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Digital media overview
Published: August 21, 2012
Updated: October 4, 2012
Applies To: Windows Server 2012 Essentials
Digital media refers to audio, video, and photo content that has been encoded (digitally compressed). Encoding content involves converting audio and video input to a digital media file such as a Windows Media file. After digital media is encoded, it can be easily manipulated, distributed, and played by computers, and it is easily transmitted over computer networks.
Examples of digital media types include: Windows Media Audio (WMA), Windows Media Video (WMV), MP3, JPEG, and AVI. For information about the digital media types that are supported by Windows Media Player, see Information about the Multimedia file types that Windows Media Player supports.
Many people store music, video, and pictures in shared folders in Windows Server 2012 Essentials. There may be times when you want to do following:
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Watch videos. Your server can be used to store and stream large collections of videos and recorded TV shows to your computers or other playback devices on your network. You can stream videos to an Xbox 360 or to a computer by using Windows Media Player.
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Play music. When you turn on Media Sharing for the Music shared folder, you can access your music from devices that support Windows Media Connect. You do not need to enable or configure any user accounts to stream from the Music shared folder after sharing is turned on.
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Present photo slide shows. You can store your digital photos in the Photos shared folder on your server and then access them from any computer or from an Xbox 360 that is connected to a TV in your home or office. You can watch photo slide shows, which is like turning your TV into a large picture frame.
Windows Server 2012 Essentials does not support sharing copy-protected media. This includes music that is purchased through an online music store.
Copy-protected media can be played back only on the computer or device that you used to purchase it. Copy protection prevents you from playing media on more than one computer or device, even if you copy the media to your server and play it from there. However, you can store the copy-protected media on Windows Server 2012 Essentials and continue to play back the media on the computer or device that you used to purchase it.
