What is Reddit's opinion of
Subsonic?
From 3.5 billion Reddit comments
100 reviews of this app found across Reddit:
Sure!
Music streaming:
I have a pretty big collection of music in FLAC and MP3 format, so I wanted a way to stream the music located on the external harddrive to a mobile app. I used a fork on github of something called subsonic to convert and stream the music to an app on my Android phone called ultrasonic. It also has a web interface, and supports streaming of video - but that's a bit labor-intensive for my poor pi.
Laundromat:
I only started this project a few days ago, because I got tired of using the washing machine registration system provided by Miele for my local laundromat. Basically, the website doesn't properly remember logins, doesn't allow you to automatically reserve on certain dates and times, and often I would reserve a washing machine and forget all about it because three or four days would pass. I have a kid on the way, and don't want to miss those all-important washing times, so I created two python scripts that automatically reserves the next available machine, mails the time and date of the reservation and machine type to me and my wife using the local mail server, and schedules a reminder e-mail so it reminds me 10 minutes before I need to grab the laundry and head over to the laundromat. :) I also want it to do recurring reservations on given dates, and have it be able to send text messages (Which I implemented using Twilio, but I can't for the life of me figure out if it's free or not, so that's on hold for now).
Anyway, the Python script will probably only work for danish MieleLogic websites, and it's pretty hacked together at this point, but it's available here: https://github.com/fennesz/PyWasher
Checkout Subsonic. I started using it to listen to my music collection while at work, now I use it at home as well just because I like the interface so much.
I use Subsonic to stream my collection from PC to phone. It's an open source music streamer (and I think you can have it check podcasts too) that can stream to anybody with a browser/smartphone.
I do believe the streaming to Android, after awhile, requires you to donate.
I just did some research and found out about Subsonic, a free program that allows you to stream to any device, such as your smart phone. Well, problem solved, lol. I'm still curious about everyone's options, though.
Subsonic since I have a server up 24/7 anyway (along with several of my friends who have servers up as well). Nothing like being able to stream your (or others') entire music collection wherever you are.
Subsonic is almost what you want... not html5 though (music player is flash based...)
Is not the only one (is the one I use), but most alternatives have some or other quirk...
Subsonic may work for you. I run it in a very small VM, without any issues.
*Edit - I have quite a few machines that do not have have CD drives or will USB boot, but most of them will PXE boot. not sure about your particular machine but may be something to look into as well.
Subsonic ought to get more love. The basic idea is that it is an audio server that lets you stream your music collection. You can stream over your home network, over the internet, to smartphones, etc - it's highly configurable and up to you what you do with it. It's written in Java, so it is compatible with Win/Mac/Linux.
The server software is free and allows for unlimited streaming over a web browser interface. The smartphone app has a free trial and costs $1/mo after the trial expires.
You could install Subsonic, which would allow you to stream your music or video files through a web-based interface or using an Android app:
Either interface allows you to enable a "remote control" mode that plays the media through the server (instead of the local device).
When streaming through one of the Android apps, the files are cached but the size of the cache is configurable.
There are other apps. I haven't tried them, but they probably work just fine.
Subsonic is a favorite among Linux users. With the right equipment properly configured, you can connect from wired to wireless, but if it doesn't work right off the bat, wrangling with the rather limited web-based router control panel may be a real pain.
I would suggest using a subsonic server and using the isub app from the App Store.
http://www.subsonic.org/pages/index.jsp there is a one off fee of £10
http://isubapp.com I think this was £3.00
If you are jailbroken there are some tweaks that you can get the music to import into your music app otherwise just use the isub app.
Subsonic is what I've used in the past, however, I'm looking at implementing Plex (as victorknight) said, so that I can transcode and stream video on the fly.
I used to use Simplify Media back on iOS 2 and 3. It was a good option, but I bet Google used what they bought to help make Google Music.
I would say you have 2 good and different options.
Option 1:
Install Google Music on you Desktop/Server and it will automatically upload all your current and new music to Google's servers. You are limited to 20,000 tracks so that should be enough.
Then instlall one of the many Google Music apps on iOS. gMusic is a good one.
Option 2:
More closely to your request is to install subsonic (http://www.subsonic.org/pages/index.jsp) on your Desktop/Server. Subsonic alllows you to stream to many devices and there are a couple iOS apps that connect to subsonic. This is actually the method I use and I use the iOS app Sonic Stream, though I used to use iSub.
My coworker has a pretty nifty install of SubSonic, which is pretty much the same thing in a different package.
I know I've ran a few other media servers over the years, as well.
Have you tried running a VPS from DigitalOcean or Amazon AWS or even Google's own VPS system (it's still in Beta, I think). You could run something like Subsonic, which is designed to categorize and serve music to clients from a central server. I would get with your IT folks to talk about setting this up. If you get Subsonic, pay for the license so you have better tech support. You can then connect a Chrome Extension to the server and have each student play music from there.
Also, if you're running G-Suite (I suspect you are if you use Google Drive as your enterprise storage), you might reach out to customer service at Google to see if they can help you set something up and reduce the burden on yourself and your local IT dudes.
I use Xpenology which is a way to install the Synology OS on any machine. I put together my own NAS using a low-power CPU and a case that fits a lot of hard drives. I love it. Mainly because the Synology OS is good. You can install lots of packages on it and if you know Linux you can manually configure/install things.
For example I use subsonic which allows streaming over the web, but also ties in nicely with Sonos at home.
For TV we have a media PC running OpenELEC which I also highly recommend.
I dont like using Spotify, a lot of artists that I listen are not in their catalog, for now Im just using Youtube (Im in University so I dont have a lot of time), but Im planning to have my own streamming cloud(I'm audiophile, planning to have 1TB of storage for my music), I will make this project in my vacations with Subsonic :http://www.subsonic.org/pages/index.jsp and a Raspberry Pi. For me its the best solution.
I personally use subsonic. While subsonic DOES require a subscription (I use it because I'm grandfathered into a lifetime license I got for ~$10 back in the day), if I remember correctly, the code itself is open source, and there are a few forks that are completely free. I really like it - the web interface is decent and works, and I can stream to all my devices - iPhone, android, and Roku. I've got TONS of music, and most of my family set up to stream from it.
If you're on an Android device:
Doubletwist with Airsync is pretty cool. Does wifi syncing.
Winamp also does wireless syncing.
Subsonic is also amazing. You can have your own personal music cloud.
I've only donated to Subsonic, not because I'm cheap though, it's because I honestly don't have money to donate.
But when I used Subsonic, I just had to.
After I finish my education and find a stable job, I'll probably set up monthly donations to FSF and EFF as a thank-you for providing me with great software and protecting my freedoms all these years.
You might be interested in Subsonic. Rather than rely on the cloud, it streams your music (and supposedly video, but I haven't tried it) from your PC or Mac, automatically transcoding it if need be, and it has a client for iPhone and Android. It's "donation-ware", with a suggested donation of 10 euros. I've been using it for about a year now and it's been amazing.
It's not as old and crippled as you might think. Not having a CD drive does pose a small problem. You could install Ubuntu using Wubi (mount the ISO with Daemon-Tools or similar), remove the GUI, and then install something like Subsonic (thanks sparcxl).
Alternatively, you might be able to move the hard drive to another machine for installation and then move it back. Make sure you unplug your other hard drives first to avoid installing GRUB somewhere you don't want or having it detect OSs that you don't care about. Also, Newegg has a cheap IDE (I assume that's what you need) DVD drive ($15.99 + $0.99 shipping).
The Windows box plays using a Browser and Subsonic. It is a music streaming server that runs on my rack-mounted server (and 28TB Synology RAID) in my server closet. It is capable of streaming full quality FLAC (if that is the source) or matching whatever bitrate the source material is.
On my Macbook Pro, I use Audirvana.
No workaround on GPM that I know of, but you could easily achieve this by using Subsonic. You just need to have an always-on, always-connected computer to serve the music to you both.
Three ways I scrobble short tracks:
- Universal Scrobbler scrobbles songs of any length - you can manually enter song details or search the database (Discogs/Musicbrainz/Last.fm).
- Cogscrobbler grabs details from Discogs, and you can run it while you are playing an album, or choose a time. It has the 30 second limit but you can edit the song length to <30 secs to make short tracks scrobble.
- I play a lot of music with Subsonic - it scrobbles a song as soon as it starts to play, which can be annoying, but it does mean short songs get scrobbled.
Are you talking about streaming your own content that you can reach while away from home, for yourself? Or is this like a business you want to launch? If the former, try Subsonic. If the latter, this might not be the right sub...
beets + subsonic works great for me. You can run beets in a coarse, quiet mode initially then rerun the scan for any difficult tracks. The latest subsonic beta brings back chromecast support which is great and the DSub app for Android is fantastic for when you are out and about. I only have 12,000 songs however I know people run this setup with much bigger libraries.
Spotify does streaming really well, but I have never liked the way it handles my local files. IMO, their goal is to have a massive music library already available so that there is no reason to 'bring your own files' because ideally they are already there. My understanding though is that the Artist's category should show you all the artists you have saved including local files.
I can't speak for Mac, but on Windows, if you hover over the Spotify icon in the task bar then a preview should pop up and there should be the basic skip/start/pause controls.
I concur, it appears you cannot adjust the queue order.
Hulu and other streaming providers all have the same problem, really frustrating.
You might try looking into something like Tomahawk. You could use something like Subsonic to make your local library "streamable", and then you would use Tomahawk to access both Spotify and Subsonic from one music player interface.
If you want a great virtualization host + NAS solution, I would recommend SmartOS. It's Solaris based, but it has a port of KVM for all your VM needs, and has native ZFS support. I switched my NAS server from Gentoo Linux to SmartOS about 2 years ago, and couldn't be more pleased. I have the global zone serving up NFS, a SmartOS zone running Samba and Subsonic servers, and a Gentoo Linux install running under KVM. Throw in an SSD or two to cache synchronous writes and serve as an L2ARC cache, and you've got a very flexible and high performance server!
I've used Subsonic for a few years now, it'll do just want you want. The software is free. If you want to use Apps along with it for your devices (Android, iOS, Windows, Windows Phone, etc) it's $1 a month (you can pay monthly, yearly, or lifetime for $99).
I think it works great, worth checking out.
If you're looking for iTunes style organization and sync you should try doubletwist.
However, a couple of years ago I purchased a Subsonic music server license and never looked back. Now I have my own music server from which I can stream or download. The Dsub app recently added the ability to sync with a subsonic server.
It doesn't. Don't know why he suggested that, but for me, Google Play Music's biggest value is synching my own tunes to the cloud. Spotify does have a pretty nice selection of music, but ten bucks a month and I can't even synch my own music? No thanks. Alternatively, if you're willing to get your hands dirty, you could check out SubSonic. Never used it because Google works for me, as I only get a new phone every few years and don't flash roms, but I've heard good things about it.
Plex Media Server is great for organizing your media, collecting metadata and (if necessary) transcoding files for playback on a variety of different devices.
With a PlexPass subscription, you may select items to sync with the mobile clients. Plex Media Server will transcode the files so they can be played on the target device and push them to the device so you can have access to your media offline. You can have Plex Media Server sync push new items to your device as they become available or as you finish watching synced items.
Plex Media Server isn't going to be able to handle your archived media so you'd have to extract the files. It also doesn't really handle playlists but does allow you to build up a play queue.
I personally don't find Plex Media Server's handling of audio files to be very conducive to listening to music so I use Subsonic. It allows you to transcode and stream your music through the web or through mobile clients. (I would recommend DSub for a client.) You can access playlists on all of your devices and manage them from the clients. DSub will automatically cache songs that you've played so you don't have to download them again. You may also preemptively select items to sync to your device as well. (Note: Subsonic requires a subscription in order to enable support for mobile clients but there are other forks of the project that are subscription-free.)
/uj
Subsonic? I don't know what you're missing from iTunes since I've never used it so I might be a football field off here.
It's what I use and along with DSub (the dev rocks and, w/ Chromecast support too fuck the free client) I, and all those other iShills and Nexus Warriors (~~don't know if there's a client for Windows Phone~~ edit: there's clients for all and the server can be installed on a multitude of OS/devices) can get at my music anytime they want. Auto downloads podcasts, users can upload music to the server and, you can be fairly granular with users permissions. There's more I could bang on about it but try it, it's free, interface is a bit clunky but it has served me well (donate version here) for quite a few years now.
If you check out Ubuntu's forums there's lots of people asking for alternatives to iTunes so maybe a search over there may bring you some answers.
/
FUCK iTUNES WITH A BARGE POLE
I'm also in Canada and use a couple services for different things.
As previously mentioned, Rdio is a great option for streaming music. At $10/month, it's quite comparable to Spotify and has a great selection.
If you're looking for an alternative to Google Play for playing your own music, what I do is run a Subsonic server on my computer at home and then the accompanying app on my phone. And that's for $1/month.
Third, I use Songza for those times when I want curated music. Sometimes, I just want someone else to pick the music for me.
I have a subsonic server at home that connects to my fileserver. So I can access all my music/films over the internet.
It also caches on mobile devices, and you can set it to pre-cache
Donationware Subsonic or free clone Supersonic.
We use this as a media server. Transcodes any video/audio you throw at it's 'incoming' directory to Flash on the fly. Even has decent user management and Active Directory integration. The interface is pretty music/album oriented but that's certainly not a dealbreaker.
iTunes on an external isn't so bad. I have a 350Gb library, and I use iTunes to manage it. I have a pretty recent MBP, whic I'm sure helps. I find that iTunes actually does a great job of doing what I need, so long as I'm diligent about keeping it organized.
If you have an old computer lying around, with an always-on Internet connection, Subsonic might be worth a look. It lets you stream your library over the Internet, and does a good job handling large libraries.
Lastly, check out www.dougscripts.com there are tons of useful scripts that have helped me manage and organize my library.
take a look at http://mediatomb.cc/ it should do that you want but another good media server is Subsonic which is a little easer to use but you have to make a donation after a month if you want to use it to watch video which helps fund the devlopment of the project however I'm not sure if Subsonic will do the transcoding you want but I could be wroing
I have my server setup with samba and minidlna for local media. Samba allows backups and accessing files from pretty much anything on the network. MiniDlna provides the streaming to any dlna compliant device on the network (Smart phones, TV, computers.) of music, video and pictures.
Then when I'm out and about I use Subsonic pointed at the same media folders. It lets me listen to my music and even watch the videos if they're in the right format.
sudo apt-get install samba minidlna (configure the services, pm me if you need more details.) go to http://www.subsonic.org/pages/index.jsp and get the install file.
Add in Sabnzbd+ for downloading files from Usenet. Sick beard for downloading tv shows. Couch potato for downloading movies. Head Phones for downloading music.
We're pretty happy with it.
Nope, there really aren't any good stations. Every once in a while, the college station at SAC plays something worthwhile, but (a) that's rare, and (b) their range is so small you can't listen to them without major static outside of 410.
You can use your phone to listen to last.fm or Pandora or some other internet radio if your car stereo has support for that. If you have the technical know-how you can set up something like Subsonic to stream your personal music collection to your phone as well.
A simple file server for you and your friends doesn't need to be more than a home computer or NAS that's always on, having sensible bandwidth and somehow listening to the outside. If you want to make it really secure and damn simple to use, you should consider sshfs with RSA keys. Both Linux and BSD (and therefore Mac OS) users can use FUSE with next to no hassle. If there is Windows users, they can either use your sshfs server via WinSCP, or you can look into samba. If you just want to stream sound (and, I think video, but have no experience), Subsonic is your super-easy, super-friendly friend.
Happy sharing!
I use Subsonic to stream from my home computer to the iSub app. iSub caches the music so I can listen again later when not on the network. Also I can stream music to any browser or phone anytime with Subsonic. I use Google Music sometimes too but Subsonic is really the best music app ever. I have never once used iTunes to get music or video onto my iPad.
Subsonic or PlayOn.
But if you are on HC, you can use File Manager HD .
Doubletwist with Airsync is pretty cool. Does wifi syncing.
Subsonic is also amazing. You can have your own personal music cloud.
Winamp also does wireless syncing.
I know you're concerned about audio quality, but when you're on the go - listening to music on [likely] mediocre headphones - you're really not going to perceive any increase in audio quality above 192kbps.
If you have a broadband internet connection at home, and don't mind leaving your computer online, you could run your own media server and stream directly to your phone. The bonus to this is that you would be able to listen from any other computer connected to the internet as well.
I have been doing this very thing for years, since I have a very large music library, stored in a variety of formats including many lossless albums. I've moved around between programs, but for the past 2 years, I've been using Subsonic. It has a fantastic web interface on conventional computers, but also has app support for Android and iOS devices and best of all it is free.
It lets you add multiple locations, will TRANSCODE your media on the fly so you don't need to worry about conversions, and has advanced profiling support so that you can create different users with different access restrictions, streaming options, bit rate limits, and more.
The only things you need to worry about is additional battery usage and exceeding bandwidth restrictions from your carrier. Estimate how many hours you listen to music via your phone each month and how much standard internet data usage you consume each month. Set an appropriate bitrate limit that will provide decent quality without jeopardizing your web usage.
A few months ago I picked up a Dlink-321 NAS and two 2tB drives that I moved all my media collection to. I run subsonic on my media PC thats pretty much always on. Subsonic includes a web app you can access from any other computer to stream your music/movies, as well as droid/iphone apps that let you stream to your phone.
Its a pricey initial investment but with this setup I can access all my media from any location as long as my computer is on.
Orb has been out for quite awhile. I used to use it, but never really liked the performance. I used airvideo for awhile after that and still wasn't satisfied. Finally, I found Subsonic. This is the best option that I've come across so far. Excellent speed when streaming, and it does transcoding from almost any format!
Subsonic? I was going to buy an iPod classic a couple years ago... then my music collection got large enough where even transcoding it to V0 MP3s wouldn't make it fit. So what's the point of buying something with a lot of storage at all if it won't fit my entire collection?
I really wish I could afford $30 a month for data. I'd have an iPhone or Android phone and I would just stream all of my music (and video).
Like a decade ago I used subsonic, which worked great. I see there have been many updates since then, although a quick cursory search does not seem to yield any pre-made docker template in Unraid.
I went down this road when Google Play Music shut down. There aren't really any worthwhile streaming services that allow you to upload your own music to their servers. Especially not one's that don't require a monthly subscription..
I ended up setting up a (Subsonic)[http://www.subsonic.org/pages/index.jsp] server on my home pc, then use DSub on my android devices. These two essentially act as my own version of Google Play Music; I can stream to anywhere with a (reeeally cheap: $12 for a year) subsonic premium license, and DSub has local caching if I don't have Internet service.
Overall, it works great. Setup isn't as annoying as you'd expect, either.
Plex will do what you want. However, music is very new on the platform and is still being improved. Plex is more for TV and Movies, so it depends if this is of interest too or you just want music.
Have you looked at anything like Subsonic? That's purely designed for music, has a variety of apps available. I used to use this some time ago but ended up moving to Spotify as my needs changed.
I would look at what you'd like to achieve first. Then how it can be achieved can be looked at later. You'll be able to demo the functionality of both for free though.
Subsonic ( http://www.subsonic.org/pages/index.jsp ) is reasonably popular, if you can manage setting it up, yourself. I'm concerned that it's abandoned, but the latest version is still functional with no bugs that I can notice.
Hi - I'm in a similar situation to you. I've spent a few years now building up my music collection on GPM, I'm not really bothered by playlists and the like so can't really see any upside to YTM.
I'm looking into Subsonic as an alternative, I'll need to purchase a large SSD - I have a raspberry pi at home I can use. It means downloading all my music from Google and hosting it myself but therefore will have ultimate control.
Could be an option for you also.
My Subsonic Stats are:
- 3,675 artists
- 11,723 albums
- 158,925 songs
- 825 GB GB
I'd concur with the suggestion of breaking stuff up into genres.
I'm using the french PCDM system myself - https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principes_de_classement_des_documents_musicaux
ex:
- 2.1 Rock
- 2.2 Pop
- 2.5 Hard Rock
- 2.6 Punk
- 2.7 New Wave
As for software, subsonic/airsonic seems to do the trick for me - i can't see why it wouldn't do the same job for your purposes. I do run this on my NAS, not my home system.
What kind of duplicates do you have? Same song/different albums, or same song/same album? If you have tagged everything properly, mp3tag can automatically sort the files into the correct folders, and that will help a little bit. Deduplicators should handle the binary duplicates.
Well I don't know if this will help but I have my own music server on a Linux box. I use Subsonic it's a great server with a lot of functions way better than plex IMO for music. Also does other stuff but then again it looks like you're trying not to have your PC on all the time. Check it out if you want http://www.subsonic.org/pages/index.jsp
The most important thing for me was getting a copy of my photo stream, plus the wife and kids'.
I use this script in a number of different containers to poll each account every 6 hours:
https://github.com/ndbroadbent/icloud_photos_downloader
For music, I have a Subsonic server which lets me stream music from home over the Internet using the iSub app. It also lets me cache music for when I have no internet:
Not that I'm aware of, but one option that I absolutely can't live without is Subsonic. There is a free version thats lacking a few features but the payed version is only $1/month and you can have your own URL without having your own server! This is what I've been using for the better half of 3 years and I LOVE it!
I use SubSonic. It runs on the same Windows 10 server that I have Plex running on. The AVsub app allows me to stream my music to my car or while I'm away from home.
It's not perfect. For instance, albums by various artists (like movie soundtracks) are not easily playable as a list, only as individual songs by artist (unless you make a playlist for them). Also, playlists are cumbersome to create but once they are created they work well.
SubSonic also streams and transcodes to lower bitrates on the fly and to the preference of the admin or individual user. My FLAC collection is also part of my library and I can stream the songs to 192kbps when I'm driving. The server does all the work.
I have a 50,000 track iTunes library and SubSonic is the only server app that has been able to effectively handle that numbere of tracks and allow me to navigate them quickly and efficiently. I have not tried Plex, but I think it chokes on HUGE libraries. I also have Control4, and that doesn't work at all.
2 options:
iTunes
- Convert to ALAC.
- Copy over using iTunes
- Sync phone
Subsonic
- Install Subsonic
- Pay the subscription ($1.00/month or $12/year)
- Let it index your FLAC files
- Install a Client: Avsub $3.99, Play:Sub $4.99
- Connect to phone to Subsonic using client
- Turn off transcoding on server.
- Stream FLACs to your phone
- You can also cache FLACs, so they're available offline
- BONUS: Open port on your router and stream your music library anywhere you install a subsonic client.
The roll-your-own alternative to this is Subsonic. I use it to listen to music from home at work, it's great. Works on mobile too but my phone internet is too slow for it.
The best one is Subsonic Media Server but it takes some time to setup. Once you have the server setup on your PC, there are several client apps that you can download on your phone. I've found dSub to be an excellent client.
If what you are looking for is ease of use/easy setup, then yeah I would say Videostream is still king. If you want a competitor then Subsonic is out there. But I switched from that one to Videostream.
If something alike Spotify qualifies for a jukebox: e.g. koel or Subsonic (via HN: Self-Hosted Spotify Clone)
Yeah, it's really baffling. I enjoy GMusic a LOT even though I use Spotify for streaming. (I listen to a lot of video game soundtracks, of which there are few on Spotify.)
To be honest, getting bitten by this last week was the push I needed to give Subsonic a go. I'm going to run this on a Raspberry Pi and see how that goes...
Are you running streisand at home or on a VPS with a public IP? I'd love to run it at home, but I wasn't sure what I'd have to do to get that to work.
Also, for iTunes sharing, would something like http://www.subsonic.org/pages/index.jsp work?
I personally use a Subsonic server http://www.subsonic.org/pages/index.jsp Then I put the iSub app on my iPhone and iPad. From there you can download anything you want right to the device. You just go to the file and hold down your finger and hit either "download" or "queue."
Makes viewing and downloading stuff a breeze and I haven't plugged in my iPad or iPhone to a computer to sync in years.
Subsonic. Podcast receiver, Chromecast, Sonos, jukebox mode, on-the-fly downsampling and conversion, multiple frontends, highly customizable, full support for tags, lyrics and album art, DLNA, open REST API, ...
There a lots of ways to do this. How you'd go about it depends on your specific situation. The principles are exactly the same as those for "dedicated machines". This will involve some sort of server or service to listen for requests, probably some port forwarding on your firewall / router to enable the requests to get in to your system, and the data to get out again. What you want to access also plays a big role in your workflow. Untouched Blue Ray rips are unlikely to stream well without being transcoded first, unless of course they're aleady compressed which you didn't mention. Is it even the BR rips you want to access? And how - on a phone or tablet? do you have other media that you want to get at. Do you want to stream it, download it, or just look at some pictures? The size of your disks is mostly irrelevant. What matters is What OS and other software you're using, and what you actually want to do. For a lot of people, Subsonic is a useful tool for accessing media from elsewhere, but I can only guess that this might be vaguely helpful to you given that you haven't said what you want to actually DO, only that you ran out of space and have an external drive.
The server didn't take much time at all to set up. I used Subsonic and configured it to my liking. The actual sorting of the music takes the longest, as I tag each track with its composer, lyricist, arranger, etc. The sorting in itself isn't really necessary for the Subsonic server, but I still do it anyways.
You could use subsonic to stream your music/books to your ipod. It's similar to plex, but specifically for music/audio. You would of course need an Internet connection active on your ipod.
Subsonic is what you're after. It transcodes flac to high quality vbr mp3 on the fly and more.
The free app on Google Play is alright but it doesn't have casting ability. DSub on the other hand is way better and is also CC compatible. As for iPhone apps I ain't too sure but since you've got a Android phone you should be good to go.
I would say that if you want access to a large library of music on the go (I'm assuming you have a smartphone), and don't want to spend time fiddling, yes.
However, there are a lot of cool alternatives. What I do personally (or at least did, I haven't had time to repair a bad power supply in my server PC) is set up a streaming media server using Subsonic. Then, with an app like Dsub for my phone, I stream all my home music and movies anywhere I like at whatever quality I like. This is a much more flexible and powerful solution, but it's a time investment to set it up, and requires a small amount of technical know-how.
That's my $.02.
Plex doesn't handle music very well. Install a Subsonic server on the same box that handles your PMS. It's a very low cpu intensive music server. There are clients for a number of mobile devices, plus a browser interface. Or you could use Madsonic, a fork of subsonic with some add'l features. You have to be logged in to see the Madsonic download link.
If this is the case, I would like to ask for Subsonic support, since I use that to stream my local collection to my phone, tablet, laptop, and other internet-enabled devices.
Of course, I would like to see both options since some of us still do maintain a local collection. (I guess I'm sorta in the minority with the option to do both.)
I setup a Subsonic server in my home http://www.subsonic.org/pages/index.jsp
Then I use the iSub app on both my iPhone and iPad and I can add music on the fly to the current playlist. I can't recommend Subsonic enough, I built it a few years ago and it has been absolutely perfect, no more having to sync with my computer and I can access my server via iPhone, Android, iPad or website. I can stream music/videos to anything along with airplay it out to a tv or airplay enabled device.
> Air Video HD
You should look into Subsonic http://www.subsonic.org/pages/index.jsp
You just create a server, point it toward your data, then you create a server address like http://myserver.subsonic.org. Download iSub on both your iPhone and iPad, plug in the address and bam you now have your collection of music,videos, etc available anywhere you travel. It can even be accessed from the webpage at the same address you just created.
It's one of the best things I ever did in terms of music and not having to sync with my computer and being able to access my information from anywhere. Not to mention it uses Airplay as well so I can beam the content to any screen.
You're welcome. No upvotes?
Subsonic provides a few benefits over the standard windows music manager. It handles a ton of music quickly. If you only access your music over the lan, it is free. With $1 a month, you can access your music over the internet, and have access to mobile players
http://www.subsonic.org/pages/index.jsp
Checkout the screenshots on the site. Feel free to ask specific questions.
I love grooveshark! Recently I have been using Subsonic to host and serve my own library. This isn't as nice looking as grooveshark, but it works with your video too and only costed me about $12 to buy the android app and donate to the dev.
BTW, where can I find the $30 holiday discount for grooveshark?
Yep, open source software sucks hard
There's a good chance that this very site you're posting on is run on open source software.
Lemme see, what else runs off open source: Mac OS X, Every distro of Linux, Tons of govt systems/servers, The entire Android platform
The list goes on but it would take me over a year to list them all, at minimum.
This guy takes cake for funniest post of the day.
Really, you think so? That's DSub. It's an app for Subsonic Music Streamer. I'm not a huge fan of the aesthetics of the app, the function is why I use it. I kinda think the widget is ugly.
I suggest Subsonic.
If you donate, you get unlimited remote control.
You can play any music that is on your computer to the receiver or to your phone. as well as cache the music on your phone.
Look into subsonic, it transcodes your media library into a youtube-like format that you can access with any flash-capable browser. It eats my 1080p h.264 mkv's for breakfast and outputs a variable stream for your viewing pleasure.
I find Opera works best for android, and I remember having some kind of issue with flash version, but with minimal setup I have everything accessible from anywhere.
Another thing you might want to install, if she has a video collection is Subsonic. Install it, forward ports from the router (if you want to use it outside the house), and she can stream her video collection to her tablet (iOS, Android, etc. apps) or any PC through a browser. Also, the server is java based, so it runs on Windows/Mac/Linux.
It was originally designed for music (what I started using it for), but it's great with videos, too. It automatically transcodes just about anything (non-DRM, of course) into mp3 audio or h.264 video and streams it.
The one catch is that if you want to use it with a mobile device you eventually have to donate, but I've used it for years and I love it.
Also, I realize this may sound a little bit like an ad, but I promise I'm not paid to spam this or anything; I just really love this software.
tl;dr Cross-platform music and video collection streaming server for phones/tablets/PCs.
Subsonic does those things.
It does things a bit differently than other music apps, since you stream music directly from your PC to your Android device, without going through intermediary servers or creating an account with any company. That will make it a bit more complicated to set up, since you need to install server software on your PC, and configure port forwarding in your router. Once it's set up, it's amazing.
For example, you tell it what folder on your PC contains your playlists. When you're on your Android, you can browse all the playlists in that folder, pick any, and they'll play on your smartphone. It would behave just like you'd expect if you copied the playlist file over, without actually having to do the copy. You can multiselect songs from a search from your media library, and if you create a new playlist within the Subsonic app, it will save the playlist file in that same folder, on your home PC. (Mind, I've only used .m3u playlists this way; I don't know if it'll work with Foobar playlists).
Subsonic is free and open source. You need to set up a web domain for your streaming. For a donation, Subsonic will let you create one on their servers, in the form of yourname.subsonic.org. However, doing so is not mandatory.
I have a linux system set up with SubSonic, for exactly this reason.
It doesn't matter where I am in the house, I can access my entire music collection from any device. Even our new SmartTV.
I've only really run into a problem once and that was with "Subsonic" which I wanted to use to stream music to myself elsewhere or to friends while playing Battlefield. I can't get it to work outside my home network because of this problem -- I check from an external site to see my ports and all but 80 are nogo.
But somehow, Steam, Origin, all games within, and Skype which tell me to forward ports, never have issues, even running together (I use skype to voice chat with my BF3 teammates). So multiple programs have no problem using port 80, but I can't get Subsonic and Skype to use Port 80 and I wanted to stream music to them while we played.
Anyway, bottom line is that I've only ever had one problem with ports and it was for a weird setup I'm annoyed won't work but isn't the end of the world and cost me nothing anyway.
iSub is an App that allows you to stream music from a server. I have a server setup through these guys. Basically I have about 2TB of music on a computer in my living room, using subsonic allows me to stream it over the web or through mobile devices. The only thing that has cost me anything so far is the iSub app itself was like $4 (best $4 App I've bought yet). Subsonic is free and you just need to be a bit tech savy to set it up. I share this server with about 15 close friends and we all use it constantly. The 1.5GB is a cacheing option through iSub so that you can play music even when you don't have service (planes, etc).
If you get fed up with trying to stream music using this method, check out Subsonic. It is an application that runs on your PC, and talks to the app on your phone. It even works over your mobile data connection, but you have to set up dynamic DNS and a bunch of other complicated shit (I'm still not sure what your tech level is. You accomplished the network file sharing pretty easily, it looks like.). But it works pretty easily over the LAN, and you can even "Download" the music to your phone if you wanted, but I'm not sure where it puts it or how easy it is to manage.
There are other "wifi sync" methods, but obviously you asked about streaming, not syncing files.
Subsonic does this better and has been doing this better for quite some time. Also, it serves music from your home collection instead of having to upload tens or hundreds of Gb's worth of data to google.
It's extremely easy to set up, and with a donation you get a handy personalized URL to access your collection with (http://*.subsonic.org)
If you have a fast computer and a public IP address, you could give Subsonic a shot. You would create a "Player" for an External Player (yeah, it sounds weird, but once you play around with the program you'll know what I mean) and you would both use that player's playlist in whatever program you choose (Quicktime, VLC, MPC, whatever). Subsonic is primarily meant for music (and pretty awesome at that), but works great with video provided you have the CPU to handle it.
VLC will also allow you to set up synchronized streams, but again you'll need a public IP and its a bit more difficult to set up than Subsonic (only did it once, and it was not worth the effort).
If you're tech savvy, load subsonic onto your connected compy. There's an app they sell. Technically, I have 2.5TB of music on my iPhone anywhere I go.