on the same network, it is listed in the Media Sharing dialog as Xbox 360 and has a yellow and black exclamation point.
3. To access your media library from the Xbox 360, click it, and then click Allow. A green checkmark appears after you allow the device to access your media library (see Image 2).
4. Once shared, Media Sharing is very configurable -- you can control what type of media is available to each Windows Media Connect device based on star rating and parental rating (such as explicit music content, TV-PG video, etc). To see how this works:
A. Click the device, then click Customize (see Image 3).
B. Note that you can only click Customize if you’ve already allowed the device access to your media library. Customize will be disabled (grayed out) if the device is already denied access to your entire media library.
To access your Windows Vista PC’s media library from an Xbox 360, connect the Xbox 360 to the same network as the Windows Vista PC and power it on. Windows Vista will detect the Xbox 360 after several minutes and it will appear in the Media Sharing dialog with a yellow and white exclamation mark. Select the Xbox 360 and then click Allow. Make sure you click Apply and then OK to close the Media Sharing window. If you don’t do this, the settings will not take effect and you will receive a connection error on the Xbox 360 later on.
Before you can access a computer’s media library from the Xbox 360, you must first connect to it. Connecting to a computer’s media library from an Xbox 360 is very easy. On the Xbox 360, go to the Media tab, and then select Music, Pictures, or Video. Select Computer, and then press A (Select). Select the Windows Vista PC from the list of computers on the network (see Image 4). Press A (Select). That’s all! Now you can access music, pictures or videos from your Xbox 360.
This article was excerpted from How To Do Everything with Windows Media Center, written by Joli Ballew and Justin Harrison for McGraw-Hill Companies and a copyright exists at McGraw-Hill. Permission must be granted by McGraw Hill to reuse or republish this material.