Anyone that has a PS3 or Xbox will be aware that it can perform admirably as a media center, the only problem being that even the largest hard drive available may not be large enough to accomodate all your media.  Plus, if you store your media on the console you will have to frequently transfer your media from your computer to your console every time you want to update your library.

The solution would be to be able to store your media on your PC and then stream the files to your PS3 or Xbox for viewing on a big screen TV.  Luckily, if you run Windows on your computerand have Windows Media Player 11 installed then you don’t require any other software in order to achieve this.

Step 1 – Add your media to Windows Media Player 11′s library.

If you’re already using Windows Media Player (WMP) to manage your library then you don’t need to worry about this step and can move on to step 2.  If not, though, you’ll need to follow this step in order to stream your media to your console.

The first thing to do is open WMP11 and click on the “Library” button:

Windows Media Player 11

Next, press “F3″ on your keyboard to open up the “Add to Library” window:

Add to Library

From here you can either scan for files automatically, or click on “Advanced Options” and then add the location of your media folders to the lists of scanned directories:

Add To Library - Advanced

Once you’re happy that all necassary directories are listed, click “OK” and WMP11 will scan for media files and add them to your library:

Media Added To Library

You should now see your media files in the WMP11 window.  This will take some time, depending on the size of your library.  If you have an exceptionally sized library then WMP may appear to “freeze” or “hang”, however in most cases it will continue to add files to the library and will return to a normal state when it’s finished.

Now that your media is now present in the WMP library, you can share it to your PS3 or Xbox:

Step 2 – Setting WMP11 to stream media to your console.

Now that your media library is set up you it is a quite simple process to make this media available to the console.  From within WMP11, on the Library tab, right click the “Library” entry on the left hand navigation tree and then click “Media Sharing…”.  You should be presented with the following:

Media Sharing Window

From here, tick the tickbox for “Share my media to…”, and then click on “Settings…”.  You should see the following window:

Media Sharing - Settings

From here you can select the types of file from your library that will be available on your PS3.  Choose the settings appropriate to your library, remember; these files will not be copied to your PS3 or Xbox so there’s no need to consider the number of files selected.

Finally, make sure that “Allow new devices and computers automatically” is selected and then click on “OK”.

You’ll now be back at the “Media Sharing” window and within a few seconds your console should appear in the devices list as “Unknown Device”.  The WMP11 library will now show on the console, on the PS3′s media menus you should see something similar to the following:

WMP11 Library on Your PS3

WMP11 Index on the PS3

As you can see from the above, the WMP11 library appears as an icon on the PS3 menu.  There will be an icon under each of the “media” headings on the PS3 (photos, music and video) and each will have a menu “tree” to replicate the tree on your WMP11 library.  Because of this it’s important to make sure that the media on your computer is properly organised within WMP.  Once you have your library set up in a manner that suits you, you will be able to navigate to your media files on your PS3 with ease.  The same applies for the Xbox.

Footnote:

This process uses a network protocol called uPnP (Universal Plug And Play), which is fast becoming the standard for media sharing in the home.  The method used above will also make the library available to any other devices on your network that are capable of receiving uPnP feeds.  Most “media streamers” such as the Netgear EVA 8000 will playback media stored on your PC using this method.  You can also pick up your library on any other PCs on your network utilising WMP11.