How to Set-Up FreePlay and Access Your Computers Files from Your PC

Freeplayer is a free software solution that transforms your Freebox in to a multimedia platform, allowing you to display multimedia content (videos, photos or music) found on your computers onto your TV.

With Freeplayer, the Freebox can also be used as a distribution server (eg to watch TV on a DVD that would be in the drive of the computer). This interface is free, comprehensive, scalable, and is available to owners of a Freebox V3 or V4.

1. Check your Freebox connection

Go to the Start menu, then Accessories, run the command prompt. Inside, type the command "ping mafreebox.freebox.com"

If you get four responses then your internet connection is fine. If you do not get any responses then something is wrong with your internet. Go and find out!

2. Freeplayer Port

Now you will have to configure the IP address of Freeplayer in your administration interface of Freebox. The freeplayer will be installed on your computer, it's the local IP address of your computer. You can find it by running the command ipconfig at a command prompt.

In my case, my local IP address is 192.168.155.1. Go to your administration interface and login.

Click on "optional features", then choose "Features of the router"

Then you'll have a sentence that tells you "to activate the functions of your NAT routers Click here." Click there.

In the "freeplayer IP", also type your local IP address, because it is on your PC that will run the Freeplayer (in my case 192.168.155.1).

Then in the bottom of this window, click the Send button.

A window will then confirm that you configured the IP address of freeplayer with the IP address of your PC, and you've forwarded ports 8080 UDP and 8080 TCP tuned to the corresponding ports on your PC

You now have disconnect and reconnect your freebox for the changes to take place.

3. Check that freeplayer is activated

Turn on your television and the Freebox TV service to go on the next Freebox. Hold the "Free" button for a long time (2-3 seconds).

If the service is not on the list, Freeplayer service is not yet enabled on your Freebox. Now restart Freebox again!

4. Download and install the software

Download the Freebox software, you can download it for PC, it is also available for Mac and Linux. It is of course available from the homepage.

Start the installation by double clicking.

Click "Next" then click "I Accept" in the next window, click on "Next" twice, and then click the Install button to start the installation.

At the end of the installation, leave the box "Launch VLC Freeplayer" checked and click Close.

The software VLC media player is launched on port 8080. So, open this port on your firewall if necessary.

5. Playback on your TV

Now just turn on your television and Freeplayer, press the "OK" on the remote once you're done, and you will have a browser . From there you can browse the drives and folders from your PC to run your multimedia files (video, audio, images ...)

6. Create a playlist

Finally, if you do not want to click on each file, you can create playlists for more flexibility. Click on FBX Playlist.

In the Freebox playlist editor, you can add whatever you want to play on your TV, then click "Save".

Select your music titles in the exploration window that opens (you may use the CTRL key to select several at a time). Finally in "Playlist" select "Save" to save your playlist.

And that's it! You can now read all kinds of files on your TV: your DVDs, photos, music CDs, web files etc!