Universal Media Server 2.6

Universal Media Server can stream media contents, including audio, images and video, to various networked devices, such as game consoles, music centers and televisions. Besides the main advantage of allowing you to store all files in a single place, this also helps you avoid compatibility issues that may arise between the original formats and those supported by the target device.

Unfortunately, Universal Media Server doesn’t have a visually appealing interface. In my opinion, the application should have been designed more in accordance to its entertainment purposes. It’s a good thing, however, that it also has a web interface, which allows you to navigate the media library and play files directly from your browser. Although configuring the program may be a difficult task, there’s an initial configuration wizard to help you. Moreover, advanced options can be hidden if you don’t want to be overwhelmed by so many details. Finally, I’m glad the server is accompanied by an excellent user guide.

From the technical point of view, Universal Media Server is flawless. Do you remember what I said about avoiding compatibility problems? This tool can perform on-the-fly, transcoding and remuxing, which means that it can simply retrieve media and translate it into a format that your device can understand. And not only that, it can do this in real time, provided your computer’s processor is powerful enough. In addition, it also supports streaming subtitles. Last but not least, the program comes with everything it needs to work properly, which doesn’t mean its features cannot be expanded by installing additional plugins.

All in all, Universal Media Player is a good choice. If you’re wondering why you would need such a program when Windows Media Player can also stream media contents, the answer is because your system’s built-in player doesn’t support transcoding, so many of your files are likely not to be supported by the receiving device.

v2.6 [Mar 29, 2013]
1. General:
Added "Live Subtitles" which means you can select subtitles from the Internet via your device. It can be enable on the Navigation/Share Settings page.
Improved layout of the Navigation/Share Settings page
Implemented default subtitle preferences, to use them:Either use the "Clean Install" option on Windows or put "eng,off;*,eng;*,und" into the "Audio/subtitles language priority" box in the "Subtitles settings" tab on the Transcoding Settings page
Fixed DTS muxing with FFmpeg
Added "precoder" functionality, useful for plugin developers
Added h.264 encoding support to MEncoder (when renderers specify it)
2. Languages:
Updated Czech translation
Updated English settings labels
Updated Simplified Chinese translation
3. External Components:
Updated h2 database to 1.3.171, which:
Increases speed
Improves JDK 7 compatibility
Updated MPlayer/MEncoder for Windows SB52, which:
Improves audio sync
Improves DVD support
Supports filenames with uncommon characters
Fixes memory leaks
Improves sync with Real videos
Fixes a crash
Updated Netty to 3.6.3, which:
Makes browsing more stable