I was talking to a friend and was really surprised to learn that my friend, usually someone I see as a tech guru, didn’t know that he could use his PS3 as a media streaming device and it occurred to me that he might not be alone with this. This blog might help to explain this technology to others and possibly even give people a new way to enjoy their digital content.

For many of us the technology we have around us tends to be used for very specific reasons, games consoles for playing games, TVs, PDAs, laptops and PCs all have their own uses too. I won’t go in to too much detail (I don’t want this blog to be too long) but I’m sure you are all familiar with items I have just mentioned. Some of you might also have digital cameras, digital video cameras, MP3 players, iPod Touch, iPad, Android tablets and even network attached storage (NAS) devices. This blog is about how all of those devices can be made to work with the other devices to make it easier for you to enjoy your content from anywhere in your home and with some content anywhere with an internet connection. This concept is often described as living a digital lifestyle, I hope this will show those of you who don't know what that is, how you can get this for yourselves.

This is made possible with a concept developed by DLNA who are the Digital Living Network Alliance, “a global collaboration of 245 of your most trusted brands, all working together to help you create the home entertainment environment you’ve always imagined.” They created a set of Interoperability Guidelines that first appeared in June 2004 and then updated this to version 1.5 in October 2006 at which time they also defined a DLNA certification program that ensured all manufacturers complied before being awarded DLNA recognition.

Rather than explain DLNA I will embed some videos so I can talk about other features instead.

There are a number of devices that can make use of the DLNA, most relevant to the GiantBomb community are the gaming devices. The PS3 supports all of the DLNA features while the Xbox 360 supports Microsoft’s Windows Media PC standards making it possible for Xbox 360 owners to enjoy many of the features.

What I really like about DLNA is that increasingly more and more devices are being brought into the market with DLNA built in, many new TVs have a network connection on the back such as Samsung, LG and Panasonic.

This is great as we now have a means to access our content that could be stored on the hard drive inside our laptop or gaming PC, however this does mean that we need the laptop or PC on which the content is stored to be switched on at the time so it’s not as convenient as it could be. So there are also devices that make it easy to store the content and access it without having to get up to start the laptop or PC up. Here’s 3 starting with the WD My Book World drives, Seagate Freeagent GoFlex Home and the NETGEAR Stora (Home Media Network Storage drive, this is the drive I use).

Excellent, a step forward, but we still need to connect our media playing device to the network, while wireless connections are ok for most things trying to get a continuous HD or Blu-Ray media stream over a wireless connection will result in a lot of buffering, not really ideal when you just want to sit back and enjoy that holiday video you have stored on your network drive. I use PowerLine products to overcome this issue, it is just like using a normal network cable only it doesn’t require network cables to be installed at great expense. Instead PowerLine converts your network output into an encrypted RF feed that is carried in the electrical cables running through your home. Here are 3 examples Devolo, NETGEAR () and Western Digital.

So now you can have your content stored, streamed to a device that’s connected to a TV or a few devices connected to a few TVs around your home you can say that you are living in a truly digital home. There is more though as there are devices that can combine the function of a network hard drive with the media player to give you something like this Western Digital media hub which not only gives you full access to all of your stored content, a hard drive to store the content itself but also gives you access to live services such as YouTube, Pandora, Facebook, Netflix and Blockbuster on demand.

If you have read all this and enjoyed or learnt something please share what you think, as I said at the start the purpose of the blog was just to highlight some ways in which we could enjoy a more digital lifestyle and these are some things that I have found quite a few people didn’t know about so I wanted to share it with you all.

That's interesting, I knew the ps3 could stream, but I never dabbled in it at all to know this DLNA thing. Then again buying a media hub and stuff why not just take a dvd-r and burn your dvd or blu ray rip on it, also pictures, movies ect of you require a strong internet connection to stream. Not only is it easier, it's way cheaper too since it only takes minutes to burn a dvd. A WD hub might cost like $99, 75 blank dvds might cost me like $20 without a spindle. Also even if you don't have a DLNA device, you can probally bring these dvds to other rooms like for example my other blu ray watching room which isn't connected to the internet where I can watch these videos and pictures on a disc. If I were so inclined, I could use a dvd -r rewritable and just keep changing the content. Maybe for me, I am not ready for media streaming, i'm a bit old fashion. I like my media on media still like a hardrive or a dvd-r.

I never felt sony really explained this media streaming thing well. Nor am I ready to use it, don't have any experience with it and probally won't be using this feature.

Edit: I bet almost no one on this forum uses this feature.

• When my sister had her baby she was able to upload some pics straight to my NAS drive, I got an email on my iPhone to say she had uploaded content. I was already in my living room and was able to view the pics on my TV immediately. When I got to my PC I was able to share the pics by sending links out to all out relatives and they all had access within minutes regardless of where in the world they are and I can see who has and hasn't seen the pics and it is all secure. I can't think of a single way I could do that with CDs in that timescale.
• When I was on holiday I would upload all of my photographs daily and relatives could stay in touch with what we were upto even suggesting places we could visit even though I was on the other side of the world to my NAS drive.
• I could also transfer new music and keep copies of vital documents on the drive, again with a fully secure connection.

It sounds very convient, but I would like to ask the forum, does anyone here make use of this feature on their console?

Also you can put things in a usb and view it on your ps3, sometimes I do that with blu ray rips before I even burn it. I know I can connect other pc's to my pc to stream, like sharing, but for consoles? I'm not ready for it.

I've used it on my TV, some set top boxes and Ubuntu media players which support DLNA but never on a games console.

" I've used it on my TV, some set top boxes and Ubuntu media players which support DLNA but never on a games console. "

I'm not to sure on this DLNA business. I skimmed through your post and the videos.

But I do use PS3mediaserver and it will stream everything to my PS3 from the PC like a champ.

I have always preferred the PS3 media features to the XBox 360's. It works with so many more devices purely becuase of the DLNA services.

A 'digital lifestyle' is a buzz word created by ad-men to sell products to people like us.

" A 'digital lifestyle' is a buzz word created by ad-men to sell products to people like us. "

" A 'digital lifestyle' is a buzz word created by ad-men to sell products to people like us. "

" @JasonR86 said:

" A 'digital lifestyle' is a buzz word created by ad-men to sell products to people like us. "

Maybe, but like the iPad you never know how much you will use it until you actually have it, some people find they really like it others have it and don't even know about it. In my case I had a network hard drive as that's what I wanted and then I found out about the DLNA features and got a DLNA certified media player, the PowerLine stuff I got free for participation in a marketing program, basically I had to use it, tell the company what I thought about it and they let me keep it at the end. "