What items am I missing to get movies/TV shows from a NAS to my HDTV?

[yacoub]

Background: My primary PC has AirVideoHD installed, which I use to stream media files (TV shows, movies, etc) to my iPad anywhere in the house. It works perfectly.

I'd like the same functionality on my HDTV in the family room as I have on my iPad. i.e., access to my media files and to watch them, in this case on the TV.

I'd also like to move the data storage from drives inside my PC to a NAS where it can be accessible to other devices when my PC is offline and can be backed up properly.

In all the research I've done, it sounds like running Plex on a NAS might be the closest alternative.

So I've been considering a Synology NAS, but reading the review of the DS214Play, its lack of DTS transcode is a bit lame and it sounds like its media playing capabilities are not quite as flawless or amazing a solution as it could be. I'm assuming based on that review, that even if the Plex app is installed (which in turn assumes it gets updated to work with the DS214Play which it does not currently do), it would still rely on the hardware in the NAS to transcode/stream the media just like the native Media Server app? If so, it certainly sounds like the NAS would be less successful at transcoding/streaming media files than doing so via AirVideoHD on my PC.

I do have a Chromecast, but I am unaware of any way to get AirVideoHD to communicate with a ChromeCast.
Side note: I tried using a Roku 3 but didn't like the interface. I did not try it with Plex though, as I don't yet have Plex server installed.

The other downside is the Chromecast will not work from a desktop PC on the network anyway, unless it's on the network wirelessly. My PC is on a hardwired network connection, so no way use the Chromecast to stream from the PC to the HDTV directly, even if AirVideoHD was Chromecast enabled.

Short of building another PC (an HTPC) and setting that up physically-proximate to the HDTV and using the HDTV as its display, and then still also setting up a NAS to store/access the media, I was sort of hoping there was a much simpler alternative in 2014 for home media viewing, ideally over the WiFi network so I could have one single location in the house where the media is stored and access to it made available to all devices (PC, HDTV, tablets) to watch whatever they want whenever they want wherever they are in the house -- and have it be as consistent and trouble-free in transcoding as AirVideoHD server on my PC has been.

What am I missing? :$

 

[Muadib]

I'm in the process of building a NAS for the same reasons you listed. I went with building over buying a NAS, because it gives me room to expand, and the horsepower to run Plex with several streams going at once. I can go to 17 drives in the case I went with. Buying a NAS with that much room comes with an insane price.

The only thing I'd mention is if you are going to use wifi, then make sure you use something on the 5GHz band.

 

[Aikouka]

You could build a NAS, which uses a Plex-compatible processor (Intel's Evansport-based Atom isn't supported by the Plex-modified FFMPEG variant), and it probably wouldn't be much more costly than buying the Synology unit and you would get more than 2 disks. There are plenty of people on the forum that could give you some great advice on going that route, but I'm not one of them. Although, Plex is a nice alternative, because it does also support devices like the iPhone, iPad and Android-based devices, which means it can also remove the need for AirVideoHD.

As for your end-unit, you could use an Amazon FireTV. It's $100 (normal price), and it supports Plex out of the box. You can also side-load apps onto the box, which can turn it into an interesting little emulation box as well (it is just an Android-based device after all). Personally, I go with normal x86 machines, because I watch a good amount of anime, and stylized subtitles do not come out well when transcoded as you lose all of the style!

 

[yacoub]

Does Plex do software transcoding of video files, or is that really reliant on the OS? If it does, you wouldn't have to use hardware transcoding, but since we're talking a Synology NAS, I'm assuming there's no such thing as software transcoding, unlike on a Windows box where you can just run it all via MPC-HD or whatever and it transcodes everything without the need of hardware, so long as the correct codecs are present.

 

[poofyhairguy]

There are three basic options.

Either you have a decent amount of CPU power on the NAS to transcode the content to some sort of Plex client like a Roku 3.

Or

You have enough power at the client to play the unadulterated stream coming off of the dumb NAS

Or

You connect the dumb NAS to a desktop and let it do the transcoding to the clients

The power has to be somewhere.

Given your needs (aka content anywhere) a homemade NAS with a decent CPU that can be a good Plex server is probably the best course of action. But a normal NAS connected to an always-on desktop would also work.

 

[nk215]

You already have a PC running airvideo server. What you need is an ATV (apple TV or other device that you can airplay to - xbmc can do this but not as stable as ATV). Connect the ATV to your receiver or HDTV.

That way you can use your ipad, iphone as your "remote" control, you can "send" movies that is playing on your ipad to the Receiver/HDTV.

You don't need an HTPC if all you need is to airplay to your TV.

 

[Muadib]

Does Plex do software transcoding of video files, or is that really reliant on the OS? If it does, you wouldn't have to use hardware transcoding, but since we're talking a Synology NAS, I'm assuming there's no such thing as software transcoding, unlike on a Windows box where you can just run it all via MPC-HD or whatever and it transcodes everything without the need of hardware, so long as the correct codecs are present.

Yes Plex will do the transcoding.

 

[yacoub]

Ahh, so that's where the performance ability of the CPU comes into play. So if you're letting Plex handle transcoding, would it be noticeably faster on a DS214Play compared to a DS414 since the Play has the newer CPU that's supposedly better for that sort of operation?

 

[Aikouka]

Ahh, so that's where the performance ability of the CPU comes into play. So if you're letting Plex handle transcoding, would it be noticeably faster on a DS214Play compared to a DS414 since the Play has the newer CPU that's supposedly better for that sort of operation?

No. FFMPEG does support Intel Evansport CPU for hardware-based transcoding, which is what the DS214play uses. However, PLEX uses their own modified version of FFMPEG, which does not support Evansport.