crashnburn
Regular Contributor
This is an FAQ question.
Does a NAS need to have a built-in media server in order for me to play music or video from it?
No. If your playback device supports browsing shares, you can just manually navigate to the file that you want and play it just fine. Media Servers provide discovery, device description, control and event notification services that enable dedicated media player types of devices to interact with media file stores.
What kind of actual functionality / advantage do these "services" provide that a normal file share wont?
Does a NAS need to have a built-in media server in order for me to play music or video from it?
No. If your playback device supports browsing shares, you can just manually navigate to the file that you want and play it just fine. Media Servers provide discovery, device description, control and event notification services that enable dedicated media player types of devices to interact with media file stores.
What kind of actual functionality / advantage do these "services" provide that a normal file share wont?
