Samsung AllShare* simplifies media streaming

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Meet entertainment karma – where digital goodness goes around, and comes around... to the TV.

Previously, only computers have enjoyed the kind of versatility and cross-functional capability that would bring together the various digital devices you use at home and out and about – and even then there was a good chance you’d be up to your neck in cables, wires and flashing lights, but with the advent of the truly Smart TV, bringing all that entertainment and information together in the one place in the lounge room is now possible. Wirelessly, and without effort.

It’s all made possible by DLNA, or Digital Living Network Alliance, and means that compatible devices – such as netbooks, tablets, cameras, phones or PCs – can share photos, video and music without having to swap media between our devices, or for our gadgets be physically tied together. DLNA makes possible the connected home we’ve been promised for so long.

Because DLNA is a bit of a mouthful, though, most brands identify their DLNA devices by a friendlier term, and Samsung’s is AllShare*. Regardless of the name it goes by, as long as a device is DLNA-certified you should be able to transfer content to a Smart TV.

All you need to do is ensure that your Samsung TV is connected to your home network, and that the device you want to connect is ‘seen’ by your router. The Smart TV will ‘pair’ with the device, then one click on the ‘AllShare’ button at your TV’s Smart Hub* page is all it takes in future to connect to the device and browse the content that can be transferred. Provided you’ve tagged the content it finds in logical lists up on the TV screen in an easy-to-read visual format; in an alphabetical listing, for example, by song title.

Then you’re set. Whatever the brand of the device you’ve connected and whatever the files stored there, your Smart TV should be able to take a peek inside and pull across all the music, video and photos you want. As an example, the new Samsung Smart TVs are loaded with 52 ‘codecs,’ or file translators, to ensure the widest and most comprehensive format compatibility and the company’s AllShare system works with other brands.

The way you share files over AllShare* is completely up to you, and easy to do. You can decide to mark everything in a folder or category as shared, or just opt to select specific ones (sparing the dinner guests, say, from the hundreds of digital snaps of your beautiful child sitting immobile in her high chair, or keeping the explicit rap lyrics out of earshot of your babies).

The AllShare system will cope equally adeptly with standard or high-definition video, which are usually the biggest types of digital file you’ll encounter. While a 512kbps connection is the minimum recommended for a smooth transmission to the Samsung Smart TV set, there’s no doubt that best result will be had at faster speeds.

If you’re new to data streaming, it may not be immediately obvious how AllShare will benefit you in the home. But it’s astonishing these days how much of our daily lives involve digital information, and once you start to think about it, all sorts of scenarios come to mind where the ability to send that information to that big, flat-screen TV in the lounge becomes very handy indeed.

Photos from a PC

Think about the photos from your last holiday that are stored on your PC. Without AllShare, you'd have to share them via the PC's small monitor, or burn a disc to play on a DVD player connected to your TV. With AllShare, you can beam a your holiday footage or slideshow of the photos from the PC to the big screen in the living room, without wires and without effort using just the TV remote.

Music from a smartphone

Now what about the ten new songs you've just downloaded to your phone? How do your share these with your flatmates? Without AllShare they would need to listen individually via headphones, or through the phone's small speakers. With AllShare, they could all enjoy your fine musical tastes through the home theatre system connected to your Smart TV.

Video from a smartphone

You've just arrived home from the grand final where you managed to capture the winning goal with your mobile phone's video camera. Without AllShare, you'd have to share the footage on the phone's tiny screen making it hard to see properly, but with AllShare you and your mates can relive the moment on the big-screen TV in the living room.

Video from a camera or camcorder

Walking along the embankment last Sunday snapping some pics you stumbled upon a brilliant ad-hoc performance from an amateur band you just know your friends are going to love. Without AllShare, the hastily-shot footage of the gone-in-a-flash routine looks underwhelming. With AllShare, routing the sound through your compatible home theatre system, the amateurs are transformed on the big screen into the next big thing!

AllShare stream team

To get AllShare working, you need a home broadband network and at least two DLNA compatible devices. Samsung has a great selection of these, all of which will play nicely with Smart TVs.

*To use Samsung’s AllShare feature, a Samsung Wireless LAN Adaptor is required if your TV does not have WI-FI inbuilt. Samsung takes copyright seriously. Samsung’s AllShare feature is intended only for private and domestic use by a person. Any other use of Samsung’s AllShare feature may be contrary to the law, including copyright law. Samsung does not authorise, sanction, approve or contenance any use of its AllShare feature that infringes copyright or is otherwise contrary to law. Samsung LED TV’s utilise LCD screens with LED edge lights.