Which Media Server for Linux

[ajaxmike]

I am looking for recommendations for a Linux UPnP media server. Here's what I have so far:

* 2.6MHz Celeron running ClarkConnect 4.3 (Red Hat/CentOS distro)
* Helios X5000 streamer, XBOX 360, various PCs, more to follow.
* Music files to be stored in FLAC
* Photo gallery desired
* Video streaming desired in the future, but no specs determined
* CDs to be ripped and tagged with dbPoweramp (don't have it yet)


As I understand it, dbPoweramp creates the directory structure, inserts album art, and tags all of the songs. So it appears that the media server has little to do but establish a network connection to the streaming devices and present the media titles and tagging info via the directory structure. Any media server should do that, so the choice of server shouldn't matter too much.

Am I missing something about what a media server does?

Which server do you recommend?

[sjmac]

Re: Which Media Server for Linux

The directory structure on the disk isn't usually used by the UPnP media server. The server will scan the tags that dbPowerAmp has written in to your files (like the album artist, song name, genre and year) and then present your collection by whichever category you want to browse it by (like album artist > album name > song names, or year > song artists > song names).

I use Twonky, but they expect you to pay for that. Others have said that mediatomb is good, and it is free, though I've never used it.

As well as just presenting the tracks, some servers will convert the format for a device, so if you have a player that cannot play ac3, then the file gets converted to something that can be played as it is served.

[ajaxmike]

Re: Which Media Server for Linux

The directory structure on the disk isn't usually used by the UPnP media server. The server will scan the tags that dbPowerAmp has written in to your files (like the album artist, song name, genre and year) and then present your collection by whichever category you want to browse it by (like album artist > album name > song names, or year > song artists > song names).

That's an important distinction. The Media server could be scanning a large collection, so I imagine speed and indexing method are important. That also explains what I read on forums that certain tag info doesn't make it to the player, depending on the codec. I'm thinking too that it might be better to have separate server software for music, video, and photos as they might better support each media type.

I use Twonky, but they expect you to pay for that. Others have said that mediatomb is good, and it is free, though I've never used it.

I was leaning toward Twonky because it was widely incorporated by the hardware vendors and highly regarded. Unfortunately, Twonky has recently repositioned the product as Twonky Media Manager which is Windows only. Twonky Media Server continues to be available for Linux, but the future of the Server product is questionable.

As well as just presenting the tracks, some servers will convert the format for a device, so if you have a player that cannot play ac3, then the file gets converted to something that can be played as it is served.

Ah yes, I wasn't thinking about transcoding. Ideally, files should be stored on the server in a codec that is supported natively on the player. Otherwise, either the player or the server needs to transcode. So when selecting server software, one must consider whether transcoding needs to be done by the server software or the player. Server hardware may also be compacted here.