Excellent free streaming media server
Subsonic is a media streaming server for PC users.
Subsonic includes just about anything you need to turn your home computer into a fully-featured media streaming server. While some missing codecs might need to be installed at initial start-up, Subsonic is relatively simple to get started with.
As an admin user with Subsonic, you’ll be able to configure every single detail about your server, such as folders to be included in the media menu, user accounts and security settings, to name a few. As a common user, you have also plenty of features available, from downloading music files to rating songs – all depending on the permissions given by the admin. The whole process is done via the web, while the streamed media can be played with an array of media players including Winamp, Windows Media Player and iTunes. You can even make Last.fm register what you’re listening to in Subsonic.
On the downside, and despite the simplicity of the program, users still might encounter problems performing certain tasks, especially in playlist management.
With a tool like Subsonic – and some spare time to configure it properly – you’ll be able to turn your standard home PC into a professional media streaming server.
Subsonic is a free, web-based media streamer, providing access to your entire music collection wherever you are. Use it to share your music with friends, or to listen to your own music while at work. You can stream to multiple players simultaneously, for instance to one player in your kitchen and another in your living room.
Subsonic is designed to handle very large music collections (many thousand albums). It uses a combination of directory structure and tag parsing to organize the music. Although optimized for MP3 streaming, it works for any audio or video format that can stream over HTTP (for instance AAC and OGG). By using transcoder plug-ins, Subsonic supports on-the-fly conversion and streaming of virtually any audio format, including WMA, FLAC, APE, Musepack, WavPack, Shorten and OptimFROG.
If you have constrained bandwidth, you may set an upper limit for the bitrate of the music streams. Subsonic will then automatically resample the music to a suitable bitrate.
In addition to being a streaming media server, Subsonic works very well as a local jukebox. The intuitive web interface, as well as search and index facilities, are optimized for efficient browsing through large media libraries. Subsonic also comes with an integrated Podcast receiver, with many of the same features as you find in iTunes.
