Have you ever wondered that you can make a complete Media Server with Windows 7? You will certainly be tired of burning .avi movies on DVD to watch them on your computer or around the DVD players in your home with streaming quality. Its time that you pull up your socks and convert your Windows 7 system with Media Player 12 to share/stream media to other resources on the network. Your computer will act more like a complete media server.
Requirements
You are not going to need the high tech equipment to turn your computer into a media server. All you are going to need is a quality machine that has got enough resources to back up all the applications that the process might require. The system should be having Windows 7 as the operating system in it so that the process is an easy one. You are going to need media in forms of audio or video just to make sure that you have something to stream from your media server once you are done with the basic setup.
Setup For Windows Media Player
The first step is to set up the media library. You need to open Windows Media Player 12 in order to add media that you wish to share with people using your server. Use all the resources around you to add up as much of the media that you want to share with people on the network resources. Both the internal and external storages can get you with ample media for making a nice server. Add media manually into the library and close and go back to the “Video Library Locations” You will be needed to finalize your media addition into the library.
On complete addition, you will see a popup that is going to ask you if you wish to share the folder. Check “Yes, share this folder”.
The second step is to setup your Windows Media Server Sharing Stream Options. You are going to see all the media on your Media Player library sorted in different categories. With the top bar, you are going to see “Stream” button appeared. Click on the Media that you want to stream and the Stream button. You can then select for “Automatically allow devices to play my media”. This option is going to let your media player stream videos on other resources or even the internet if you wish.
You can have more streaming options available with you if you click on Stream and then More Streaming Options tab under the menu. You can make a number of changes in the streaming personalizing your settings and your media server.
The third step in all this set up is to set your computer to manage with all the security that is implied on resources shared over a network. You need to disable your firewall in case you are using Windows 7 as the operating system has a default firewall with it. You can opt for this option in case you are sharing the media for streaming on local home based networks while the best option for sharing it over a larger resource is to configure your firewall to allow traffic up to a certain limit.
You now need to configure the other device where you want to get the streaming media to be played on in order to get the best out of your media collection and your media server.
