Galaxy S II: The Missing Manual

Playing Music and Media on Other Devices

THE GALAXY S II lets you share, view, and play music, videos, and photos using a standard called DLNA, short for Digital Living Network Alliance. The Galaxy S II is DLNA-compliant, which means that it can share media with other DLNA devices, such as TVs, computers, and mobile devices. When you buy a device, look in the documentation to see if it’s also DLNA compliant. You can also look for this logo on packaging or documentation:.

Note

If you’re not sure whether you have a device that’s DLNA-compliant, go to www.dlna.org. In addition to finding out more information about DLNA, you can do a search for your device and see if it supports DLNA.

Here’s just some of what you can do with your Galaxy S II and other DLNA devices:

• Stream your music, videos, and photos from your Galaxy S II to a DLNA device, such as a TV, PC, Xbox, or Playstation 3.

• Transfer music files from your phone to your PC.

• Transfer pictures from your Galaxy S II to your PC.

• Stream videos from the Galaxy S II to your TV.

• Browse any videos you have stored on your PC using the Galaxy S II, and then stream the video to your TV using an HDMI cable (see Using HDMI to View Photos and Videos on a TV or Monitor for details about HDMI).

There are more possibilities and permutations with your Galaxy S II and DLNA; this section can’t cover them all. Set up your Galaxy S II as described in this section, and then follow the information that appears onscreen.

To do any DLNA magic, your Galaxy S II needs to be connected to a network or a DLNA device—which means a Wi-Fi connection or a USB cable connection. In the Apps Menu, tap DLNA. From here, you can do nifty things like play media from another DLNA device, copy media to a DLNA server, copy media from a DLNA device to your phone, and share media with others. For example, you can play the Galaxy S II’s videos and music on the computer or play or share music, videos, or photos from your Galaxy S II to a flat-screen TV. Or you can play music and video from a computer on your Galaxy S II.

After the app launches, select what you want to do—for example, “play media.” Each selection has a different set of screens to follow. You may run into difficulties, because the DLNA devices to which you connect each have a different set of rules, capabilities, and features. Try checking the documentation of any device to which you want to connect or do a Google search, and find out what it can and can’t do. DLNA is still very much on the bleeding edge, so you may not always be able to get it to work.