Digital Home Thoughts: Windows 7 Play To Showcased

"Windows 7 Senior Program Manager, Gabe Frost, demonstrates Windows 7 “Play To” functionality to the crew of On10.net For those unfamiliar, Play To is a new function introduced into Windows 7 that allows one to send a media file (from the same PC, shared media library derived from networked PCs, or a dedicated home server / NAS) for playback or display to a DLNA / UPnP device like a music streamer, digital media adapter, or photo frame with a simple right-click of the mouse."

One of the new features that Windows 7 brings is the "Play To" option. It is one thing to read about it, but Gabe Frost of Microsoft demonstrates this feature in a video at On10.net. Towards the end of the video, he says that Windows 7 can become a "Universal remote control for your media" which I think best describes "Play To." I'm very looking forward to this, as I've worked to come up with a wide variety of hacks such as using FM Transmitters, Shoutcast and Videolan to stream audio and video across my house and this seems to bring it all together in a much easier to use interface. I'm glad that they're going with a standard like DLNA, however, to make full use of this means upgrading/replacing a large amount of hardware I have around the house. Then again, new toys are always welcome!