I have a lot of pictures of my 5-year-old daughter, but when friends and family come over it’s no fun having everyone crowd around my computer screen.
That’s why I love this new feature in Windows 7 called Play To. You can take photos and videos that are on your PC and view them on another device on your network. We have an Xbox in our house, so I’m going to show how I got my favorite photos from my PC onto our big screen.
A PC running Windows 7
An Xbox 360 or other compatible device
Windows Media Player is the easiest way to share photos and videos with other people and devices on your home network. The first thing to do is to enable streaming:
Inside the Player, click Stream. If you’ve already set up streaming, choose Media Streaming Options. If this is your first time, click Turn on Media Streaming. Then confirm that you want to turn it on.
Now, on to the fun stuff—picking out the shots you want to show off! Here's how:
On your PC, open Windows Media Player and then click Pictures in the navigation pane to view your photos.
Select the photos you want to send. To select multiple photos, hold down the Ctrl key and then click the photos.
Right-click the selected photos, click Play to, and then click Xbox 360 Media Extender (or whatever device you want to use).
Marc Freeman has been a freelance writer and copywriter for the past fifteen years. He has also worked in television and film as a teacher, screenwriter, and copywriter. He lives in the Pacific Northwest with his wife and daughter, staring out at the rain clouds as he pounds out letters on his keyboard.
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