TwonkyMedia Server Add-In Walkthrough

Curiously, the web configuration pages are only accessible on the server itself. Trying to access from any other PC presents a bright red page with the uninspiring “Access is restricted to MediaServer configuration!”

If you have purchased a copy of TwonkyMedia Server, this is where you will enter your licence key. Otherwise you will be on a limited evaluation period.

There are several other web configuration pages.

With no shortage of setup and configuration options, what does it give you in reality? Initially that was difficult to tell.

Once up and running, one surprising feature (at least for me) was to be able to access my media through the browser from any computer.

Clicking on the Spanner Configuration icon gives the same bright red Access Restricted page seen earlier.

A lot of the devices I had capable of playing streamed media were happy enough with WHS anyway and so anything I dropped onto the server was being presented and I couldn’t tell if Twonky was having any effect. The trick was to turn off Media Sharing on the server and change the default name of the Twonky service. All of a sudden it was clear what it was presenting.

It will take some time working through the Twonky options and testing with various media devices to determine whether Twonky provides significant value over the functions already in WHS or those provided by ‘free’ alternative options. Clearly, it integrates well with the Console and web interfaces providing access all the configuration options.

Whether it provides for better media serving is still to be determined. What was immediately clear was that there seems to be no adequate documentation on the WHS version regarding installation and configuration – it all has to be derived by comparing the screens with the normal PC installation notes. I actually fell on the web interface more by accident when looking for somewhere to enter the licence key.

Where there is an immediate benefit to some users (based on comments in the Forums) is that media serving is not limited to the WHS shared folders and there is the ability to include any folder accessible to the server, including external USB devices.

There purports to be strong iTunes support, but as I am not an iPod user, I cannot currently conclude whether this delivers. What I was looking for was the advertised ability to stream to a PSP (Playstation Portable). This is supported through the PSP’s ability to access RSS feeds and stream any associated media. It works well for commercial podcasts and so I was hoping to access my music collection at least. After many hours of trying and searching various forums, I have to conclude this is not something I can easily trigger into life.

Also there were no additional capabilities added for streaming media to the Xbox 360 over what is already there with WHS.

Finally, I dug through the forums here to gauge member experiences with Twonky. Once more I could find nothing to inspire me to conclude this is a worthwhile add-in. I was challenged by Jim Clark when I put forward the idea of a Walk-Through for Twonky to convince him he was missing something. I have to admit defeat. The documentation is poor (non-existent for WHS), the configuration ‘clunky’ with the combination of WHS Console and Web Browser (which apparently needs to be run on the Server itself) and lack of additional functionality. Also, for anyone adding Twonky to a server with large media libraries, or if you happen to upload a lot of media to your server very quickly, the Twonky library build saps processor power to the extent that your server can become unresponsive for hours or even days. I could not honestly contemplate a library rebuild on a ‘fully-loaded’ server.

I have to say I was full of hope for Twonky when I started this Walkhrough, having paid for the software ‘sight-unseen’ in the pre-Christmas offer, but I am now somewhat disappointed. I will keep it on my test server however and revisit every once in a while. Maybe if I try the Manager product as well then I may see some hidden benefits.