Lots of devices will stream video and connect to a computer, console, or server to share pictures, music and video.
However, you will need a real media player to do the real-time conversion of the video through hardware.
If you are building your own media library by ripping your DVD's & Blu-rays, you will have to transcode (convert) the files before hand to stream them. If you don't do this, the amount of data trying to be streamed will make everything choke. Depending on how fast your computer is, transcoding can take all night.
With a hardware media player, you can just pull off the .vob files from DVD or .m2ts files from Blu-rays or make an .iso if you have ripping software. You will still have to use something like Any-DVD HD to remove the copy protection but this takes minutes.
You should be aware that backing up your purchased, music, movies and games and will be illegal once Bill C-11 is passed by the Conservatives.
Fines for downloading content over the internet could be $20,000 per file. If you are streaming video or music over your own network/ devices, that will technically be breaking the law because you cannot convert it into a format to be streamed without removing the copy protection. That will leave us with Netflix (crap in Canada compared to the USA), Hulu (not available in Canada) or iTunes (Apple - big supporters of locking up their content)
Better rip your disks now while it is still legal because the bill is already in Parliament
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