by gcoupe » Sun Feb 09, 2014 6:57 am
The Play To functionality is in Windows 8.1 itself. MM8 can use it without the need to have specific UI elements built for it.
The Play To functionality can be accessed via the Windows 8.1 Charms. With MM8 open, and playing a track, open the Charms bar and select the Devices icon. You will then see "Play" as one of the selectable functions. If you have DLNA DMR (Digital Media Renderer) devices open and active in your network, they will be listed here. Choose one, and the playing track will be routed to the DMR device.
Two things to note:
1) Microsoft's implementation of Play To for Modern UI Apps requires that you have a track playing before any DMR will show up in the Play section. Non-intuitive and bizarre, but's that's the way Microsoft have done it. This is different to the behaviour of Windows Media Player, where a DMR will be listed as a Play To device whether a track is playing or not.
2) Currently, (and again different to the behaviour for Windows 7/8 Desktop applications), Microsoft requires DMRs to be "Microsoft Certified" before they can be used by Modern UI Apps such as MM8 or Xbox Music. There's
a registry fix that be applied to get non-certified devices to be made available to Modern UI Apps. There's been a lot of pushback to Microsoft about this certification process, and it will be dropped as a requirement later this year. At that point, this registry fix should no longer be required.
The Play To functionality is in Windows 8.1 itself. MM8 can use it without the need to have specific UI elements built for it.
The Play To functionality can be accessed via the Windows 8.1 Charms. With MM8 open, and playing a track, open the Charms bar and select the Devices icon. You will then see "Play" as one of the selectable functions. If you have DLNA DMR (Digital Media Renderer) devices open and active in your network, they will be listed here. Choose one, and the playing track will be routed to the DMR device.
Two things to note:
1) Microsoft's implementation of Play To for Modern UI Apps requires that you have a track playing before any DMR will show up in the Play section. Non-intuitive and bizarre, but's that's the way Microsoft have done it. This is different to the behaviour of Windows Media Player, where a DMR will be listed as a Play To device whether a track is playing or not.
2) Currently, (and again different to the behaviour for Windows 7/8 Desktop applications), Microsoft requires DMRs to be "Microsoft Certified" before they can be used by Modern UI Apps such as MM8 or Xbox Music. There's [url=http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wiki/windows8_1-pictures/use-non-certified-play-to-devices-in-windows-81/660c16a5-33e8-4a1a-9466-6fa2bfe07956]a registry fix that be applied to get non-certified devices to be made available to Modern UI Apps[/url]. There's been a lot of pushback to Microsoft about this certification process, and it will be dropped as a requirement later this year. At that point, this registry fix should no longer be required.