Universal Media Server 10 improves web-based and DLNA navigation
The Universal Media Server Project has released Universal Media Server 10.0.0, a major new update of its open-source, cross-platform Java-based media server for Windows, Mac and Linux computers.
The server, which works with a wide range of UPNP/DLNA-compatible devices from mobiles to smart TVs, gains significant improvements to its web and DLNA browsing interface, with the aim of providing more flexible and visually pleasing options for navigating the user’s content.
The web interface gains the most visible improvements, with a new breadcrumbs feature at the top of each page aiding user navigation. The front page now displays information about the last few items added and played, along with files in progress and most played folders.
TV shows are made more visually appealing, now displayed as thumbnails using cover images from the API. Users also benefit from major improvements to metadata, with individual shows, episodes and movies gaining a large cover image, plus extra information such as actors, awards, classification, country, directors, genres, plot, ratings, year, and total seasons -- much of which is clickable to highlight related content. There’s also a new IMDB icon (and link) for matched media.
Many users tend to use UMS as a DLNA server, and DLNA browsing has also been improved. All videos across all seasons of TV shows are now visible, while users gain two new options -- Filter by Progress and Filter by Information -- when viewing TV shows or Movies. In addition, Recently Added, Recently Played, In Progress and Most Played folders have been added to the Media Library view.
Elsewhere, the API has been enabled for lookups even without filename 'prettifying', which has been updated to format episodes and seasons using the more standardized 'Series -- S01E01 -- Episode' format. Support has also been added for audio playlist thumbnails with the promise that playlist folders are now correctly identified via UPnP.
The update also gains improved support for Panasonic and Samsung Q9 TV UPnP pushing, fixes to the automatic file watcher, translation updates and minor design improvements.
Universal Media Server 10.0.0 is available now as a free, open-source download for Windows, Mac and Linux.