London-based Petr Nejedly has released the first stable version of his DLNA media server app for Windows, Mac and Linux. Serviio 1.0 exits beta by introducing both free and Pro versions, with all functionality present during the beta testing kept free as promised by the author.

Serviio 1.0, which can be installed on Linux-based NAS drives as well as PC and Mac, allows users to stream video, music and photos from the host device to any other DLNA-ready device, including Smart TVs, mobile devices and other computers.

The server comes in two parts: the server itself, plus a console for administering your server’s settings, including the selection of which folders to include in your media library. Serviio also makes use of internet sources of metadata, so as long as your media is named correctly, it can automatically pull information such as title, actors and synopsis from your choice of web-based databases, such as thetvdb.com.

You can access your served media from a variety of apps, including VLC Media Player.

All of this extra functionality comes at a price – you won’t notice it when running Serviio on a dual-core powered computer, but low-end ARM-based NAS drives may struggle with the extra demands placed on them, forcing you to retreat to a less functional DLNA server such as TWONKYmedia.

Serviio installs as a 14-day trial for the new Pro version, which costs $25. Pro users get a nifty lightweight web-based media browser for access from other computers, plus the ability to restrict content to specific groups and access their media from outside the home network.

After the 14-day trial elapses, Serviio reverts to the free version, which includes all the functionality trialled during its lengthy period in beta. These features include access over the local network, internet scraping of metadata and decent codec support. Users can access content on the server via a number of free and paid-for apps, such as Media Link Player Lite for iOS or VLC Media Player for Mac, Windows or Linux.

Serviio 1.0 is available as a freeware/trial download for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. It requires the Java 6 runtimes (either 32-bit or 64-bit) also be installed.