Get media url including server part

Question

Is it possible to get url with MediaManager.GetMediaUrl that always includes the server part?

Answer 1

Just to bump this up, in Sitecore 7 the AlwaysIncludeServerUrl option is also included in MediaUrlOptions (I don't know since which version of Sitecore)

Like this:

MediaUrlOptions muo = new MediaUrlOptions();
muo.AlwaysIncludeServerUrl = true;
String url = MediaManager.GetMediaUrl((MediaItem)item, muo);

Answer 2

I've discovered that the following will work for producing fully qualified urls for media items:

public static string GetMediaUrlWithServer(MediaItem mediaItem, Item item = null)
{
    item = item ?? Sitecore.Context.Item;
    var options = new UrlOptions {AlwaysIncludeServerUrl = true, AddAspxExtension = false};
    var itemUrl = LinkManager.GetItemUrl(item, options);
    var mediaOptions = new MediaUrlOptions {AbsolutePath = true};
    var mediaUrl = MediaManager.GetMediaUrl(mediaItem, mediaOptions);
    return itemUrl + mediaUrl;
}

The urls produced will be relative to item so you may want to supply a reference to your Home item instead of Sitecore.Context.Item