Prog Media Server For Small Network

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Motivation

  1. Prog Media Server For Small Network Solutions
  2. Prog Media Server For Small Network Box
  3. Prog Media Server For Small Network Printer
  4. Prog Media Server For Small Network Design

Looking for a simple DLNA server that I could just fire up in some directory, watch some files on my TV and then be done with it, I came up empty. There are some decent servers out there, like Serviio and friends, but none that fit my requirements. Also there wasn't really a decent enough and uncomplicated enough open source implementation that I could borrow. The Coherence python project seemed to be a good starting point, but was already to complex for what I was trying to achieve. Also, python dealing with Unicode paths on Windows pretty much sucks. Then there is Mono.UPnP, which didn't really work, and the Intel(?) Developer Tools for UPnP, which seemed kinda nice at first, but turned out to be coming straight out of over-engineering hell, in my humble opinion.

Stamp album software for mac. The Plex Media Server is available for a variety of platforms such as Windows, Linux, Mac, Docker, and third-party NAS (network-attached storage device) Synology, Qnap, Netgear, Seagate, and more The Plex media server is not an open-source instead of a freemium software and offers some features on a subscription base only. NAS (Network Attached Storage) is an abbreviation of the term network attached storage, which is a file server that can be accessed over a home network as opposed to a single computer access. In other words, a NAS server allows you to share media files between several computers and portable entertainment devices.

And so I decided to write my own server, borrowing some ideas from Coherence, reading some of the UPnP specs and reverse engineering the various protocols involved (yuck, SOAP :p) by watching my TV interact with Coherence and Serviio under Wireshark.

And since I was at it and this is supposed to be an educational and 'fun' project, I decided to do what you shouldn't normally do: Re-invent the wheel by writing my own small http server implementation insead of using the framework one.

Basic use

  • sdlna.exe / mono sdlna.exe
    Serve videos from current directory and subdirectories
  • sdlna.exe -t image -t audio -v bytitle
    Serve images and audio files from the current directory and subdirectories, organizing files by title.
  • sdlna.exe -c cache.sqlite dir1 dir2
    Serve videos from dir1 and dir2 (and subdirectories), storing meta data and thumbnails in the persistent cache store cache.sqlite.
  • sdlna.exe --help
    Display usage help.
  • SimpleDLNA.exe
    Or just use the WinForms GUI. (This probably won't work too well on non-Windows platforms ;)
  • Your front-end here Feel free to contribute something that works better for your preferred platform.

Also, you'll want to have a working ffmpeg binary somewhere within your $PATH, so that video thumbnailing and information gathering works.

Features

  • Zero-config DLNA Server without persistent state (optional cache)
  • Written in C# (See FAQ)
  • Thumbnailing support for images and videos - if ffmpeg is found in the search path -, using any stream as input.
  • Meta data as provided by TagLib#
  • Serving of any and all file-system addressable files, incl. some views (transformations)
  • Should be relatively easy to code up additional media sources, like podcasts

Non-Features, maybe TODO

  • Media transcoding
    • Although it should be easy enough to come up with something based on ffmpeg and the various freely available image libraries
  • Full DLNA support - only browsing/playing supported at the moment
  • Complete SSDP support. Because SSDP makes me cringe, I stopped after getting the basics working
  • No Unit testing or test suite.. Yeah, laziness is your enemy
  • ..

Run requirements

Prog Media Server For Small Network Solutions

  • Some .Net 4 Client Profile compatible implementation to run the app
    • Tested on .Net 4 and Fedora17 + mono, OSX Lion + mono
  • File system and networking :p
  • Some DLNA renderer (e.g. TV) to actually display the served media.
    • Tested with: Samsung C-Series TV, Kinsky

External dependencies

The external dependencies are nuget managed and can be auto-restored (except for Sqlite maybe.. Just reinstall it using nuget into the fsserver project).

Design

The thing wasn't formally designed, but more written as I went along. However, the individual components are only loosely coupled and interact through some real, generic interfaces that allow for extensibility.

Most of the IO is asynchronous, as per .Net Stream.BeginRead/.BeginWrite. No forking (D'OH), no explicit thread management.

Prog Media Server For Small Network Box

The structure is as follows:

  • server class library - The actual core that implements an SSDP and HTTP server
    • SSDPServer implementing the important bits of the SSDP-based multicast protocol as used by UPnP/DLNA
    • HttpServer and HttpClient - Custom, stripped down HTTP/1.0 implementation
    • Handlers - Request processing and response composition
    • Responses - Implementing an interface the HttpClient knows how to ship over the net.
    • Views - Transformations of media trees
    • Some interfaces, types, enums, etc. to bring things together
  • fsserver class library - Serving stuff from a file sytem. To be 'mounted' by the server
    • Virtual folder/file trees the HTTPServer MediaMount will understand
  • thumbs class library - Generating thumbnail pictures from arbriary stream sources
    • Image thumbnailer, using .Net System.Drawing
    • Video thumbnailer, using ffmpeg via async pipes and the .Net Process API
  • sdlna CLI application - Bringing the various pieces together
  • SimpleDLNA GUI application - Alternative to the CLI and with persistent configuration. This thing is especially rough, as im not an UX guy.
  • util Various low-level utility stuff

Contributing

Feel free to drop me pull requests. If you plan to implement something more than a few lines, then open the pull request early so that there aren't any nasty surprises later. Please try not to introduce too many new FXCop warnings. ;)

If you want to add something that will require some for of persistence incl. persistent configuration or API keys, etc., then open a pull request/issue especially early!

Mini FAQ

  • Q: Does it work in my network/with my TV?
  • A: At the moment, if you got a somewhat recent Samsung TV, then probably yes. Otherwise probably not. Why don't you just try?
  • Q: This thing does not work with my setup?!
  • A: Either provide me with the setup (i.e. buy me that TV) or whip out your debugger and Wireshark and read Contributing ;)
  • Q: Are you planning to support Podcasts, RTMP streaming, insert name here?
  • A: Maybe, but probably not. See Contributing
  • Q: Why .Net and C#? I'm on Linux and/or Mac!
  • A: Yeah, well.. Other languages have their own set of problems. C# is reasonably portable, managed and garbage collected, statically typed and comes with a huge stdlib. And actually quite nice to use. If only it wasn't for Microsoft having invented this stuff and holding various patents..
    Maybe I'll get bored and rewrite this stuff in C++11 or as a Firefox add-on in JavaScript :p

Thanks

To Microsoft, the UPnP(-AV) folks and Samsung and DLNA gurus for designing such a set of specs and protocols, that includes HTTP-alike over multicast UDP sockets, SOAP and XML, dozens of poorly documented namespaces used in SOAP responses, the contentFeatures.dlna.org HTTP header and other fancy tech. Also a big kudos to software engineers for messing up even the most basic things like http header field names are usually case insensitive or the Reason-Phrase of http status lines is purely informal.

Changelog

This is a list of streaming media systems. A more detailed comparison of streaming media systems is also available.

Servers[edit]

  • Ampache – GPL/LGPL Audio streaming
  • atmosph3re – responsive web-based streaming audio server for personal music collection
  • Darwin Streaming Server – Apple Public Source License
  • dyne:bolic – GNU/Linux live CD ready for radio streaming
  • emby – a media server/client that runs on Linux/Mac/Windows/freeBSD/docker & NAS devices with clients on Android TV/fireTV/Apple TV/Roku/Windows/PlayStation/Xbox/iOS & HTML5 Capable devices
  • FFserver included in FFmpeg (discontinued)[1][2]
  • Firefly Media Server – GPL
  • FreeJ – video streamer for Icecast – GPL
  • Helix Universal Server – delivers MPEG-DASH, RTSP, HTTP Live Streaming (HLS), RTMP; developed by RealNetworks, discontinued since October 2014[3][4]
  • HelixCommunity – RealNetworks Open Source development community
  • Jellyfin – GPL-licensed fully open-source fork of Emby
  • Icecast – GPL streaming media server
  • IIS Media Services – Extensions for the Windows IIS web server that deliver intelligent progressive downloads, Smooth Streaming, and HTTP Live Streaming
  • Kaltura – full-featured Affero GPL video platform running on your own servers or cloud
  • LIVE555 – a set of open source (LGPL) C++ libraries for multimedia streaming; its RTSP/RTP/RTCP client implementation is used by VLC media player and MPlayer
  • Logitech Media Server – open source music streaming server, backboned by a music database (formerly SlimServer, SqueezeCenter and Squeezebox Server)
  • Nimble Streamer – freeware server for live and VOD streaming
  • nginx with Nginx-rtmp-module (BSD 2-clause)
  • OpenBroadcaster – LPFM IPTV broadcast automation tools with AGPL Linux Python play out based on Gstreamer
  • Open Broadcaster Software – open source streaming and recording program for Windows, Linux and OS X, maintained by the OBS Project
  • PlayOn – a media server that runs on a PC and supports Netflix streaming
  • Plex – a media server/client that runs on Linux/Mac/Windows with clients on iOS/Android/Windows/Mac/Linux
  • PS3 Media Server – GPLv2e media server for streaming to a PlayStation 3
  • Red5 – Apache licensed media server for RTMP and HLS
  • QuickTime Broadcaster – Free on OS X
  • Sirannon – a GPL, C++ media server and client
  • SHOUTcast – audio streaming (HTTP and/or multicast)
  • Starlight Networks – StarWorks and StarLive, early commercial Streaming products
  • TVersity Media Server – partially open source, web-based media server
  • Unreal Media Server – multi-protocol media server for streaming any file format and real time live audio/video to WebRTC, Flash, Silverlight, iOS, STB, HTML5 viewers
  • Unified Streaming Platform origin server for DASH, Smooth, HLS, HDS and progressive download
  • VideoLAN – GPL
  • Vidiator – Xenon Streaming Server
  • VMix – a software switcher, recorder and live streaming program for Windows, developed by Studio Coast PTY LTD
  • Wowza Streaming Engine – a media server for Flash, Silverlight, Apple iOS (iPhone/iPad), QuickTime, 3GPP mobile, IPTV and game console video/audio streaming

P2P[edit]

Peer-to-peer video streaming solutions:

Multicast[edit]

Services[edit]

Prog Media Server For Small Network Printer

  • DC Universe (Formally streamed shows; now only offers unlimited comic subscription service)
  • FilmStruck – (defunct November 29, 2018)
  • Google Play Music – (discontinued December 3, 2020)
  • Groove Music – (discontinued December 31, 2017)
  • Grooveshark – (defunct April 30, 2015)
  • Justin.tv – Allows users to produce and watch live streaming video. (defunct August 5, 2014 as it became Twitch)
  • Last.fm – Internet radio and music community website
  • Live365 – Streaming media library (Defunct January 31, 2016, relaunched under new ownership with reduced availability 2017)
  • MediaCore – Video learning platform
  • Medici.tv – Classical music video streaming
  • MetaCDN – Live video streaming platform
  • Mofibo – Audio & Ebook streaming
  • Murfie – Storage and streaming of CDs, vinyl, and cassettes
  • Quibi – (defunct December 1, 2020)
  • Radiolicious – Internet radio
  • Rdio – (defunct December 22, 2015)
  • Seeso (defunct November 8, 2017)
  • SiriusXM – Internet Radio, MySXM
  • Spotify – Free and paid streaming music service (browser, client and mobile applications)
  • Wuala – Free online storage with streaming capability
  • YouTube/YouTube Premium

Clients[edit]

  • Bitmovin's bitdash player
  • Clementine (forked from Amarok 1.4)
  • Kodi (formerly XBMC), a free and open source media center software and framework platform
  • Winamp a freeware media player for Microsoft Windows

See also[edit]

Prog Media Server For Small Network Design

References[edit]

  1. ^'ffserver'. FFmpeg. Retrieved 2018-10-08.
  2. ^'FFmpeg'. Retrieved 2016-11-02.
  3. ^'Helix Media Delivery Platform'. Realnetworks.
  4. ^RealNetworks Discontinues Helix Media Delivery Suite of ProductsStreaming Media Magazine
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_streaming_media_systems&oldid=993753663'
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