Subsonic: Now Able to Stream Movies and Videos

I previously wrote an article introducing you to Subsonic, the open-source, cross-platform software that can be used to stream your personal music library anywhere across the internet. In the time since that article, few changes have occurred to Subsonic.  But recently, a feature was added that really puts Subsonic at the top of my list of favorite software – the ability to stream not only your music collection, but your movie, music video, and personal video collection.

Setting up Video Streaming in Subsonic

To start streaming your videos with Subsonic, ensure that you have the most recent version installed.  A version of at least Subsonic 4.3 is needed to enable video streaming.

Once you have installed or updated Subsonic, login and navigate to the Settings page and select the Music Folders section.

If you already have Subsonic installed, you will already have a music folder added. For example, I currently have a share named Music with the file path /media/PattersonHD/Music.

To enable Subsonic to stream my video library I simply have to add another share here. My newly added share is named Movies with the file path /media/PattersonHD/Movies.

Do this for each subsequent share or stream source you wish to add to Subsonic and click Save at the bottom of the page.

Streaming your Videos

Once you have added the video sources, navigate back to the Home page in Subsonic. You should notice a new drop-down on the left index of your Subsonic web page named All Folders. Under All Folders, all of your shares are listed together alphabetically. Select just the share you wish to stream to separate the sources.

Select the video and streaming will begin in the right side of Subsonic.

Final Thoughts

Subsonic is able to stream large video files due to them being transcoded (converted on-the-fly) before being streamed. It should be noted that transcoding can be a very  system-intensive process. Along with this, streaming large amounts of data may cause network slowness and affect the quality of the streams.

Do you use Subsonic to stream your music and movies?  Let us know by commenting below!