Running a media server?

     I have been running my own media server for a few years now and it really has become a part of our entertainment system. The Serviio application itself is completely free and allows you to stream all of your pictures, video and music from a pc directly to any DLNA supported device via local network or wireless. This can be really nice and convenient if you have a large amount of digital data and allows you to store it in one place but still be accessible and easily backed up.

     There are a few other media servers out there, but I have stuck with Serviio since it’s free and it has been nothing but reliable for me. My rig for this setup is a Windows 7 Ult x64 virtual machine running on 1 core and 2Gb of RAM, with the host being a Dell CS24-SC (2 Xeon Quads @ 2.5 GHz). The hard drive on this setup is a little less than ideal 4200 RPM SATA drive and works alright, but 7200 RPM drives do offer considerably better performance in this type of application. The video gives all the details you should need to know to setup a complete media server and start streaming.

Links:

Serviio
Java
DivX
FFDShow
VLC Media Player
MediaHouse for Android