Media Server

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What Does Media Server Mean?

A media server is a dedicated hardware or software (physical server or application program) that is responsible for providing multimedia on demand. They are commonly used in conjunction with home theater systems for easy access to a wide variety of media, and are sometimes used in professional capacities, such as concerts or live theater.

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Techopedia Explains Media Server

A media server is a device that stores and shares media. It is responsible for hardware as well as software aspects of successful storing and retrieval as well as sharing of media files and data. A media server can be any device having network access and adequate bandwidth for sharing and saving of media. A server, PC, network-attached storage (NAS) or any other device with such storage capability can be used as a media server. Commercial media servers act as aggregators of information: video, audio, photos and books, and other types of media can all be accessed via a network.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert

Margaret is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.