TwonkyMedia Manager Released

By on December 19, 2008 in Software, Windows Home Server

Whilst Windows Home Server is pretty reasonable at serving up audio and video to a variety of digital media receivers, for optimum compatibility and performance, it needs a little help.

Both HP and Fujitsu-Siemens now bundle their home servers with a product called TwonkyMedia Server, which improves Windows Home Server’s media serving capabilities to full DLNA compatibility, meaning that Windows Home Server can suddenly be seen by a whole host of devices, including your Playstation 3.

This week, TwonkyMedia Server has been superceded by a new product, TwonkyMedia Manager which has the same DLNA-compliant media serving capabilities, but also includes new features to allow you to view and manage all of your media within one user interface, including your iTunes library, Flickr photos and YouTube videos.

I’m going to check out how well it works compared to TwonkyMedia Server over the next couple of weeks via a free trial edition of the software. I’m a little concerned that TwonkyMedia are recommending a relatively high powered PC for use with the software, which may exclude a number of low-power home servers, but we’ll see.

Remember, only HP and FSC have access to the add-in version of TwonkyMedia (why, I have no idea). That said, the standard version of the product can be purchased and installed, and will work fine with any WHS machine (although is a little more complicated to set up).

Watch this space for more – in the meantime, TwonkyMedia Manager costs $39.99/29.99 EUR and is available now.

More Info: TwonkyMedia Manager


Enjoyed this post? Share it.

If you enjoyed reading this post, then why not share it with your friends and followers?

About Terry Walsh

Terry Walsh is the founding editor and owner of We Got Served. Since February 2007, the site has provided detailed coverage and analysis of the emerging home server category, and has subsequently grown into a trusted outlet for digital home news and reviews.
View all posts by Terry Walsh →

Sign Up for WGS Daily News

If you don't want to miss out on the latest news from We Got Served, why not subscribe to our daily digest? You'll get the day's headlines and a short summary of each news item delivered straight to your inbox each morning.

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

  • importedprogrammer

    They still have Twonkymedia server 4.4.9 and also the version 5.0 without the fancy gui on there site.

    http://www.twonkymedia.com/installs.html

  • TranceAddict

    If you are going to do a review.. do it in comparison with other offerings… Tversity beats Twonky hands down and its free…It doesn’t have a native plugin but has a nice UI that can be accessed through RDP or console login if you setup a shortcut through advance admin console

  • Jim

    Originally Posted By TranceAddictIf you are going to do a review.. do it in comparison with other offerings… Tversity beats Twonky hands down and its free…It doesn’t have a native plugin but has a nice UI that can be accessed through RDP or console login if you setup a shortcut through advance admin console

    Can you explain more or point me to a reference? I’d like to set up Tversity on my WHS.

  • http://welchwerks.com Welchwerks

    Hi,
    looking tor the WHS Add-in for this? cant find it

  • http://welchwerks.com Welchwerks

    Hi,
    Looking for the HP WHS Add-in for this, is there a link?

  • ps3

    “meaning that Windows Home Server can suddenly be seen by a whole host of devices, including your Playstation 3.”

    Errrr…. windows media sharing does that

  • Simon

    I hear people saying that TVersity is a better product.
    As far as functionality goes, I would have to agree.
    My only problem with the product when I installed it on my WHS box was the speed. I do have the 2GB RAM upgrade on my HP box.
    When I streamed videos to my PS3 and did fast forward/rewind, it was very slow and screen updates where not very frequent. The same was apparent when I pressed the square button to get a index of my video.
    When I did the same with PVConnect, the speed was much improved and you could almost see it in real time.
    Anybody else had these same issues?
    So I do agree that a proper product comparison is well overdue.

  • Michiel

    Hmm,.. WHS users might want to stick to 4.4.9. I Installed both the 5.0 versions and indeed, it seems that the MediaManager only adds a nice interface to manage you server and library, however the 5.0 versions does miss some features which for me makes it useless. I used the 4.4.9 to stream m2ts files from the WHS to my PS3 and found to my surprise that it was capable to show the JPEG images from within my camera RAW files (now how cool is that!). I started to play with the iTunes lib. support on 4.4.9 which I didn’t get working yet.

    I didn’t find any of the features I wrote above on the 5.0 version. No more nice JPEGS from camera RAW files, no streaming m2ts and no mention what so ever about iTunes (not sure it worked on 4.4.9 though). So if you’re looking for more streaming capabilities than Media Connect, install 4.4.9 is what I think!