Is there a NAS that's best for this? Ideally I don't want to spend too much, and single drive will do. Have a load of Blu Rays I want to put on a drive, plus some 4K content, so I can stream to my TV. I saw the WD My Cloud gets decent reviews and seems quite simple to use. Synology also get great feedback it seems. Any advice much appreciated.
NAS for 4K and video streaming...?
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Not an option as I have no desire to add a 3.5" drive in to my PC (I have all SSD and M.2), plus I like the idea of having it separate and being able to expand if necessary.
I've narrowed it down to the Synology DS115j or WD My Cloud... both seem very good, although Synology software seems to be very highly regarded and it appears to be a more capable set-up overall.
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Will your TV be able to decode the films? or can it play most files?
I've got a Qnap with HDMI and it's got UHD and 4K picture settings.
I don't use it for UHD as you can't copy HDR yet.
It is a new 4K HDR TV so I'd hope so yes. Not had any trouble so far, but only just got it so haven't tried everything yet.
im guessing you have a smart tv and not a tv box like a shield or roku?
a nice cheap HP server box with a decent HDD will be more than adequate as long as the tv processor or the tv box (if you use one) can decode the source.
I found the synology or q-naps to be way too pricey. im not a fan of transcoding from a nas/server.
a nice cheap HP server box with a decent HDD will be more than adequate as long as the tv processor or the tv box (if you use one) can decode the source.
I found the synology or q-naps to be way too pricey. im not a fan of transcoding from a nas/server.
what is you home network like? are you hoping to stream wireless? do you have 100mb or gigabit connections throughout your network. is your 4k content compressed?
I ask because if if you are hoping to stream uncompressed 4k content that you have ripped from a disk over 100mb Ethernet or even wifi then you are going to exceed the bit rate that your network can handle and the video will stutter and buffer.
You may have a 4k hdr tv but that doesn't guarantee that you can play 4k content smoothly.
example. I have a 1080p tv and a low powered hp server with High bitrate content (15-30gig files) playback on those files can sometimes stutter and or be slow and distorted. I added an old laptop (which was more powerful) to process the files so the strain wasnt on the server and everything was smooth as silk.
The issue you will face is having to do server side transcoding for content your TV cannot natively play. You want to avoid transcoding at all costs, it has a high resource overhead (more power usage, heat etc), it will slow performance and response of video playback (Pause, Fast Forward/Rewind, Seeking etc) and will have a tendancy to mess up playback where hiccups in transcoding occur.
A far better and cheaper solution is to buy a NAS with suitable space/network specs and a Raspberry Pi running OpenELEC/KODI and playing files natively.
It will be cheaper, offer better update support and a variety of formats that your TV will likely never get updated with/support. I find TVs are HUGELY fussy with what formats they support, that's ignoring things like subtitles and other quirks which some formats will present.
If it's just for content you will encode yourself and nothing else then you can probably get away with it, as you can chose whatever format your TV supports. Just....consider what other things you might want to do. I have a Samsung Smart TV and I use NONE of the Smart TV features because it is:
- Slow
- Crashes
- Does not work on a whim
- Unstable
- Not updated
- Omits some apps due to exclusivity clauses or otherwise
My Pi2 with OpenELEC serves that purpose entirely now.
A far better and cheaper solution is to buy a NAS with suitable space/network specs and a Raspberry Pi running OpenELEC/KODI and playing files natively.
It will be cheaper, offer better update support and a variety of formats that your TV will likely never get updated with/support. I find TVs are HUGELY fussy with what formats they support, that's ignoring things like subtitles and other quirks which some formats will present.
If it's just for content you will encode yourself and nothing else then you can probably get away with it, as you can chose whatever format your TV supports. Just....consider what other things you might want to do. I have a Samsung Smart TV and I use NONE of the Smart TV features because it is:
- Slow
- Crashes
- Does not work on a whim
- Unstable
- Not updated
- Omits some apps due to exclusivity clauses or otherwise
My Pi2 with OpenELEC serves that purpose entirely now.
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