The world we live in is a very expensive place where every penny counts, even more so in recent times thanks to the worrying economic climate we find ourselves in. With that in mind, it is imperative that creators of goods and services which are not deemed as necessities go that extra mile to provide consumers with truly exceptional value for money. The problem with that is that one persons definition of value for money differs greatly to another, especially when we are talking about software. A growing trend is emerging where consumers seem to believe software should be free of charge is somewhat concerning when you take into account the days, weeks and months which are put into the design and development of these programs and applications.
While value for money is a topic we could debate back and forth all day, how does free of charge sound? Exactly zero pounds and zero pence is what you will pay for the privilege of using the new Serviio Media Server which has been developed by London based JavaScript developer, Peter Nejedly. Serviio is an entirely free media server which allows multiple types of files to be streamed to what the developer is calling renderer devices. Serviio Media Server is compatible with television sets, Blu-ray/DVD players, games consoles and even mobile telephones as long as they are all connected to the same network.
Serviio has been likened to the popular open source Xbox Media Center (XBMC) platform which has become so popular on jailbroken Apple TV units, but unlike XMBC, Serviio requires only a DLNA device to view all of the content. A great deal of users who require the functionality that a media server provides already have their chosen favorite, so why should they even consider upping sticks and moving across to using Serviio? Well firstly it is gaining some serious traction with over one million downloads and rising daily. Serviio also offers a fairly advanced feature set:
- Streaming audio, video (SD & HD) and image files in their native format which is transcoded on the fly in real time.
- The ability to stream content from online sources such as RSS feeds and live online video feeds.
- Includes a plug-in system which are written in Groovy and allow services such as Hulu (US) and iPlayer (UK) to be used.
- Supports video thumbnails, CD covers and DVD posters.
- Available for Windows, Linux and Mac machines.
- Supports external subtitles.
- Contains a wide array of localized library browsing options.
- Serviio automatically updates the media library when you add/update/remove a media file or a metadata file.
- And more…
The Serviio Media Server is based on Java technology which gives it the ability to be used a wide number of platforms thanks to the mass adoption of Java standards. The truly cross platform nature of the Serviio Media Server gives it additional power, but also has works with a large array of renders as well as being able to recognize a large number of media formats.
- Samsung TVs and Blu-ray players.
- Sharp television sets.
- Panasonic TVs.
- Microsoft Xbox 360.
- PlayStation 3.
- Toshiba television sets.
- Plus many more…
Supported media formats:
- Audio: MP3( .mp3), Windows Media Audio (.wma), AAC (.m4a), OGG (.ogg, .oga), FLAC (.flac)
- Video: MPEG-1 (.mpg, .mpeg), MPEG-2 PS (.mpg, .mpeg, vob, mod), MPEG-2 TS (.ts, .m2ts), MPEG-4 (.mp4, m4v, mov), AVI (.avi, .divx), Windows Media Video (.wmv, .asf), Matroska (.mkv), Flash (.flv, .f4v), DVR-MS (.dvr, .dvr-ms), WTV (.wtv), OGG (.ogv, .ogm), 3GP (.3gp)
- Image: JPEG (.jpg, .jpeg), GIF (.gif), PNG (.png)
The large adoption of compatible devices as well as the huge array of supported media types coupled together with the fact that it is entirely free of charge makes the downloading and use of the Serviio Media Server a no brainer in our eyes. Continued development and support is provided for this service which makes what is already a professional piece of software even better.
Download Serviio Media Server from the official downloads page.
You can follow us on Twitter, add us to your circle on Google+ or like our Facebook page to keep yourself updated on all the latest from Microsoft, Google, Apple and the web.
