Originally written to support the PlayStation 3, it has been expanded to support a range of other media renderers, including Xbox 360, various Pioneer, Philips, Samsung, and Sony televisions, as well as portable devices.

Written in Java, it streams or transcodes[1] many different media formats, with minimum configuration.

The FFmpeg and MPlayer packages support the PS3 Media Server.

A currently maintained fork of PS3 Media Server exists as Universal Media Server.

In December 2010, Lifehacker readers voted PS3 Media Server "Best Personal Media Streaming Tool" in a reader survey.