Earlier in the year, I did an article on Xbox.com and talked here on my blog about streaming media using Windows Media Connect. Back then, you had one option for streaming music and pictures from any XP machine: Windows Media Connect. (There's Windows Media Center too, but that's a separate discussion.) Well, Microsoft's been busy over the last few months. Media sharing is now available in Zune and Windows Media Player 11, and video has been added to the mix with the Nov 06 update.

 

 

 

 

Again, your media streaming options today are:

 

The requirements for the above packages are still the same: you need Windows XP SP2 or Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 Update Rollup 2 to install any of them.

 

There are a few things to note about how these programs work together. Windows Media Player 11 takes over for Windows Media Connect, so if you have Windows Media Connect and then install Windows Media Player 11, WMC stops working and you manage all streaming from WMP 11. Zune can live alongside either WMC or WMP, and maintains a separate library and share. (And, even though both WMC/WMP and Zune may point at the same media directories, they'll share them separately.)

 

What's this mean for your console? Plenty. All three media sharing programs names its shares based on the computer and user names, but they all do it differently. Windows Media Connect uses a number to represent the user, so the share name would be something like "ELLEPC:1". When WMP 11 takes over, it switches from a number to a name, resulting in something like "ELLEPC:MYDOMAIN\ELLE" (though you can change the share name in WMP 11). So, after making the switch from WMC to WMP 11, you have to go over to your console, disconnect from the old share, and reconnect to the new.

 

Plus, if you have Zune, you have another share to think about. It too is based on computer and user name, so the share name is something like "ELLEPC:ELLE" (again, configurable from within Zune). The difference here is that because Zune lives alongside WMC/WMP, your PC will expose two shares to your console. When connecting to your PC on your console, you'll see the WMC/WMP 11 share (for example, ELLEPC:1 or ELLEPC:MYDOMAIN\ELLE) and you'll see your Zune share (for example, ELLEPC:ELLE). You can tell the Zune share by the little Zune symbol by its name.

 

How do you choose? It depends on which library you want to access. You must connect to the Zune share to access Zune Marketplace content, even if your WMC/WMP share is pointing at the same directories. Personally, since I have a Zune Pass, my choice was simple. I picked Zune. But, your mileage may vary.