NAS Media Center

[Gibboz2k]

Dear Forum

My first post.... WooHoo!

I have a basic NAS (out of the box sorta device, no big brand name) and I have a lot of my media on there (vids, pics, music etc... the usual). It came with myTwonky Library already "installed".

My new BluRay player is dlna enabled and can see myTwonky library. The problem however which I am having is actually getting the media already on my NAS into the twonky library... After a lot of research I have come to the conclusion that Twonky is not exactly self explanitory, whatever I try does not seem to work (I do come from an IT background, although not networking. So I do believe I had a good go at this). After even more research I came across PLEX which seems a very popular choice for Media Servers. However, now wanting to try out PLEX I am already stuck... what package do I install?? Is my NAS QNAP, unRaid, Asustor . . . ? Where can I check this? I am lost where to start. (http://www.plexapp.com/getplex/ > NAS)

Maybe I am generaly out of my depth here and need to start somewhere else.

Can anybody provide me with the information required above or even lead me to a guide on setting up a genereic NAS Media Server readable from my BluRay.

Any information at this stage is a great help.

Looking forward to your feedback. Thanks in advance.
Gibboz2k

 

[stevech]

Synology and QNAP have good support for ordinary file sharing, and for DLNA services. The BlueRay player should support at least the latter.

IMO, one of the two vendors above is best, and avoid the mass marketed NASes like LG, Netgear, et al. The companies above do only NAS and are best of breed.

 

[PrivateJoker]

Synology and QNAP have good support for ordinary file sharing, and for DLNA services. The BlueRay player should support at least the latter.

IMO, one of the two vendors above is best, and avoid the mass marketed NASes like LG, Netgear, et al. The companies above do only NAS and are best of breed.

I would echo @stevech's comments regarding Synology & QNAP (have owned both, own a Synology at the moment).

Twonky, Plex, XBMC are all great and interesting, but if you're going in with no prior experience in using a home media streamer, something pre-packaged like the Synology or QNAP might be the way to go, because they will come with pretty serious serving/organizing abilities, and also be less reliant on you becoming an expert in their features and extensions in order to use them.

I too have a Bluray player that can do some DLNA player duties, but you're still a bit reliant on that device's UI/navigation and also its file format & codec support (and the fact that it needs to align with the formats & codecs of your files). In my experience some of the DLNA servers can do some transcoding on the fly which certainly simplifies things. Like Synology now can stream a whole slew of file types right to my AppleTV which is incredibly easy. I've also heard good things about using a PS3, Xbox 360, & WD-TV as player units. There's also Roku but I don't think it's a DLNA device (though there hundreds of "private" beta channels and lots of crazy experiments there). I used my TiVos as viewers for years, and PyTivo running on an old Windows box with a big hard drive as my media share, and it worked great, if you could even call it a "server" it took about 15-20 min to setup and worked great for me at the time.

Depending on the file type, you might not even need an actual fleshed out DLNA server, you might just need your files in a network share somewhere (NAS or otherwise) depending on the media playing end of things.

 

[Gibboz2k]

Thanks for the info. Just for the record, when I have Twonky installed on my PC and use that, the BluRay plays the Media just fine (Vids ever so slightly jerky)... I guess the best thing would simply to figure out how to get the damn media into Twonky on the NAS..... It can't be that hard but I just cannot figure it out. Grrrrr

 

[PrivateJoker]

Thanks for the info. Just for the record, when I have Twonky installed on my PC and use that, the BluRay plays the Media just fine (Vids ever so slightly jerky)... I guess the best thing would simply to figure out how to get the damn media into Twonky on the NAS..... It can't be that hard but I just cannot figure it out. Grrrrr

Can you tell us more about your NAS? If you can identify it, it probably has it's own forums (beyond those at this website) and I'm sure Twonky does as well, that might be able to give you a little more guidance. I'm certainly not trying to give you the cold shoulder(!!!) just want you to get the best & most helpful advice.

 

[Gibboz2k]

The NAS is a basic one from Medion: P89625 (MD 86517)
1TB
TCP/IP Networkprotocol
UPNP, integrated DLNA-Server from Twonky Media
iTunes-Server
FTP-Server
Samba–Server
Integrated Download manager

The version of Twonky on the NAS itself is TwonkyServer Premium 7.0.9-RC3

I was not able to find any useful information on the Twonky forums. I currently have an open question in the twonky community so I'm just waiting for a response there also.


btw... I know your not giving me the cold shoulder Thx again