FireStream is intended for streaming media. This UPnP/DLNA media server lets you share videos, photos and audio with multiple types of playback devices on your local network. In this regard, the main advantage of this kind of tool is that it performs on-the-fly transcoding, which helps avoid possible format compatibility issues.
The tool has an easy-to-use interface. However, the initial configuration can get a little tricky, mostly for those with little experience. Regrettably, the accompanying help documentation is poor.
Good news is there are tabs that compartmentalize the information in the application’s main window. In this respect, if you open the Contents tab, you can decide what media categories are shared. Thus, you can enable sharing music, TV, podcasts, books, photos and folders. Besides, these categories are further subdivided using a tree-like structure. For instance, by picking Music, it is possible to browse such subcategories as Artists, Albums and Songs. Finally, the media files are conveniently organized according to their metadata.
The second tab, labeled Devices, allows you to use specific configuration for the intended playback devices. The purpose is to use the transcoding, network and quality parameters best suited for the selected device as well as your network and specific needs. Likewise, it is allowed to prevent given devices from accessing the contents being streamed. However, it is excellent that the application can also use an automatic transcoding configuration once a device is detected, which works fine most of the times and saves you from the effort of manually setting those parameters.
Luckily, FireStream can start sharing media files almost instantly, as it does not require indexing all the folders in your machine. The list of supported devices is quite long and includes such popular hardware as PlayStation, Xbox, smart TVs of various brands and Google Chromecast, to mention but a few. Similarly, it can transcode media to a wide range of audio, video and image formats.
In short, FireStream lets you share the media contents in your computer with other devices connected to your local network. This way, you do not need to create multiple copies of them, let alone convert them to other formats. Although the product is available from the Mac App Store at no cost, it is actually shareware as it will only work for seven days after installation. After this trial period, you need to acquire the full license as in-app purchase.
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