Unbiased Comparison Of Media Servers Article

[Xmantium]

I wasnt too surprised with this article, probably made by the developers themselves - http://www.universalmediaserver.com/comparison/
But its a direct stab at Serviio

If anyone doesnt know (most likely you probably dont have to) Universal Media Server is essentially PS3 Media Server
It has most of PS3MS devs jumping ship to create their own Server, also bringing along ALL the issues found in PS3MS

Ive made a comparison post which was fair comparing Serviio v0.6 to PS3MS (I used to use both on a regular)
After so much frustrations im happy to say i wont go back to PS3MS ever again!
I have tried UniversalMS too and its just feels like PS3MS with a different skin

I would like to put my own stamp on it, and please free to comment.
- "Subtitles on all devices" - its coming very soon to Serviio 1.2 - comfirmed
- "DVD support" - Planned feature to come
- "Automatic plugin download/install" - Another planned feature
- "True Motion (frame interpolation)", "Overscan compensation", "AviSynth support", "Archive support" - What?
- "Renderer search support", "Unlimited folders on PS3 & Xbox" - Huh?
- "AC-3 remuxing (no re-encoding)", "FFmpeg DTS support", "3D SBS video support" - zip and illico should answer this
- "Free" - You gotta be kidding by stating "There is a free edition but it has less features".
Serviio free version has maintained all DLNA features including Online Streaming. Pro features are additional features to play Serviio on the go and set User rights.

Now back to UMS
- Interface is too cluttered, you have to be a video tech genius to figure out what each setting do
- Theres too many encoders its very difficult to compile to linux or NAS Server.
Even the QNAP NAS admins gave up providing QPKG as mencoder doesnt work as standard for all Intel NAS boxes.
- Its uses MEncoder, FFmpeg, tsMuxeR, AviSynth....
It only takes one encoder to transcode a file. Just like one person it takes to change a lightbulb!
- Theres no WEB UI, running on a headless server, your really a headless chicken running it
- Plugins - Are you serious to call them plugins? None work properly and has heavy strain on CPU
- No Mobile Apps to control server
- No library organisation with sources from online metadata
- No proper support, at the time of writing the forum is not working
- Very very very slow to display folders/content on Bravia TVs
- No proper support by the companies who make TVs or PS3, SONY UK has bought Serviio tech licence
- No Media Browser
- All the issues from PS3MS - Even the main owner/developer is no longer developing his project
- Very slow progress with updates, no REAL new features, every update after months i see is bug fixes
- Theres really too many to list

I really do think after using ALL the media servers out there, Serviio is a one stop shop, not even close contenders what Serviio can do!

[zip]

Interesting post. It's on their website, so fair enough to them, they can say what they want. They probably do some cool stuff, that some users want - choice is good for everyone.

Anyway, it's always good to know there are fans of Serviio though

[Xmantium]

It's a direct look at what Serviio hasn't got. Apart from Subtitles and DVD ISO support, they've lists some unheard of and unused features
It's features a video tech person that would probably know.

I think the approach Serviio has taken is to remain simple, stable and always has anticipation of REAL new features of every new build.

[csholmq]

"Archive support" refers to the ability to stream directly from split rar archives. It's an ability that e.g XMBC has had for many years now. It allows for people to leave their scene releases unpacked.

[Illico]

I began with PS3 Media Server and I discovered Serviio 2 years ago. I regularly test the latest version of PMS/UMS... and always Serviio still the one I use.
The only remark I would make on the UMS site article is that it does not speak about other upnp servers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison ... ia_servers

[Xmantium]

I'm the same too, I started with PS3 MS until I tried Serviio.

They should have compared other Servers but made a direct swipe at Serviio make them look superior.
I even tried the latest Plex Media Server and still fails to the simplicity of Serviio.

[Xmantium]

@csholmq - i can see archive rar fileset support being handy few years back. But now most usenet or bittorrent software have automatic rar file extraction

The other thing i dont understand why would they say "FFmpeg DTS support", i thought its an open defect with ffmpeg

[NX3]

I think I tried every media server going. PMS, wild media server, vlc, xbmc, tversity, mezzmo, playon, plex, wmp....that I remember. Serviio wins hands down for me though a couple of the others have some neat features which Serviio is catching up on.

Sent from my HTC Desire S using Tapatalk 2

I'm the same too, I started with PS3 MS until I tried Serviio.

i went reversed route: used serviio for more than a month. i used it mostly for online resources, wrote a few plugins. and i didn't care about subtitles, cover arts, dvds, etc. but i was tired serviio's meta data caching design which required periodic (all) or manual (some) resources refresh and flat resources structure (i.e. no sub-folders.)

then i tried UMS and now found that it starts quickly without any "repository update" and supports sub-folders in Web content and channels.

yes, UMS is not as versatile with profiles and transcoding as serviio. but i disabled all encoders except ffmpeg in UMS. and now I can instantly play the latest online content via UMS on my Sony BDP. and i can still use serviio to stream content which doesn't have a plugin / channel in UMS and i don't see a need to convert it.

[Xmantium]

@miksa - The way Serviio does it, it checks the stream so it can play on your device quickly when you press play and you know the video file is there because Serviio has checked this rather than waiting and getting error message "the file does not exist" - this happens alot when i use XBMC, the anticipation of playing an online file then after waiting to load the video fails to play, bit disappointing when this happens
jhb50 wants this changing too but i dont see it as an issue

@NX3 - what featured are important to you?

No pressure on zip but if Serviio had the following features, the other Media Server developers might aswell quit and join Serviio
1. Burned in Subtitles support - confirmed
2. ISO/IMG or video_ts folder support - second most requested feature we'd all like to see
3. Repository to install plugins from console - i want this badly!
4. Mutiple audio selection for video - important to some users

These next ones are my wanted features, what yours? list or comments welcomed!

5. MediaBrowser working without flash - iOS and with Android not supporting Flash any longer, we can play using Chrome on tablet
6. Windows 8 Metro/Modern interface for Console and MediaBroswer - this maybe one for third party developers but if zip does this it will be brilliant!!
7. IMDB rating support - would make it easier watch the best movies sorted by IMDB
8. serviiDB support on console - would be cool
9. serviio// hyperlink support - easier for users to add and share links in the forums
10. High resolution video thumbnail support - will look great on PS3 and Xbox 360
11. Online sub folders - this way my online library can be organised

@miksa - The way Serviio does it, it checks the stream so it can play on your device quickly when you press play and you know the video file is there because Serviio has checked this rather than waiting and getting error message "the file does not exist" - this happens alot when i use XBMC, the anticipation of playing an online file then after waiting to load the video fails to play, bit disappointing when this happens
jhb50 wants this changing too but i dont see it as an issue

@Xmantium - i don't know if you have a real experience with UMS, but my experience is just the opposite. in UMS i see "the file does not exist" message less frequently than in Serviio. i think this issue may happen in Serviio more often just because of caching design in Serviio - an item may change / disappear since last refresh. and in UMS this is less an issue because it always displays recent content of a folder.

UMS allows to enjoy non-cached real-time access to online content and sub-folders right now. no need to wait when / if it's implemented in Serviio.

[NX3]

@NX3 - what featured are important to you?

I'm pretty happy with everything as is but a few useful things maybe...

Multiple audio track selection
Repsitory for addins would be neat
Mediabrowser solution for Chrome
ISO support and burned in subs aren't an issue for me but I can understand others wanting these features when other media servers have them.

I'd like a way to know what jobs were running i.e whats being served but I know Zip said thats not possible.

I've set 'last added' up to 30 now and thats useful but it would be good to have last added tv, last added films as I have seperate folder structures. This might be possible already but I've not figured it out

4oD addin that works !

Hello there, was doing some googling when I stumbled here, so given it's late here, I feel exactly like this: http://xkcd.com/386/

So just to set the record straight on something nobody cares, UMS does not "has most of PS3MS devs jumping ship to create their own Server". It's actually just one guy, and I'm not here to judge either media server or developer or whatever: ps3ms is an open source software made by fellow developers hacking in their spare time and actually not really caring about the rest :p

While I'm here, nice job on Serviio, too bad you didn't make it open source

regards

[Xmantium]

Shagrath, is also the user who created ps3ms, your not him?
Thanks for joining the Serviio forum.

To me Serviio means allot in my household, especially my kids. Just found other servers such a pain to use until I found Serviio. So reading that article was making me ->
Personally don't think any media server will come close.

Please feel free to try Serviio out and check out the online plugin section - viewforum.php?f=20

Personally don't think any media server will come close.

maybe, but in my opinion for online content viewing, UMS is far better than Serviio because

1) UMS supports sub-folders so it's easy to organize content in tree-like views

2) UMS requires no content refresh, so folders/items lists are always "fresh"

3) online content availability is huge as it includes direct streams/RSS/plugins, custom channels, Navi X scrap sites, XBMS video add-ons.

[Xmantium]

Ive read about the Python to Java script converters, doesnt work with all plugins and took such frustrating time to setup!
Couldnt get iPlayer and alot others to work
Think XBMC scripts should be for XMBC only and not hacky way to get to use on another program

Serviio groovy plugin provides custom plugins that go hand in hand with Serviio
with ServiiDB.com, it makes things easier
May not have sub-folders (that i want too) but works very well

Ive read about the Python to Java script converters, doesnt work with all plugins and took such frustrating time to setup!
Couldnt get iPlayer and alot others to work
Think XBMC scripts should be for XMBC only and not hacky way to get to use on another program

I followed instructions for Python integration and it worked with no issues. Jumpy allows access to any XMBC add-on by returning URL for a video stream. this is very simple and powerful concept. and list of supported resources is huge. check XBMC video add-ons http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Category:Video_add-ons

and writing my own channel script is even easier than a Groovy script (thanks to built-in regular expressions support and pages parsing.)

For example,

AP, CBS Local, MyFox LA Channel - 26 lines of code

  Code:

version=0.1

channel Local News - AP / CBS NY / FOX LA {
   folder {
      url=http://www.myfoxla.com/build.asp?buildtype=buildpagexmlrequest&featureType=C&featureid=169581&affiliateno=1120&clientgroupid=1&rnd=22900
      name=AP
      macro=getVideos
   }
   folder {
      url=http://video.newyork.cbslocal.com/build.asp?buildtype=buildpagexmlrequest&cliengroupid=1&root=pop_video_top&affiliateno=958&rnd=728522
      name=CBS NY
      macro=getVideos
   }
   folder {
      url=http://www.myfoxla.com/build.asp?buildtype=buildpagexmlrequest&featureType=C&featureid=240600&affiliateno=1120&clientgroupid=1&rnd=547380
      name=MyFox LA
      macro=getVideos
   }
}

macrodef getVideos {
      media {
         matcher=<CLIP.*?<URI><!\[CDATA\[(.*?)\]\]><\/URI>.*?<HEADLINE><!\[CDATA\[(.*?)\]\]><\/HEADLINE>.*?<THUMBNAILIMAGE><FILENAME><!\[CDATA\[(.*?)\]\]><\/FILENAME>.*?<rfc822creationdate>(.*?)<\/rfc822creationdate>.*?<MACHINENAME>(.*?)<\/MACHINENAME>
         order=url,name,thumb
      }
}

CBS Local Groovy - 90 lines of code without tests:

  Code:

import org.serviio.library.online.WebResourceUrlExtractor
import org.serviio.library.online.WebResourceContainer
import org.serviio.library.online.ContentURLContainer
import org.serviio.library.online.WebResourceItem
import org.serviio.library.online.PreferredQuality

import java.util.Date;
import java.text.SimpleDateFormat

/**
 * WebResource extractor Serviio plugin for newyork.CBSLocal.com
 * <b>version</b> 1.0
 *
 * @author Miksa
 * @since JDK 1.6, Groovy 1.8.6
 *
 * Usage:
 * http://video.newyork.cbslocal.com/build.asp?buildtype=buildpagexmlrequest&cliengroupid=1&root=pop_video_top&affiliateno=958&rnd=728522
 */
class CBSLocal extends WebResourceUrlExtractor{

    final static VALID_WEB_RESOURCE_URL   = 'http://video.newyork.cbslocal.com/build';
    final static CACHE_ID_REGEX     = /<owner>.*?<baseurl>(.*?)<\/baseurl>/;
    final static ITEM_REGEX         = /<CLIP.*?<URI>(.*?)<\/URI>.*?<HEADLINE>(.*?)<\/HEADLINE>.*?<THUMBNAILIMAGE><FILENAME>(.*?)<\/FILENAME>.*?<rfc822creationdate>(.*?)<\/rfc822creationdate>.*?<MACHINENAME>(.*?)<\/MACHINENAME>/;
    final static USER_AGENT         = 'Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1) AppleWebKit/535.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/14.0.835.186 Safari/535.1';

    @Override
    String getExtractorName() {
        return getClass().getName();
    }

    @Override
    boolean extractorMatches(URL url) {
        return url =~ VALID_WEB_RESOURCE_URL;
    }

    @Override
    protected WebResourceContainer extractItems(URL url, int maxItems) {
        List<WebResourceItem> items = [];
        loadItems(items, url, maxItems);
        return new WebResourceContainer(title: url.toString(), items: items);
    }

    @Override
    protected ContentURLContainer extractUrl(WebResourceItem webResourceItem, PreferredQuality preferredQuality) {
        Map<String,String> itemInfo = webResourceItem.additionalInfo;
        String itemLink = itemInfo.itemLink;
        String cacheKey = getExtractorName() + itemInfo.cacheId;

        return new ContentURLContainer(
              contentUrl : itemInfo.itemLink
            , thumbnailUrl : itemInfo.itemImage
            , expiresImmediately : true
            , cacheKey : cacheKey
        );   
    }

    /*
     * Private methods
     */
    private void loadItems(List<WebResourceItem> items, URL url, int maxItems) {
        log(String.format("loadItems: url: %s; maxItems: %d", url, maxItems));
        String pageSource = openURL(url, USER_AGENT);
        pageSource = decodeXml(pageSource);
        println pageSource.substring(1000, 1000);

        String cacheId = url.toString();
        (pageSource =~ CACHE_ID_REGEX).each {
            cacheId = it[1];
        }

        def itemsMatcher = (pageSource =~ ITEM_REGEX);
        assert itemsMatcher.count > 1;

      (itemsMatcher).each {
            def itemContent = it;
            int reGroup = 1;
            String itemLink = itemContent[reGroup++];
            String itemTitle = itemContent[reGroup++];
            String itemImage = itemContent[reGroup++];
            String itemDate = itemContent[reGroup++];
            assert itemLink != null && itemTitle != null, String.format("Cannot find itemLink or itemTitle on page: %s", url);

            Map<String,String> additionalInfo = new HashMap<String, String>();
            additionalInfo.put("itemLink", itemLink);
            additionalInfo.put("itemImage", itemImage);
            additionalInfo.put("cacheId", cacheId);

            if (items.size() < maxItems) {
                items << new WebResourceItem(title: itemTitle, releaseDate: parseDateRfc822(itemDate), additionalInfo: additionalInfo);
            }
        }
    }

   private Date parseDateRfc822(String dateString) {
      SimpleDateFormat formatter = new SimpleDateFormat('EEE, d MMM yyyy HH:mm:ss z')
      //formatter.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("+300"))
      return formatter.parse(dateString);
   }   

   private String decodeXml(String str) {
      return str.replace("<![CDATA[", "").replace("]]>", "").replace("&#39;", "'").replace("&amp;", "&");
   }   

    /*
     * main
     */
    static void main(args) {
        final URL VALID_URL = new URL("http://video.newyork.cbslocal.com/build.asp?buildtype=buildpagexmlrequest&cliengroupid=1&root=pop_video_top&affiliateno=958&rnd=728522");
        final URL INVALID_URL = new URL("http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/standardfeeds/top_rated?time=today");
        final int maxItems = 5;
        CBSLocal extractor = new CBSLocal()

        assert "CBSLocal" == extractor.getExtractorName()

        assert extractor.extractorMatches(VALID_URL);

        assert ! extractor.extractorMatches(INVALID_URL);

        WebResourceContainer resource = extractor.extractItems(VALID_URL, maxItems);
        println resource;
        assert maxItems == resource.items.size();
        WebResourceItem item = resource.items[0];
        println item;
        assert item.title;
        assert item.releaseDate;
        assert item.additionalInfo;
        assert item.additionalInfo.itemLink;
        assert item.additionalInfo.itemImage;

        ContentURLContainer content = extractor.extractUrl(item, PreferredQuality.HIGH);

        println content;
        assert content;
        assert content.contentUrl;
        assert content.thumbnailUrl;
        assert content.expiresImmediately;
        assert content.cacheKey;
        assert ! content.live;
    }
}


[Xmantium]

The script calls the xbmc plugins which contains hundreds lines of code.
Scripts to make it work, not for the everyday streaming novice.
Not many users downloading it either but i can see its potential
Whichever works best for you

I see now the comparison include other servers, not just Serviio
But i can think of many features UMS cant when Serviio can

Serviio Pro ROCKS!!

:? The script calls the xbmc plugins which contains hundreds lines of code.
Scripts to make it work, not for the everyday streaming novice.
Not many users downloading it either but i can see its potential
Whichever works best for you

agreed, whatever works best but channel scripts have nothing to do neither with xbmc nor jumpy. they are automatically supported by tv_plug plug-in.

my point was that channel scripts in UMS were smaller and easier for someone who was interested in and could write groovy plug-ins in serviio. and collection of available, ready to use xbmc video add-ons is big. no need to write a line of code.

Hi guys,
I'm the lead developer of UMS and I just saw this post.
I'm sorry that you see it as an attack on your program!
I would like to say I have a lot of respect for your program, I like it a lot. The way I see it I can learn a lot from Serviio and other servers.

Here is some background on what really happened from my perspective:
I branched off from PMS out of frustration that so many bugs kept being created, and the main question I kept getting asked regularly was "what are the differences between PMS and UMS?". So instead of giving the same copy/pasted answer all the time I decided to make a page to show the differences, so at first that page had only UMS and PMS.
Then I wanted to gradually add more servers to the list and Serviio just happened to be the one I added first, because I don't have much time or motivation to do comparisons.
Now there are more added to the list and I hope to continue to fill it out more over time.

The list is a comparison of what UMS has that other servers do not have, so yes it is very biased! I am sure you could make a similar list where the Serviio column is all "yes" and UMS is all "no" and that would be useful too
Then users can see what makes your program better than all the others, and that is my goal with my list too.

I can understand your frustration and motivation to write the things you wrote, and hopefully now it is cleared up and there is no need for animosity, we are all just trying to provide the best program for the users