The Media Server

Abstract

The concept behind a media server is to store all of your media files—music and movies—in one central location and then stream them from that location to whatever device in your house you choose. These days, almost every media device (and some non-media devices) can hook up to a network—if not the Internet, then at least your home network. This means that all of these machines, except for perhaps the refrigerator, can become clients, streaming media files from a central server. This is standard networking language; the computer that stores files—whether they be media files, spreadsheets, or web pages—is called a server, and computers that request those files are called clients.