Tue Jul 19, 2011 8:57 pm
Reality Check
I've been trying different media servers since WMP11 doesn't like to share the files stored on my gigabit NAS boxes... I liked how fast+easy Serviio installed and started serving up content - mainly what I wanted it for was the 141GB of MP3s from ~1600 artists in 38000+ files/8000+ subdirs that I ripped and encoded before switching to FLAC (it used to be around 150GB, but I delete the MP3 files as I replace them with FLACs... when I started my media collection hard drive space was about $100/GB). I'm happy with the way uShare on linux serves up the FLAC files, but I wanted something 'better' (a subjective term, to be sure) than the presentation of MP3 files that the linux media servers I tried gave me.
I installed Serviio on a Gigabyte GA-SA55SLI-S4 with an Athlon 64 x2 4600 (AM2) w/4GB DDR2 (2x2GB, OCZ Reaper) running a fairly-recent install of XP SP3 with all updates (using MSE AV and windows firewall).
Anyway, it scanned all the MP3s the fastest of any server I've tried yet, and I do like the way the Artists list is presented subdivided into 36 groups (A-Z, 0-9 + a couple others), since there is no 'Page Down' on my Onkyo and it takes 2 or 3 minutes to scroll halfway through them the way, say, TVersity presents the Artists list.
Still, once I got to playing them, it would do all right for 3 or 4 songs, then just halt in the middle of a song and the server would disappear off the network. It did it with both my Onkyo TX-NR807 and Oppo BDP-83. The AVR, BD player and Tivos (THX S3 and S4 XL) are the only wired devices on my network that are NOT gigabit, by the way. Forcing a rescan with the Oppo would not find it, but Serviio would eventually show up again on its own. The only way I can figure out to force a rescan with the Onkyo is to put it in standby, unplug it and let the caps discharge (takes about 10 seconds), then plug it back in and go to NET mode again, so that's not something I want to do very often.... but again, Serviio eventually shows back up in the list of media servers on the Onkyo without forcing a rescan, anyway.
No other media server I've tried has exhibited this behavior.
I'm not bitching about it or saying it's no good, because obviously it works fine for lots of people; this forum is labeled 'User experiences' so I posted mine, is all.
Thanks.
I installed Serviio on a Gigabyte GA-SA55SLI-S4 with an Athlon 64 x2 4600 (AM2) w/4GB DDR2 (2x2GB, OCZ Reaper) running a fairly-recent install of XP SP3 with all updates (using MSE AV and windows firewall).
Anyway, it scanned all the MP3s the fastest of any server I've tried yet, and I do like the way the Artists list is presented subdivided into 36 groups (A-Z, 0-9 + a couple others), since there is no 'Page Down' on my Onkyo and it takes 2 or 3 minutes to scroll halfway through them the way, say, TVersity presents the Artists list.
Still, once I got to playing them, it would do all right for 3 or 4 songs, then just halt in the middle of a song and the server would disappear off the network. It did it with both my Onkyo TX-NR807 and Oppo BDP-83. The AVR, BD player and Tivos (THX S3 and S4 XL) are the only wired devices on my network that are NOT gigabit, by the way. Forcing a rescan with the Oppo would not find it, but Serviio would eventually show up again on its own. The only way I can figure out to force a rescan with the Onkyo is to put it in standby, unplug it and let the caps discharge (takes about 10 seconds), then plug it back in and go to NET mode again, so that's not something I want to do very often.... but again, Serviio eventually shows back up in the list of media servers on the Onkyo without forcing a rescan, anyway.
No other media server I've tried has exhibited this behavior.
I'm not bitching about it or saying it's no good, because obviously it works fine for lots of people; this forum is labeled 'User experiences' so I posted mine, is all.
Thanks.
