The tiny Eeebox has a lot of hidden talents. We will view how to use the EeeBox as a multimedia server for your entire home network.
With the Eeebox as a multimedia server, you will be able to share your audio and video collection, as well as pictures, between all of your computers, consoles, or UPnP enabled devices.
We chose Mediatomb, a Free opensource solution, to act as the UPnP server software. It can perform under any Linux OS. I have Ubuntu installed on my EeeBox, and mediatomb is available from the Add/Remove Applications menu.
Once mediatomb is installed, you can start it with the command
sudo mediatomb
You will be provided with the server’s local address on the console. In my case, INFO: http://192.168.1.3:49152/
Right click on the address and open it. You will get a clear web interface to manage your multimedia database.
I have created the following video about how to start the server.
Mediatomb works really great, the only downside being the configuration. It is fine out of the box, but if you want to modify the settings, you will have to edit the config.xml and associated js files by hand.
My Eeebox is connected to a wifi router, wirelessly.
You can connect many different devices to the mediatomb server, such as:
I have tried a few client programs on my laptop. VLC can stream the videos without problems and will support UPnP fully in the future 1.0 version.
However, the most elegant solution I found is definitely XBMC.

This multimedia center can run in full screen mode with a beautiful interface on Windows, Linux, Mac or the Xbox console. It features an additional RSS reader, a weather service, and you can download it from the official page.
Under XBMC, you have to go to Setting/Network/UPnP Settings and check the options Autostart UPnP client and Enable UPnP renderer.

To access your videos, music and pictures, you just have to choose Add source, Browse, UPnP devices. XBMC will detect your mediatomb server and retrieve the list of files.
We will conclude with a video of XBMC on a laptop, showing the settings and streaming from the eeebox.
I’d like to add some clarifications.
The slow video loading on the youtube video is due to my wireless connection. The EeeBox was 3 walls and a floor away from the router. I have moved the computer and loading a 700MB video took 2s.
There are also obvious security implications, be aware that your folders on the EeeBox will be browsable, and you might not want all of your files to be visible. Use this solution on a trusted network network, and be sure to use encryption if you use a wifi router.
6 Responses to How to transform the EeeBox into a multimedia server
Asus EeeBox come media server | Asus Eee PC
November 21st, 2008 at 8:00 am
[...] originale arriva dai colleghi di Eeextra, che tramite software OpenSource, sono riusciti a plasmare il piccolo pc Asus alle loro [...]
Фото чёрного Samsung NC10 | аналоги | Eee-PC.ru
November 23rd, 2008 at 7:46 pm
[...] но ещё и игровая машина, и медиацентр. В сети появилось руководство как превратить Eee Box тоже в некое подобие медиацентра. Тут нам кажется [...]
admin
November 24th, 2008 at 3:57 am
I have updated the article after some feedback about the streaming speed.
eeebox specs
November 26th, 2008 at 4:21 am
[...] hard disk as a network drive, accessing your files with your eee pc, or over the internet. After setting up multimedia server on the eee box, you will be able to stream your collection over your home [...]
Create a bootable multimedia pendrive with xbmc
December 17th, 2008 at 4:35 am
[...] XBMC provides a wide range of multimedia features, with a beautiful interface. It can playback video and audio files, stream online radios, playback your DVDs or, as seen in a previous article, it can also used as a UPnP video streaming client. [...]
Asus Eee D200
January 9th, 2009 at 5:57 am
[...] Sharing data, music and video will be really easy with the D200, as it has a wireless router built-in. With a server running, it could do wonders as a NAS or a multimedia server. [...]