Which Upnp Server

[Borner]

Hi,

i'm using the raspberry pi model B (Rev 1) with the current Raspbian “wheezy” image.
I like to use this raspberry as homeserver in order to provide an local cloud and file services.

Additional I like to run an Upnp/DLNA server. But: which one?

Looking at wikipedia I found this list of possible Upnp servers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison ... ia_servers

I checked some of this, which are support Linux OS and found out, that some software packages are not up to date.... in some cases last updates are 2 years ago.
So it looks like, there are no development and no improvement at some software packages.

I know that mediaTomb works fine in most cases (http://mediatomb.cc/) but same here: last update was 2 years ago.
An alternative could be MiniDLNA, like this: http://minidlna.sourceforge.net/ But I don't know, if this is recommended for the raspberry. And I don't know, if there is a ready-to-use binary for the raspberry?

[Edit] It looks like, there is an ready-to-use binary. :

Code: Select all

 # apt-cache search minidlna
minidlna - lightweight DLNA/UPnP-AV server targeted at embedded systems

Has anyone experience with that?



What Upnp/DLNA Server would you recommend?

Thank you!

[kodess]

As you already stated that you also want to use your pi as some sort of cloud (owncloud.org?)

I would just use MiniDLNA, I don't have any experience with it personally but do know that it works and its nice and light-weight. Media Tomb is not. Don't even know if it would actually run on the Pi.

If you are only going to use the UPNP for audio, I would say SqueezeSlave.

[Borner]

If you are only going to use the UPNP for audio, I would say SqueezeSlave.

Squeeze does only support audio... okay.. this was an important hint, because i like to stream audio and pictures.

I would just use MiniDLNA, I don't have any experience with it personally but do know that it works and its nice and light-weight. Media Tomb is not. Don't even know if it would actually run on the Pi.

For me it's important that the Upnp Server will find and add new files automatically. And it would be very nice, if the server can add new files without rebuilding the whole index.
I don't know, which server provides this feature.

I don't know, how fast MiniDLNA is, but MediaTomb is not so fast in indexing the files.

[kodess]

MiniDLNA builds up the index very quickly, and rebuilds per folder. So it will only rebuild the folders that have something new in them.
http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewt ... 2&p=173344

[ian2000611]

I have not tried either of these servers on RPi yet, but have experience with both running on DDWrt routers.

Mini has several down sides from a features perspective, it doesn't do album/artist information, and only groups files by the folder they are in, and in some situations will not even do that well. fpr example if you store you audio in one folder, and your video in a seperate folder and tell it to look in both of those locations, they are merged together in the root folder of the server.

MediaTomb is slightly slower for indexing. but not noticeably. It will require that you use a database (if I remember correctly it has build in support SQLLite as well as being able to use MySql and a few others) and it will sort things into a virtual folder structure based on id3 tags for music, or file names/locations for movies and pictures.

Both servers have the ability to add files by monitoring the filesystem, however due to the underlying linux system missing a INotify interface on ddwrt I was unable to use this ability. From the documentation that I read on both either one should add your files to the server as soon as they are saved to the file system.

[amigaholic]

My Pi runs Serviio, which is Java-based, and is happy to perform transcoding (though the Pi2 is a bit underpowered for that, to be honest). Does a good job of automatically indexing your content, too, and it's happy to stream full-HD Blu-Ray disc rips, DVDs, music, and pictures. It's easy to install and configure, and adding media to my library is a doddle.

Out of the box, it'll detect your media and populate the metadata based on your file naming - but that's a bit clunky, doesn't always work. You also have the option of using local XBMC/Kodi .nfo files, which I opt for. To get those created, I use a separate program on my Windows PC called Media Center Master, pointed to the Samba share on my Pi that my media is stored in. MCM goes and gets all the metadata from the Internet, and will ask me if it thinks there's more than one possible choice, etc. Really useful bit of kit.

If you buy the Pro license (which isn't very expensive), it also gives you a web service, and allows you to play your content from anywhere on the Internet (means transcoding your media into FLV as the player is Flash-based). Or, you can use one of the officially-sanctioned 3rd party apps (i.e. ServiiGo for Android) to stream the content in whatever format your device supports, from any location. Just needs an Internet connection with decent upstream bandwidth.

With the setup I've got, I am able to watch/listen to any of my media from any phone, tablet or PC in my house. I can also watch/listen to it on my TV via my PS3. I only have an ADSL line at present, which doesn't offer the kind of upstream bandwidth for anything other than streaming audio. Eventually, once the heat death of the Universe occurs, BT Openreach might upgrade my cabinet to support FTTC, but I'm not hopeful of this (or of living long enough to see it happen).