How to : Stream media to your PC through DLNA on your Symbian^3 device
You must have already seen the Qt “Play To” app by now, if not, read it here . In that post, we had a few puzzled users who didn’t know how to connect their device to a PC, some users suggested the highly acclaimed XBMC for streaming, but i always knew there were simpler ways, so i researched a bit, and here is my tutorial on how use the “Play to” app. This is for people don’t have any DLNA certified device ( TV, PS3 for example ), but only have a PC, like me.
The Nokia “play to” uses the mobile DLNA protocol to stream media ( includes photos, music and video ) to any DLNA compatible device. ( more about Digital Living Network Alliance here ) There are millions of DLNA certified devices which, when connected to the same WLAN network, can share it’s media. Neat household tech, and most importantly it’s very easy too. On with the tutorial then.
You need :
- to have the “Play to” app installed on your Symbian^3 device ( all except C6-01, who knows why ? )
- a WiFi connection, to which your PC/Laptop and your device can connect at the same time.
- the Windows Media player 12 ( The only version of WMP that fully supports all DLNA roles ) So, basically you need Windows 7 on your PC.
After you gather the above requirements right, we shall configure our client, the PC’s Windows Media Player.
The configuration is really a two clicks affair, you need to click the “Automatically allow devices to play my media” and the “Allow remote control of my player” options under the Stream tab in Windows Media Player library view.
You get prompts for confirming your selection, like this :
After giving permissions to the player, you are all set to stream/share media on your PC . Fire up the Play To app on your device, it will automatically search for DLNA devices and will show you the options to select, like this
The icon on the top right hand side is the one that indicates that streaming is in progress.You can click it to terminate the connection too.
The Photos viewer : Click to stream applies to all kinds of media.
The Play symbol in the bottom bar, is the now playing/streaming icon. You can play/pause/seek music from the windows media player , also from the inbuilt music player, which has a very similar interface to the native music player for cover flow browsing, but the now playing differs and looks like this,
Videos can be streamed at full resolution i.e 720p and this, in my opinion is the most useful sharing option, we can instantly preview our videos . And it’s UI too is similar to the Videos native application.
It’s all very simple, just click any photo/music or video and there it is , on your PC monitor ,showing/playing your media through Windows Media Player.
Hope you liked my tutorial, do let me know if you face any problems.
Note : If “Play to” cannot find your PC, restart windows media player and do not play/view anything while trying to connect through DLNA.
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ohhhhh
Bad luck
didnt have WiFi on my PC
It works without WiFi on the PC, if your PC is connected to the same network as your Access-Point. My Linuxbox is connected by Ethernet to the router, which is also doing the WiFi in my home. No problem streaming to XBMC, and by the way, you may control the phone from your player, too. Just go to Settings->Connectivity and turn “Media server” sharing on. In XBMC add the device as source and go for it.
Nice. Great job on the tutorial.
Has anyone tried DLNA on TV? Not sure mine has it, I think it was miswritten on the spec sheet at Amazon at time of purchase.
Will give it a go on my laptop though. Little DLNA certified logo on it. Never used that feature though – nor bluray :S
Thanks mate. Haven’t tried DLNA on anything except my PC. This is not so popular ,as in widespread usage, but soon it will catch up as it is being deployed across millions of devices.
Also, Jobs saw that this is hot stuff, and renamed it to a snazzier, user friendly name ” AirPlay ” and it is a proprietary protocol that allows same kind functionality plus display mirroring (iOS 5). And people will go mad for this too. Typical Apple. Sigh, mini rant over.
AirPlay only works with Apple TV
Play To on symbian works with any DLNA device
+1 mark
Works like a charm! Not a single hitch
Thanks a million!!!!!!!!!
Does anyone know of any DLNA capable linux media player other than XBMC (or myth etc)?
VLC might if the right patches are applied, or it used to. A kio-slave would be ideal but I don’t think such a thing exists, yet.
I use mediatomb to stream to my ps3. Can require a bit of tweaking though.
http://mediatomb.cc/
i don’t see what the big deal is (no offence) haven’t we always had this feature on N series nokia’s that had wifi. i remember even on my old N80 i could use the Home Media app to stream copy and play music through wifi. i guess nokia is just rebranding their UPnP services with a new name to make it seem like an innovation (hmmmm, apple’s fecetime?)
Exactly what proportion of Symbian users knew how to use that Home Media WiFi thingy (and wasn’t it disabled on some models? I know it was missing in some successive S603RD models I had)
I guess it’s just streamlining and making it easier to use.
lol. give this site a little bit of credit like i do and assume that majority of the readers that visit this site are symbian power-users/geeks. but roughly i’d say 60-70% of symbian users would about the nokia home media know given how it was so heavily advertised when the Nokia N78 came out (that and the FM Transmitter). I dunno about nokia disabling the feature, i’d like to think they did the opposite because it went from being just an N-series feature to a regular feature; E series like E72 and E52 got it, so did Xpress music phones like 5730 and 5630. heck even the 6710 Navigator got the feature lol
oops i just re-read your comment. i guess you were agreeing with me. there i go being all super defensive when in fact you were just saying i got it right
This link (http://www.agoraquest.com/viewtopic.php?topic=35037&forum=70) has a tutorial showing how you can use Windows Media Player 11 for DLNA Streaming…
play to is not connenting to my pc
Good job bhardawaj
Is there any way to share Games And Apps using DLNA With PC , I mean connect the phone to PC LCD Screens Throw PC and DLNA To Play Games Instead Of HDMI Cables ?!
Nope! Sorry
In my case, my N8 just keep searching for device. My laptop is not detected! I tried connecting throw a router and creating a wifi network in laptop too but neither of them worked! Play to keep searching for device. :/
same here. I even use connectify to create hotspot.
Restart media player, restart play to and try again… It works for me every time
Same reply to Puzzled.
tried.. but now working, :/ anyone have solution?
Is there a way to do this other way around? To watch movies/videos on your phone from the computer?
I don’t think so. But if you’re going to connect the phone to the pc anyway, might as well just transfer the content to your phone? Besides, the whole purpose of DLNA sharing or HDMI out is to let you enjoy your phone’s content on the big screen, not the other way round.
That’s not the point. The point of using the PC to stream media to the phone is that you could use it on non-DLNA TV’s. It was also my primary intent for DLNA. This way, this setup can be made:
PC streams movies to Nokia N8 that is connected via HDMI with BigScreen on the TV.
This is really a huge solution: HD movies are usually 2GB each, and I only have 2,6GB free out of 24GB on my N8. With DLNA you are streaming media: content that you don’t need to store on the phone. I could have all the movies I ever wanted to watch on my PC’s 2TB HDD, or have ONE movie stored on the phone for playing, and have to delete it and transfer a new movie after watching each one.
Do you see my point here?
Sent from my N8
Thats what we wanna read here. Not these WinPhone shit all the time.
How do you connect Nokia play on your ps3 ?
Is it possible to stream the opposite way? From your PC to your N8? That would be really useful for me. Videos and music.
No, but we all know what it would be called. How about Nokia Play From?
You cam achieve it already with webdav-server but it will cache in your c: memory which is not ideal.
Thanks for sharing. Works like a charm for my pictures and music, but not for my videos.
When I open my videos, it just says “Items not found”. Any ideas?
Oops, nevermind. Got it fixed.
How did you get it fixed for your videos?
Got it: http://betalabs.nokia.com/apps/nokia-play-to/bugreport/31673/trouble-with-video-list-in-software
Im excited to go home and try this one
This is another reason why I miss my N900. It works like a charm. I love how I can push it to my pc and access my phone stuff through my PS3. Maybe I’ll get myself a cheap ethernet cable for my tv and give it a try. I already Nokia Big Screen but wireless would be nice also
thanks for the tutorial!
What about for Mac users? Does Plat To work with them, and if so, how would I implement it?
I didn’t have wifi in my pc
but thanx a lot for your information
no xbox support yet
searching for devices… what do?
Is there any app for remote control using wifi with keys up, down, left and right? I’ve found but just for mouse pointing and some keys, not works well for xbmc.
Jay, could you verify whether Nokia Play To works on the Nokia E6?
On Beta Labs description says it works on any Symbian Anna device except E6, but then if I select the E6 as my device for the download instructions (which will only show for compatible devices) it shows how to install… leading me to believe Play To does in fact work with E6, but perhaps not officially supported yet (since it in beta).
huft… My phone can not find my laptop acer… I use connectify..
Hi,
I m using Buffalo router WZR-HP-G300NH FW 1.76 with the N8 Anna, followed the guide here, Play to keep on searching for devices….but all PCs can stream to each other with no problem…
So, what extaclly is the problem. They both claimed to have DLNA certificate……..
Anyone having the same problem?
hi Del,
maybe your firewall get in the way.
windows firewall will block all incoming connections if you set your network to public. you can change it to private network in network and sharing center.
you can also switch it off.
hope this information help
not. . . Yet searching the device . . . In play it software