A good media server?

[greybard]

My conversation in another topic has me wondering...

What is the best media UPnP server I can load on my 5200?

I would like it to stream MP3s, WAVs, and Flac.

Streaming video (AVIs) wouldn't hurt either.

Anyone happy with any of the servers out there?

Thanks!

[drewy]

I think it's going to depend on what your client devices are and whether a particular media server supports your client.
Don't be lulled into a false sense of security by statements such as DLNA compatibility, the whole thing is a complete mess. Some servers support some aspects of the standard and then each client suports it's own intrepretation of that standard.

I think quite a few users have had a lot of luck with twonky and I've used it myself for streaming to roku devices. So it's been fine for me for audio use. But I have a number of SOny Bravia HDTV's that allegedly suport DLNA, sort of
They only support certain video formats such as mpeg2, so I either need something to do the transcoding (in real time) or I need to convert several TB's of divx\xvid content (not an option).
Unfortunatley every recent linux build of twonky that I've tried will not connect to these tv's.
So I've been looking at pms (playstation media server), this has recently been modified to connect to Sony tv's and it does the real time transcoding that I need. Whether the thecus has the brute horsepower to do the transcoding is a different question. I hope to be able to spent some time at the weekend testing it..

In short I think everyones recommendation will be different, depending on what clients they have and their personal experiences.
It may be better to mention what client devices you have or intend to purchase and maybe you'll then get a more objective response.