A DLNA server and media organizer software will allow you to enjoy your movies, music and photos on modern devices in your home. Most modern devices, such as TVs, BluRay players, audio-visual receivers, games consoles (PS3 and XBox360) and dedicated media players support DLNA. What is DLNA? DLNA is a standard that enables sharing media content between compatible devices and it is used by millions of people around the world.
We are slowly, but surely moving towards completely digital media. This means that old disks are being replaced by files which are easier to backup, easier to move around, do not break, do not age and do not collect dust. However, where you previously knew that your CD or DVD would play on all players you’d insert it into, media files are very different. Even with files in most common formats such as MPEG2 or AVI, it’s not guaranteed that they’ll play on devices that support these formats, because a format is essentially a container and the real data is encoded in streams. These streams can contain video, audio and image information and the actual encoding of the streams determines whether the file will play on the device or not. Luckily, with smart DLNA servers, this is not an issue, because such software will detect what the file’s streams are and will match that information against what your devices support. If it sees that the device cannot play the file, then this file w
ill be automatically transcoded on-the-fly, so that it can be played. This happens in real-time and without any intervention from you. All you have to do is select your media file on your TV or other DLNA device and start playback.
Another feature that a good media organizer and DLNA server should have is the actual organizing function. This means you must be able to organize media in playlists that make sense to you. You don’t want to be stuck with some predefined lists that limit your freedom of browsing your media. It’s your media, it’s your device and you must be able to see it in a way that you want. It also helps if the software can automatically catalogue files for you based on metadata and if it can detect new files and add them to the media library from your disk as they appear there. This lets you set-and-forget the software and concentrate on more important things, such as enjoying your media files with your family and friends.
Good software does not have to be big or slow. Good software is optimized to utilize your computer’s full potential when needed and then silently sit in the background when it’s not required. The last thing you want is for your media server to eat up all the CPU resources of your PC, making your computer and your media browsing experience slow and cumbersome.
If you have children, then it’s very important to have parental controls, so that you could limit contents that they can access on their tablets, smart phones or TVs in their bedrooms. A media organizer and DLNA server should allow you to limit files and folders that will be shown on particular devices; so that your kids are protected from material they should not see or hear.
You may wonder whether such a solution exists? Yes, it does. It’s called KooRaRoo Media and it’s the next generation media organizer and DLNA server available with a 30-day free trial. See how you can enjoy your media with a completely automated and smart solution that is KooRaRoo Media!