Intra-LAN Media Streaming To The PS3 And Xbox 360: Issues

As I recently mentioned, I’ve been able to stream non-DRM’d and compatible-format (see Sony’s audio, photo and video support documents) multimedia content from my PC to my Sony PlayStation 3 ever since I upgraded the PS3 to firmware v1.8 and the PC’s Windows Media Player to DLNA (i.e. UPnP AV) server-compliant v11. The PS3 also ’sees’ my PC’s Yahoo! Music Jukebox software as a distinct UPnP server, as well as differentiating between my Infrant ReadyNAS’s built-in UPnP software and its TwonkyMedia add-on. The Xbox 360, similarly, can act as a UPnP client; it ’sees’ everything on my network with the exception of Infrant’s version of the ReadyNAS UPnP server. From Day 1, the 360 has supported audio (including Microsoft DRM-inclusive tracks) and photo streaming from generic Windows XP-based systems via Windows Media Connect (a standalone UPnP server utility that Microsoft later integrated within Windows Media Player beginning with v10), as well as video streaming from Windows XP Media Center Edition-powered PCs. Generic Windows XP systems could also act as UPnP video servers (for non-DRM’d material) beginning on October 31, 2006, and DRM’d video support for generic XP boxes appeared in early May of this year (albeit in an imperfect-implementation form).

One thing’s always bugged me, though; the PS3 and Xbox 360 can only ’see’ a small subset of the content that’s loaded up in Windows Media Player’s library. Over the years, I’ve ripped almost a thousand CDs’ worth of material (or said another way, over 10,000 CD tracks) to Windows Media Audio format and stored them on my Buffalo TeraStation. This particular NAS’s built-in PCast Media Server software seems to be Buffalo-proprietary; neither the PS3 nor the Xbox 360 recognize it. And although a version of TwonkyMedia is available for the TeraStation, it requires an unappealing custom firmware version with telnet access. Theoretically, the lack of direct UPnP access to the Buffalo NAS wouldn’t be a problem: I could (and do) mount the TeraStation on my Windows PC as a network drive under SMB, then add the files on the TeraStation to Windows Media Player. From there, I ’should’ be able to stream them to the game consoles, acting as UPnP clients. But in actual practice, the only files the PS3 and Xbox 360 can ’see’ are the ones locally stored on my PC’s hard drive; network-mounted files play fine within Windows Media Player but are inaccessible to either console (note: I haven’t tried loading up the network files in Yahoo! Music Jukebox to see if its UPnP server implementation is more robust).

An email coordinated by Microsoft’s Sean Alexander and Amir Majidimehr, which I received from Scott Manchester (Microsoft’s Lead Program Manager for Network Sharing), explained what was going on and offered both a short- and long-term solution to the problem:

Background
The Windows Media Player 11 Network Sharing Services (WMP-NSS) runs as a standard Network Service using "Network Service" credentials. The "Network Service" account does not use "guest" credentials for remote file shares and therefore will not have rights to access the content stored on the NAS (even if the NAS has been configured for guest access). Windows Media Player 11 runs in the local user context and therefore can expose and play content stored remotely and locally (if the local user has credentials on the NAS or the NAS accepts “guest” credentials).

Workaround
There is a workaround that will allow the NSS to run within the user context and use the same credentials as the local user. The side affect is that only one user on the machine can have sharing running. The steps below describe how to configure the PC to allow WMP-NSS to expose remote content and to configure the NSS to run in the same context as the local user (more information on this issue can be found here).

Future
Microsoft is working with the industry to make significant enhancements to the Media Sharing experience. We are actively participating in the DLNA {and] other standards bodies to remedy these type of interop issues. I look forward to sharing with you some of our planned enhancements to this experience in the future…

Continue reading with ‘The TiVo Series 2, PS3 And Xbox 360: Intra-LAN Media Streaming Solutions‘….