Roll Your Own Streaming Media Server With Subsonic

wow looks cool gonna try it out

Nathan26

i have been looking for something like this. DOes it require the computer to be on?

Cole Von Richthofen

does it work via a Wii? or Xbox? or (insert potential extender box here)

@chrisaroz: well... erm... you'll need a static ip, with Orb you don't.

rhank you

Tormahiri Ablimit

Wondering how this is better than Orb... anyone have any thoughts?

chrisaroz

@Cole Von Richthofen: Of course not.

randomset

@Al Iguana: you don't need a static IP, just use dyndns.

loboes41

@Cole Von Richthofen: How many programs do you run while the computer is powered off?

johnsmith1234

how does this compare to jinzora (the only other streaming jukebox i've used)?

ahallam

I wonder if they'll make an iPhone app for this? I've been pretty loyal to Orb but it doesn't seem to like me as of late. Simplify is cool, but limited to music only.

also, how does this compare to Mediatomb or Fuppes?

no iPhone support? no interest.

gmerin

does anyone know how to access subsonic from other computers?
[localhost] doesn't seem to work...

gymtonic

MyTunesRSS is an easier solution and does support the iPhone/Touch

VLC easiest and it can play video, convert video to portable devices oh and it can use subtitles it can rip dvds... You can see where I'm going with this... Go VLC simple and easy as well as CLI friendly :).

@gymtonic: You need to enter the IP address of the host computer (i.e., [192.168.1.1])

@purduepete: i've tried that but it's asking for my 'dsl router' password. maybe it's my router or something, i should really ask in the forums with these type of questions :P

gymtonic

@Tormahiri Ablimit: rhank you too!

SkyCapitan

@dmtofree: While VLC has a web interface and could be used as a streaming media server, it's more difficult to set up than this and it would be lacking some of the features and customizations. I don't think you understand what a "streaming media server" is.

Anyone know if this is possible using an xbox with xebian? I would love to set that up!

PobreGizmo

@Cole Von Richthofen:
only if you want to access your files

lincch01

I still just want a simple solution to rip my DVDs (and eventually Blu-Rays when the time comes, but I'm not holding my breath for that anytime soon) to my Linux machine.

I've got a setup at home that could REALLY use some centralized media action. But I may have to go Windows to do it. Kinda sad, but still.

@Al Iguana: or you can use No-ip

This is working great for me.
Does anybody know of a way to allow users to create their own accounts though?

marksman7328

can you use the playlist that you already have(.wpl for the case of WMP) or you have to create them from scratch with subsonic??

I haven't tried other solutions so I can't compare, but I have been using Subsonic for a couple of years. One of the nice things about subsonic is that it transcodes on the fly. I keep most of my music in Flac, so if I want to give access to a friend and don't want to too much bandwidth to be wasted, then I simply setup a user and adjust the resulting mp3 bitrate accordingly. Subsonic does the conversion from Flac to mp3 on the fly using Lame. It can also transcode video in the same fashion, but at last it was a bit problematic. Cellphone access success rate is spotty.

Tommasino

@gymtonic: You need to find the IP adress of your computer and type that IP on other computers in your network to access. If you want to access it outside your home network then you need to get your public IP address using www.whatismyip.com and then open up the subsonic port on your router..hope this helps !

AsherAntlion

@deanhatescoffee: Check out Simplify... you can get it for you mac/pc and your iphone. Lets you stream all you music via wifi to your iphone. You can be connected to the wifi at work and have your computer at home connected to the wifi there and get all your music on your iphone. it works well

GeorgeNangidge

Anyone know if Subsonic still builds the music database off of your directory structure instead of the ID3 tags? Last time I tried it, it seemed like a great product except for this one glaring flaw.

MalcolmDolabella

I tried this a while ago and I couldn't get it to index my whole library (which was at that time somewhere between 25-40GB).

I'll give it another shot now though.

@chrisaroz: Orb requires everyone who accesses your library to sign up an account with them. Subsonic lets you create your own user accounts within it's administration area. You have MUCH more control over your media library with subsonic, IMO. It will show lyrics for songs, reviews, etc. Subsonic is second to none as far as I'm concerned, been using it for a little over 2 years now.

drnimrod

@MalcolmDolabella: It will build your library off of your directory structure, yes.

drnimrod

@ahallam: Jinzora, if i remember correctly, is not as easy to set up as subsonic. Feature wise, they are pretty comparable. Subsonic beats it out IMO, though Jinzora is still a very sweet option...

drnimrod

@Al Iguana: How about with iTUnes DRM music and video?

Tsylord

Hmm mebbe I'll try this with FreeNAS on my HP MediaCenter (the media server that it comes with is only so-so).

zoomZAP

You know what...This was actually what I was looking for, cause my wife was yelling at me to find something to do with the Old Pc or throw it out..And now it has a use again and she loves it for school...

And really simple to use, heck install, open ports, use one sub domain and it was off and running

Midget Man

@joelena: I'm pretty sure I do... Here is a basic defintion
"By definition a media server is a device that simply stores and shares media." [[en.wikipedia.org]]

VlC could easily do this... just set up a playlist with all the media you want with http interface then just use a web-page with ht access controls and you can control who uses it and then vlc streams it to you.

@OCEntertainment: just use vlc to rip the media (Blu-Ray doesn't work YET) and then stream it using vlc.

Heck, it took me ages to get TVersity streaming to my Xbox 360. Unless this thing does something whiz-bag exceptional... I don't feel compelled to switch.

Scott Harvey

@Tsylord: Just burn your purchased music to a cd and then reinstall it. When you insert the disc iTunes will ask you if you want to reinstall, just say yes to all. Good bye DRM...

any1 know if I can access it through my iphone? if so using what?

samx

This is actually very useful.....except it doesn't use ID3 tags.... I also need to set up a static IP now. That'll involve resetting my router because someone changed the password and then forgot....

MandaNoppa

@joelena: And immediately after I hit "submit", I realized, "so what?". VLC could fill the spot for someone. Ignore me. :)

@dmtofree: Regardless, VLC's Web Interface lacks many of the features (library searching, album art display, on-the-fly playlists, on-the-fly transcoding, etc.) shared with Subsonic by the likes of SqueezeCenter, Orb, Jinzora, and Ampache. Sorry for impugning your knowledge, but the meat of my rejoinder remains valid.

@Cole Von Richthofen: are you for real? lmao

MajSh

@chrisaroz: Orb is a resource hog. I would use this over orb if it uses less resources.

hakujin1

@dmtofree: I could drive a pinto instead of a z370 too... VLC is fugly.

hakujin1

@PobreGizmo: with xbox, you could use xbmc and web interface, just as a suggestion. I don't store my media on xbox so I think it'd be over the top to leave two systems on.

hakujin1

@coskibum: That's a great way to decimate the quality of the tunes... it's like making a tape of a tape.

Interesting alternative to orb.

@ahallam: Jinzora is a mess. Their database design is terrible, and doesn't scale well at all if you have a large music collection. It's also not very extensible, and requires you to really dig at the guts if you want to change much. Also the developer of Subsonic rocks. He's very responsive to user requests, and won't hesitate to add something if it's a good idea.

@coskibum: Or you could just pirate the music in the first place and save yourself the hassle and get a higher quality tune.

@marksman7328: erm - wouldn't you then just be leaving it open to the world...?

Mike Hayward

I just use TVersity as I don't care about the interface and it works well through iPhone 3G

Simieski

@chrisaroz: Orb doesn't run on linux. My home server that stores all my music runs on kubuntu and can't run Orb. I'm going to give this one a try though.

Have had great success with subsonic, using it on a large library of about 200,000 songs/1.5TB, works wonderfully, very happy with it. The developer is wonderful, and very responsive!

HaldenLeda

VERY VERY very very good software, easy to use, easy to modify. a must to build an intranet or a great media server

VeledaRabbit

@dmtofree: VLC rips DVDs in Linux?

If this is true, you sir just made my month.

@MalcolmDolabella: it's funny, building the media database off ID3 tags without an option for doing it from your directory structure seems like the glaring flaw to me. My music collection, ripped and downloaded over the years, has often-inaccurate tags, but it's all in the right folders.

Give me directory structure any day. Then the files I ripped using my command-line MP3 converter in 1996 can stay right where they are.

We've been looking for something kind of like this that can play media (entirely video) from an online library, but for mass use and not just a personal collection. We're a public access television station and have been looking into ways to put our video online to easily share with the community. Do you guys think this would work well, or would you recommend something different. Another option we're looking at is just using Vimeo but they'd prefer an on-site solution rather than a 3rd party off-site. Ideas?

@Cole Von Richthofen:
Wow, these guys are assholes.

The computer has to be on while playing or streaming. Otherwise, you can have a Wake-on-LAN (WOL) solution that will turn it off while not in use.

Think outside the box, people.

Eric Abruzzese

This works great for myself. I have about 200GB of music and it all plays correctly. There is a wap solution for access is mobile devices. Also there is a java music player that was made. There should be a link to it on YOUR subsonic wap site.

The only negative of that is the player didn't work on my mogul and my tough pro doesn't have java (the java i installed doesn't seem to like the player either). THe only other problem i has is when streaming to my phone....If i change a song in the playlist it takes about 45 seconds for the song to change. But great for ready made playlists and listening to full albums.

Mike Vojtisek

@axl456: I would use .m3u or .pls, because those seem to be more universal, but I imagine the answer is yes. I've done this before, and the trick is to save the playlist to your C:\ drive (replace with your local drive for different operating systems) so the playlist always points to the proper location. If your music is on external hard drive G, then saving it to C:\ will result in the playlist pointing to G:\MUSIC, rather than just \MUSIC, which you'd get if you saved it to G, which would in turn render your playlist unplayable in other programs.

Not sure if that's helpful, but it may save you a headache.

@dmtofree: Actually I've had a lot of problems with VLC streaming. Certain characters make the formatting on the web interface break, rendering the playlist and now playing features unusable. As someone with a considerable amount of foreign music with characters that seem to break the formatting, this is a deal-breaker.

I've had a lot more success with XBMC, but this is mainly a local-network streaming solution. It does, however, work with every device I've used so far, and delivers streaming HD content at a reasonable speed to my PS3, and that wins it a permanent place in my heart.