A media server is a

computer appliance A computer appliance is a home appliance with software or firmware that is specifically designed to provide a specific computing resource. Such devices became known as ''appliances'' because of the similarity in role or management to a home ap ...

or an

application software Application may refer to: Mathematics and computing * Application software, computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks ** Application layer, an abstraction layer that specifies protocols and interface methods used in a ...

that stores digital media (video, audio or images) and makes it available over a network. Media servers range from servers that provide

video on demand Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos without a traditional video playback device and the constraints of a typical static broadcasting schedule. In the 20th century, broadcasting in the form of ...

to smaller

personal computer A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or tech ...

s or NAS (Network Attached Storage) for the home.

Purpose

By definition, a media server is a device that simply stores and shares media. This definition is vague, and can allow several different devices to be called media servers. It may be a NAS drive, a

home theater PC A home theater PC (HTPC) or media center computer is a convergent device that combines some or all the capabilities of a personal computer with a software application that focuses on video, photo, audio playback, and sometimes video recording ...

running

Windows XP Media Center Edition Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE) is a version of the Windows XP operating system which was the first version of Windows to include Windows Media Center, designed to serve as a home-entertainment hub. The last version, Windows XP Media Cen ...

, MediaPortal or MythTV, or a commercial

web server A web server is computer software and underlying hardware that accepts requests via HTTP (the network protocol created to distribute web content) or its secure variant HTTPS. A user agent, commonly a web browser or web crawler, initi ...

that hosts media for a large web site. In a home setting, a media server acts as an aggregator of information:

video Video is an Electronics, electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving picture, moving image, visual Media (communication), media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, whi ...

audio Audio most commonly refers to sound, as it is transmitted in signal form. It may also refer to: Sound *Audio signal, an electrical representation of sound *Audio frequency, a frequency in the audio spectrum * Digital audio, representation of soun ...

, photos, books, etc. These different types of media (whether they originated on

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...

, CD,

digital camera A digital camera is a camera that captures photographs in digital memory. Most cameras produced today are digital, largely replacing those that capture images on photographic film. Digital cameras are now widely incorporated into mobile devic ...

, or in physical form) are stored on the media server's

hard drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with magne ...

. Access to these is then available from a central location. It may also be used to run special applications that allow the user(s) to access the media from a remote location via the internet.

Hardware

The only requirement for a media server is a method of storing media and a network connection with enough bandwidth to allow access to that media. Depending on the uses and applications that it runs, a media server may require large amounts of RAM, or a powerful

multicore A multi-core processor is a microprocessor on a single integrated circuit with two or more separate processing units, called cores, each of which reads and executes program instructions. The instructions are ordinary CPU instructions (such ...

CPU A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU performs basic arithmetic, logic, controlling, and ...

. A

RAID Raid, RAID or Raids may refer to: Attack * Raid (military), a sudden attack behind the enemy's lines without the intention of holding ground * Corporate raid, a type of hostile takeover in business * Panty raid, a prankish raid by male colleg ...

array may be used to create a large amount of storage, though it is generally not necessary in a home media server to use a

array that gives a performance increase because current home network transfer speeds are slower than that of most current

s. However, a

configuration may be used to prevent loss of the media files due to disk failure as well. Many media servers also have the ability to capture media. This is done with specialized hardware such as TV tuner cards. Analog TV tuner cards can capture video from analog broadcast TV and output from cable/satellite set top boxes. This analog video then needs to be encoded in digital format to be stored on the media server. This encoding can be done with software running on the Media server computer or by hardware on the TV tuner card. Digital TV tuner cards take input from broadcast digital TV. In North America and in South Korea, the ATSC standard is used. In most of the rest of the world, DVB-T is the accepted standard. Since these transmissions are already digital, they do not need to be encoded.

Home theater PC packages with server capabilities

A variety of packages are available to run a home theater or media center. * GB-PVR * Jellyfin * Kodi Entertainment Center (formerly XBMC) * LinuxMCE * MediaPortal * MythTV *

Orb Orb or Orbs may refer to: * Sphere * Globus Cruciger Ceremonial Orb Places and rivers * Orb (river), in southern France * Orb (Kinzig), a tributary of the Kinzig river in Germany * Bad Orb, a town in Hesse, Germany Literature, radio, film, ...

* Plex * TVersity Media Server

Media servers in performance environments

The growing use of motion graphics in environments such as

theatre Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perfor ...

, dance, corporate events and

concert A concert is a live music performance in front of an audience. The performance may be by a single musician, sometimes then called a recital, or by a musical ensemble, such as an orchestra, choir, or band. Concerts are held in a wide variet ...

s has led to the development of media servers designed specifically for live events. These machines are often high-spec PC computers with high-speed hard drive technologies such as

arrays or solid-state drives, multiple GPUs and optionally a video capture board to allow mixing live video with recorded content and real-time effects. The supplied software is usually a suite of tools starting with the main VJ environment where the user defines a number of set layers, each switchable between live, stored media or real-time generated, and layering modes between them. All of these introduce parameters of which manipulation of values in these parameters over time become the performance. High-end media server systems include support for DMX512-A,

MIDI MIDI (; Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a technical standard that describes a communications protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers, an ...

, Art-Net or similar control protocols to allow multiple remote sources like sliders, buttons and knobs on a control console to drive these parameters, as well as sending commands from the media server to for instance control RGB or moving lighting and other stage effects. A major feature of high-end media servers is projection mapping, where multiple video projectors can project images onto irregularly shaped and positioned set pieces and even track their motion. This is usually done beforehand by the designer mapping their full set out in 3D in a pre-visualization tool.

Media servers in telephony

In the world of telephony, a media server is the computing component that processes the audio or video streams associated with telephone calls or connections. Conference services are a particular example of how media servers can be used, as a special 'engine' is needed to mix audio streams together so that conference participants can hear all of the other participants. Conferencing servers may also need other specialized functions like "loudest talker" detection, or

transcoding Transcoding is the direct digital-to-digital conversion of one encoding to another, such as for video data files, audio files (e.g., MP3, WAV), or character encoding (e.g., UTF-8, ISO/IEC 8859). This is usually done in cases where a target ...

of audio streams, and also interpreting

DTMF Dual-tone multi-frequency signaling (DTMF) is a telecommunication signaling system using the voice-frequency band over telephone lines between telephone equipment and other communications devices and switching centers. DTMF was first developed ...

tones used to navigate menus. For video processing, it may be needed to change video streams, for example transcode from one video codec to another or rescale a picture from one size to another. These media processing functions are the core responsibility of a media server. With telephony networks moving towards

VoIP Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also called IP telephony, is a method and group of technologies for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. The terms Interne ...

technology, and using

Session Initiation Protocol The Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is a signaling protocol used for initiating, maintaining, and terminating communication sessions that include voice, video and messaging applications. SIP is used in Internet telephony, in private IP telep ...

(SIP), the idea of media servers has started to gain some traction. Typically, an application (the 'application server') has the controlling logic, and controls a remote media server (or multiple servers) over an IP connection, possibly using SIP. Protocols such as Netann, MSCML and MSML have been created for this way of working, and a new protocol, MediaCTRL, is under development at the

IETF The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is a standards organization for the Internet and is responsible for the technical standards that make up the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP). It has no formal membership roster or requirements and ...

. The

IP Multimedia Subsystem The IP Multimedia Subsystem or IP Multimedia Core Network Subsystem (IMS) is a standardised architectural framework for delivering IP multimedia services. Historically, mobile phones have provided voice call services over a circuit-switched-styl ...

(IMS), the blueprint for next generation networks, defines a component called the MRF (Media Resource Function), which is a kind of media server. In the case of IMS, the 'controlling logic' is provided by the MRFC (MRF controller), which, along with layers above, constitutes an 'application server'. Although the MRF has been associated largely with the legacy telecom H.248 protocol (see

Gateway Control Protocol The Gateway Control Protocol (Megaco, H.248) is an implementation of the media gateway control protocol architecture for providing telecommunication services across a converged internetwork consisting of the traditional public switched telephone ...

), it is claimed that SIP-based protocols like MediaCTRL will ultimately prevail.

Media servers in cinema

Media servers in cinema allow users to download and watch high quality content by utilizing a movie player and plugging into a display or AV system. Kaleidescape offers a movie server to store and cache content that enhances player performance.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Media Server Multimedia Servers (computing)