Hey everyone, I'm Sharon Vaknin for CNET.com, and I'm here to show you how to stream media from your computer to your TV using your Xbox.
This will let you access movies, music, and photos on your PC through your Xbox interface and it's pretty easy to set up.
First, connect your Xbox to your home network.
You can do this to either wired or wireless connection as long
as it's hooked up to the same network as your computer.
Now, on your Xbox, go to my Xbox, then head over the system settings, and network settings.
Choose the type of network connection and hit test to Xbox LIVE connection.
Let it do its thing and if it's successful, you'll get a confirmation that you're connected.
Xbox has this weird thing where you have to be logged in to Xbox LIVE to stream from your computer.
So, go ahead and do that.
No, it's time to set things up on your computer.
For you guys on a PC, it's pretty simple, since Microsoft makes Xbox, it made sure it plays really nicely with windows.
Download and install the latest version of Windows media player.
Right now, I'm using Windows Media Player 11.
Launch the player and go to the library menu and select add to library.
Here, you will be able to have folders.
You want your windows media player and Xbox to access.
These settings will depend
on where you store your media, then go back to the library menu and select the media sharing and check the box next to share media.
That's it.
We'll talk about what to do next on your Xbox on the second, but first here's how to get things set up on a Mac.
Okay, Microsoft did not make things easy you guys, but I did find a pretty good solution.
To make your Xbox communicate with your Mac, you'll need an application Rivet.
It's free to try, but 20 bucks for the full license.
When you download and install Revit,
You'll see it shows up as an icon on your top bar.
Click it and go to preferences.
In the screen, you can manage the movies, and photos you want to see in your Xbox.
You can even select iTunes playlist and your iPhoto library.
Revit isn't very good at transcoding, so make sure your file are in one of these formats.
You may need to find the separate program to convert your files, but now, your Mac should be ready to go.
Okay, not that your computer is set up, you can start streaming on your Xbox.
Press the Xbox button on your controller and scroll over the media.
Now, just select video, music, or picture library.
When you click one select you computer, give it a second to load, and that's it.
For music, once you start playing a song or playlist, you can press the Xbox button, go to your dashboard and the music will play in the background.
Something you should definitely know is that you can't play the protected content on your Xbox.
If you buy your music on iTunes or Amazon,
you should be fine, but if your content isn't playing it's because it's protected.
It sucks and it might ruins whole set up for some of you.
Now, that everything is working, you can click back, watch your favorite movie or listen to your favorite playlist within a game.
Now, if you have any questions about these ideas for another how video just wanna say what's up, come talk to me on my Facebook page, and you can find more awesome how to content at howto.cnet.com.
For CNET I'm Sharon Vaknin and I'll see you on the interwebs
