Playing with Windows 7's Slingbox-like feature
The Remote Media Streaming feature in Windows 7 lets a user on the go access music, photos and video from their home PC. However, the feature has a variety of constraints and requirements that limit its usefulness, says CNET's Ina Fried
(Credit: Ina Fried/CNET)
With many versions of Windows, Microsoft chops features as it gets closer to release.
With Windows 7, Microsoft has actually added a few features as it has gotten closer to launch. One of the most intriguing is a feature that debuted with the most recent release candidate (download) allows a user to stream media from one PC to another over the Internet, a la the Slingbox.
There are some noteworthy limitations. The streaming feature works with unprotected video and music files, so one can't watch video from iTunes or other copy-protected content.
Also the remote media streaming, as the feature is known, requires both computers to be running Windows 7 and requires some setup work. That said, the feature is nice for the scenarios and locations from which it works. It seems particularly well suited to a Netbook or laptop user that wants to listen to some music or view some photos that they don't have on their on-the-go machine.
To get a better sense of the product, I decided to put it through its paces. The feature didn't seem to work when one of the PCs was attached to CNET's corporate network, but worked fine when I went to a coffee house and streamed the media off of a Windows PC at home. (The remote media streaming requires the PC that houses the content to be part of a home network.)
In addition to music and pictures, Windows 7 also supports video streaming, provided the content is unprotected, such as the HD wildlife clip that ships with Windows 7.
(Credit: Ina Fried/CNET)Set-up is not overly complex, but nor is it elegant by any means. To get the PC ready, you have to turn on Internet streaming in Windows Media Player. The other piece is associating both machines with the same Windows Live ID. (The feature may eventually support other ID providers, but for now it's only Windows Live.)
Getting up and running required downloading a Windows Live ID Assistant from the Internet, which sends you to a browser. Again, this wasn't super-technical, but it would have been nice if it did all that without opening a browser and requiring so many clicks.
Once I thought I had everything set up, I decided to put it to the test. Rather than go too far from home, I headed to Nervous Dog Coffee, my favorite spot for getting caffeinated and trying out new technology.
I started with what I thought was the easiest task--opening a photo. The library showed up quickly but opening the photo was slow. Also unexpected was the fact that instead of just opening that photo, it launched a slideshow of the whole folder.
From there I moved on to music, streaming the Indigo Girls album "All that We Let In." It sounded good, with no noticeable skips, although I could only listen in short bursts as I forgot to bring along headphones.
I then moved onto video, playing a built-in HD clip of wildlife footage that came as part of Windows 7. The clip played with its accompanying audio, though the video was a bit jerky in places.
Satisfied with the results, I packed up the PC and headed into the office. Interestingly, the media-sharing feature didn't appear to work on the same PC once I got into the office. I tried labeling my office network as both a home and an office network, but perhaps a network firewall or something got in the way.
TV shows recorded in Windows Media Center can also be streamed, although the quality and performance seemed to vary.
(Credit: Ina Fried/CNET)Once I switched from a hard-wire connection to CNET's public wireless network, I was once again able to see content stored on the computer at home. I was even able to stream a Sesame Street episode that I had set to start recording after I left the house.
The quality of that viewing experience varied dramatically. In the best cases, the TV showed up in a small but passable window, while in a couple cases it was in a tiny window or took an unacceptably long time to buffer.
Microsoft says a variety of factors go into the size and quality of the video stream, including the characteristics of the content, the available bandwidth, and the processing power of the serving computer.
At its best, the ability to watch recorded TV is handy; it's not quite the live TV option that Slingbox provides, but still could be useful for road warriors stuck in an airport or at the hotel. But sometimes the delay was enough to send me over to Hulu for sure.
Overall, I found the media-streaming feature to be a nice addition, but both the limitations and the somewhat complicated set-up leaves me the feeling that it will be the enthusiast rather than the mainstream user that gets around to trying this out.
During her years at CNET News, Ina Fried has changed beats several times, changed genders once, and covered both of the Pirates of Silicon Valley. These days, most of her attention is focused on Microsoft. E-mail Ina. 
Then again.. there's always Linux.. lol
Heck even all the once-Linux apps like VLC made their way to the other platforms. Anyways windows 7 looks like a big leap from xp (I don't count Vista because it's such a pos). Right now I get this same functionality by using VLC with these sites:
http://www.hulu.com
http://www.tvshack.net
http://www.freetubetv.net
http://www.dailymotion.com
http://www.youtube.com
Looks are meaningless.
Please expand what you're talking about. I use OSX also but don't know how to stream content from one machine to another across the Internet. Yes, I can login to the machine, find a file and play it remotely, but this is not streaming.
I still miss a couple of things from XP beta that was removed in XP retail.
Kinda sad that they make our mouths water for it only to remove the feature.
This is akin to some movie trailers. Prime example is Mr. Bean the movie. In the trailer it shows Mr. Bean butting heads with the queen. The head butting was removed from the acutal movie.
Other movies have done similar antics and makes me wish I never saw the movie... "bait and switch" is the correct terminology.
And why do you think it will be removed? That's just your assumption and yet you already complain about it...
As jbolsen pointed out, you're just making blind assumptions because there's not much to actually complain about.
Many of those features have not been released, yet have been available elsewhere for years, and even decades.
MS innovation in action.
Long story short, the stuff I have right now doesn't require this radical surgery of my existing home network. Why does Microsoft require that I park their OS on all parties just to do, well, what I can already do right now.
As a side note, my guess is that the player application makes use of libraries only found on windows 7. We'd need to take a closer look at the streaming and authentication methods but it may be possible to develop a platform agnostic application that can make use of the server stream.
Replacing all of the OSes on the home network with Windows 7.
"We'd need to take a closer look at the streaming and authentication methods but it may be possible to develop a platform agnostic application that can make use of the server stream."
It is already possible (one quick peek at sourceforge for media streaming apps and libraries should produce a treasure trove of results)...
--
"This feature is for the masses"
It really isn't all that hard for the average person to set up a streaming server... lots of them are drop-easy to install. Take a peek along here: http://freshmeat.net/search?q=media+streaming+server&submit=Search (and note that most of them are OS-agnostic, which means you can run them on any operating system you like).
Anyway, I don't think anyone would argue that you would install Win7 just for this feature. Its an add on. Just like no one would install OS X just to get omnigraffle, No one is going to install Win7 *just* to get this.
As for looking on sourceforge, thats a reasonable idea but until we understand the underlying protocols in use those libraries won't be of much use. We can't put the cart before the horse after all.
Easy way to keep it secure.
I believe the LiveID is verify that you actually should have access to stream the media contents from that computer. Remember, the server is just going to be sitting there listening for incoming connections. If it just let anyone view the media collection that would be bad so some sort of authentication is needed. Now, being that a lot of people set up their computers so that you don't need a password to log in you can't rely on that method. So using LiveID makes a lot of sense in this situation.
There have been many many solutions for sharing your media over the internet for a very long time both free and paid.
Yes, that's undoubtedly corporate firewall or security appliance port blocking. It may have been the service itself, or the ID system -- the details of your experience there would be interesting and, perhaps, telling. Microsoft certainly wouldn't (and shouldn't) run the streaming service on standard service ports (80, 21, etc.), meaning that many users will also have this problem, even from some public hot spots or networks, hotels, etc., and on some ISP wireless networks.
Things I'd like to know about this:
- It would be interesting to know which service ports and protocols they are using. If this features isn't cut from the final release, they'll be deluged with such complaints about the corporate network scenario you described, even from some public locations, and will have to work with network providers on those details.
- Is the stream encrypted? That could be a major factor in performance and, therefore, user experience. I can't imagine Microsoft unleashing this without some form of stream encryption. Coupled with the Live ID requirements, it would be the moral equivalent of DRM, and would be all that would prevent capture of someone's personal media via simple sniffing and ripping techniques.
Slingbox does some really smart stuff in the bandwidth management area. It will take microsoft a bit to get up to that level. Being an appliance gives sling box a leg up also.
On the other hand... YAHOO offers video streaming now, for free... and i recall some free tool called NETMEETING?
the limitations of ITUNES have been noted multiple times!
I already do this on my mac.. and have been doing it for a long time... just in a slightly different way. Every Mac comes with Apache web server and FTP... I use this to access my files remotely... it took (literally), 2 mouse clicks to set up.. and I can access the files from anywhere... with any OS...
Just get Sling Player & it will work, not some lame wannabe from Microsloth.
- by FearNo1 May 15, 2009 12:10 PM PDT
- Would be nice if MS makes an iphone app to stream stuff to...but I won't hold my breath on that...
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- by rapier1 May 15, 2009 1:16 PM PDT
- Can you get LiveID in an iPhone app?
- Like this
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