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Streaming with UPnP – forget screensharing — Robin Wils's website

Last modified: Sat, Jan 23, 2021

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Streaming with UPnP – forget screensharing
UPnP
- Security
Setting it up
- For GNU/Linux users
- For Chocolatey users
Opening the shared content
- The usual way
- VLC
Thanks

Streaming with UPnP – forget screensharing

It happens often that you want to stream some video, music or pictures from your computer to the television.

You might currently do that through one of those gaming, screenshare devices like the Steam Link. Screensharing is useful in some cases, but it is not a good option in this case.

The computer can get pretty hot when you do that, since it is a pretty heavy thing to do. There is a better way! Let me introduce you to UPnP.

UPnP

UPnP stands for “Universal Plug and Play”. It is incredibly easy to setup and it works well.

Security

You should know that UPnP does not require a password, so SFTP might be a better option if you want to put a password on it.

I don’t think that it is needed, because you can toggle it off after using it. It is a risk if you use it for router settings or something though.

Setting it up

Universal Media Server is a graphical application which works on every operating system.

Just launch it and open the shared content tab. Select the folder which you want to share and your content is shared.

Don’t forget to turn it off when you no longer need access to the shared folder.

Universal Media Server’s website

For GNU/Linux users

ReadyMedia (minidlna) is an alternative for Universal Media Server. You might prefer it if you don’t like to use a graphical application.

The ReadyMedia package is called minidlna usually.
The Universal Media Server is called ums usually.

For Chocolatey users

Universal Media Server can be installed with cinst ums.

Opening the shared content

The usual way

Most media server applications like Kodi and Plex support UPnP. Browse for a new share and find your folder under UPnP devices.

VLC

You can play the content through VLC if you want to view it on another computer.

You should see a menu on the left when you open playlist view (View --> Playlist). Click on the “Universal Plug’n' Play” option in that menu.

Click on “Browse Folders” and right click on the video or audio you want to open. Select stream and enjoy!

Thanks

Thanks for reading this. I hope that you found it useful!

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