Emby

Personal media servers are becoming more and more popular and thanks to applications like Emby, setting one up can be extremely easy. Emby gives you the possibility of streaming media files from your computer to any device. You can leave your entire media library at home and play your favorite songs and videos on the go, on a mobile device. What's more, the software provides a wide range of useful features, which allow you to decide who can play your media files, how to handle metadata and much more.

Emby is available in free and paid versions, for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and FreeBSD. The setup package is not large, but installing the software may take some time, especially if you don't have the latest versions of .NET Framework and Visual C++. Once it is installed, a wizard will help you make your initial settings.

The software comes with two web-based user interfaces, which you can access on any browser, through a system tray icon. You can access the main configurations panel, where you will find everything you need to select your media folders, create user accounts, to let other people play your media files, synchronize your media, tweak the metadata handling, see what other users are currently playing and much more.

The second interface is where you can find and play your media files. The files are placed automatically in several groups, for recent entries, frequently played of favorite items. You can just click a Play icon, on one of your files and choose from several options, to play the file, queue it or switch to shuffled playback mode. Also, clicking a file's thumbnail will display all tracks from the same album on a single page.

Emby is capable of streaming video and audio files, digital photos, eBooks and even some games. Furthermore, the software works with numerous devices and it even provides support for Live TV and DLNA.

Regardless of your media library's size, Emby enables you to play everything you have from anywhere in the world, without taking any files with you.