I hate to ask this as I consider myself a Media Center aficionado....

 

I have 2 computers in my home- LR and master BR. These are connected to the TVs and using WMC7 and Media Browser to serve Movies and TV shows, which I now store in unRAID. Life is good...

 

I am so confused as to what servers from Twonky, UPnP, Squeeze, Subsonic or DLNA actually do. With my files stored on either a Windows share, or unRAID, I am able to access my media and, again, life is good. So what do these server things do?

 

I believe I can access my media also stored in unRAID or a Windows share or devices like the WD TV Live, BoxeeBox, Popcornhour, etc... There are more and more of these devices coming out every day under the $200 price range. I am looking forward to retiring my 2 media PCs and shift to some new device that plays it all.... But when I read that it will play streamed DLNA content, what does that mean???

 

Do they stream stuff from your server in your main city home to your weekend country chateau via the internet? What does it all mean....?

 

Sorry but the chateau only exists in my dreams, and in it,  I am surrounded by supermodels and have no time for movies.  :-*

 

Thanks.

 

H.

 

 

Twonky - Media Server

UPnP - Universal Play n Play

Squeeze - Media Server

Subsonic - Media Server

DLNA - It basically means things are Media Server compliant http://www.dlna.org/digital_living/how_it_works/

 

If things work the way they are then don't worry about all those others mentioned.

Some have odd devices other than a PC that doesn't use the same type of connection so they need a media server to browse the content. For example PS3's don't browse the network like a PC does so some will install and run PS3MediaServer which will act as a DLNA complient server and display the content for the PS3.

 

My Jargon might not be spot on and I'm sure somebody will correct me, but you should get the idea.

Thank you Kizer... it is now becoming clear to me. Basically they are mainly for devices that do NOT support connecting to Windows Share/Samba. I played with XBMC on an Apple TV 2 and I saw there were a few other server "protocols" in addition to SMB....

 

 

Exactly. My Samsung TV I used to have played videos off the unRAID server, but it couldn't view the files via windows share, but I could run MediaTomb or something of the like and it would see them and play them.