Storage Advice for Media

[dpriest]

Interesting thread!

OP - A couple of things I thought whilst reading it:

Are you tied to the Apple TV as the streaming player attached to your TV? You seem to want to (ideally) stream from the NAS without a computer switched on to run iTunes at the same time. As already mentioned by others, it's only possible to do this in a limited way with Apple TV. But with a Smart TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Xbox, or Playstation as your streaming player you can just directly connect to a shared media folder on the NAS. You can alternatively install clients (such as Plex or DS Video) on some of these devices for media servers running on the Synology NAS.

You seem to have a bit of concern about wifi performance. At my home I had problems with streaming HD content over wifi to a weaker signal area of my home. I now use powerline networking to connect my router to my TVs and their attached devices. Powerline networking is cheap and I'm very happy with the result.

My setup is Airport Extreme connected via its four ethernet ports to cable modem, Synology NAS, Powerline adapter, and Sonos bridge. Next to my main living room TV is a powerline adapter connected to a network switch. This network switch branches out to the Smart TV, Apple TV, and XBox. In another room, I have another powerline adapter connected to a Smart TV. I usually access video content stored on the Synology NAS via the DS Video application on my Smart TVs.

A year ago, I visited a friend who introduced me to this whole concept of watching movies on a computer to a TV. Before, I would watch optical media (DVD, Blu-Ray). He had 4 ATVs in his house with a huge movie collection. He turned me on to this concept and before that, I never knew what the ATV was...I thought it was a TV😱. I turned him on to Macs because when I showed up with my MacBook Pro, he ditched all of his PC's and bought 5 iMacs and a MacBook Pro.

Since then, I have 2 ATVs that I bought and am using for this. I do not have an account to Netflix and my Panasonic Plasma is a smart TV with internet connectivity but it is not connected to the network. I have a huge movie collection that is now on an external HDD connected to my PC. When it is movie time, I turn on the PC, open iTunes and make sure the external drive is on. This is the only way I know to do what I want to do and it works well for me. I am not set on anything at this point but I realized that my 2TB external HDD is filling up fast and I will need to get a bigger drive to store my media. My friend had the Buffalo linkstation NAS that he uses to store his media on and his iTunes library points to the NAS as the directory for media.

Since he switched over to all Macs, he bought a 2TB Airport Time Capsule and a 4 ro 8TB G-Tech G-raid usb3.0 which are attached together. He bought the time capsule because he needed a good wireless router and is using the time capsule for backup that everyone in his house backs up to. His G-Raid has all of his media on that his iMac accesses via iTunes to stream to the ATV. So I thought that would be a good setup for me so I can have the media on a location that my kids can access if they want to as well as me and also to make backing up easier for everybody.

I don't understand what these media servers are such as Plex, Kodi/xbmc but I don't want to obsess with all this stuff. If there is an easy way to do what I want to do and that involves using a media server such as plex than I would love to hear how others are doing it. I don't have a lot of $$ to spend on this stuff but I know I need to change my storage and backup to accommodate a growing collection. Since I have already invested in the ATVs, I would like them to be in the mix and part of the solution. I know there are many people that are ditching their ATVs for other devices because the ATVs and iTunes have many limitations compared to other devices and media servers. Speaking of which, one thing that I am frustrated with is ATV not supporting DTS audio, because my ATV is connected to my Yamaha receiver and I have a 5.1 setup with speakers and a sub woofer.

 

[ozaz]

A year ago, I visited a friend who introduced me to this whole concept of watching movies on a computer to a TV. Before, I would watch optical media (DVD, Blu-Ray). He had 4 ATVs in his house with a huge movie collection. He turned me on to this concept and before that, I never knew what the ATV was...I thought it was a TV😱. I turned him on to Macs because when I showed up with my MacBook Pro, he ditched all of his PC's and bought 5 iMacs and a MacBook Pro.

Since then, I have 2 ATVs that I bought and am using for this. I do not have an account to Netflix and my Panasonic Plasma is a smart TV with internet connectivity but it is not connected to the network. I have a huge movie collection that is now on an external HDD connected to my PC. When it is movie time, I turn on the PC, open iTunes and make sure the external drive is on. This is the only way I know to do what I want to do and it works well for me. I am not set on anything at this point but I realized that my 2TB external HDD is filling up fast and I will need to get a bigger drive to store my media. My friend had the Buffalo linkstation NAS that he uses to store his media on and his iTunes library points to the NAS as the directory for media.

Since he switched over to all Macs, he bought a 2TB Airport Time Capsule and a 4 ro 8TB G-Tech G-raid usb3.0 which are attached together. He bought the time capsule because he needed a good wireless router and is using the time capsule for backup that everyone in his house backs up to. His G-Raid has all of his media on that his iMac accesses via iTunes to stream to the ATV. So I thought that would be a good setup for me so I can have the media on a location that my kids can access if they want to as well as me and also to make backing up easier for everybody.

I don't understand what these media servers are such as Plex, Kodi/xbmc but I don't want to obsess with all this stuff. If there is an easy way to do what I want to do and that involves using a media server such as plex than I would love to hear how others are doing it. I don't have a lot of $$ to spend on this stuff but I know I need to change my storage and backup to accommodate a growing collection. Since I have already invested in the ATVs, I would like them to be in the mix and part of the solution. I know there are many people that are ditching their ATVs for other devices because the ATVs and iTunes have many limitations compared to other devices and media servers. Speaking of which, one thing that I am frustrated with is ATV not supporting DTS audio, because my ATV is connected to my Yamaha receiver and I have a 5.1 setup with speakers and a sub woofer.

With your current setup, iTunes on your PC is essentially acting as a media server and your Apple TV is a client that accesses the content catalogued by that server. Direct from the Apple TV you can browse the movies in your iTunes database in a nicely presented way (e.g. based on movie titles rather than filenames).

If you don't want to have to turn on your PC, an alternative way is to have a media server running on a NAS and a client for that server running on some streaming media player. Unfortunately, the only server Apple TV officially & directly supports is iTunes. So you would need another player device (such as a smart TV, Roku player, etc) to directly access a non-iTunes media server. One well known example of such a server would be Plex. There is actually non-supported hack to get a Plex client on Apple TV, but I wouldn't recommend it.

In my setup I could use Plex, but I choose to use Synology's own media server. On my TV (a Samsung Smart TV) there is a Synology app (DS Video) which directly accesses the content catalogued by the Synology media server. So I can directly access my video collection using the TV remote without having to switch on a PC or Mac.

If I only had an Apple TV and no other network-connected player, I could still avoid switching on a Mac or PC. This involves use of the Android or iOS DS Video app. I would browse the NAS content through this app on my phone or tablet, select what I want to watch, choose Apple TV as the playback device, and the content gets sent direct from the NAS to the Apple TV. This would be similar to using the iOS Remote app to playback content in your iTunes database on your Apple TV.

 

[dpriest]

With your current setup, iTunes on your PC is essentially acting as a media server and your Apple TV is a client that accesses the content catalogued by that server. Direct from the Apple TV you can browse the movies in your iTunes database in a nicely presented way (e.g. based on movie titles rather than filenames).

If you don't want to have to turn on your PC, an alternative way is to have a media server running on a NAS and a client for that server running on some streaming media player. Unfortunately, the only server Apple TV officially & directly supports is iTunes. So you would need another player device (such as a smart TV, Roku player, etc) to directly access a non-iTunes media server. One well known example of such a server would be Plex. There is actually non-supported hack to get a Plex client on Apple TV, but I wouldn't recommend it.

In my setup I could use Plex, but I choose to use Synology's own media server. On my TV (a Samsung Smart TV) there is a Synology app (DS Video) which directly accesses the content catalogued by the Synology media server. So I can directly access my video collection using the TV remote without having to switch on a PC or Mac.

If I only had an Apple TV and no other network-connected player, I could still avoid switching on a Mac or PC. This involves use of the Android or iOS DS Video app. I would browse the NAS content through this app on my phone or tablet, select what I want to watch, choose Apple TV as the playback device, and the content gets sent direct from the NAS to the Apple TV. This would be similar to using the iOS Remote app to playback content in your iTunes database on your Apple TV.

I don't mind having a computer on with iTunes open when I want to use the ATV. I think instead of using my current PC to act as a media server, I will use an older PC with windows xp acting as the media server. I will have to download and install a free antivirus program because if this PC is on and connected to the network, I would not want to get any viruses or malware. I think the Synology makes the most sense for what my needs are.

 

[dpriest]

I have an update since I set up my synology drive. It took me a little while to get used to the software interface, but after that, it is all set up now. I am absolutely amazed how much faster the AppleTV responds with fast forwarding then as before. I don't know exactly why this is, but there is virtually no delay at all and buffering and the AppleTV is still wireless. I know there have been a lot of people reading this thread and maybe other people are in the same predicament that I once was, but I highly highly recommend this network drive for streaming media and performing backups.

 

[westrock2000]

I don't mind having a computer on with iTunes open when I want to use the ATV. I think instead of using my current PC to act as a media server, I will use an older PC with windows xp acting as the media server. I will have to download and install a free antivirus program because if this PC is on and connected to the network, I would not want to get any viruses or malware. I think the Synology makes the most sense for what my needs are.

XP is really old. You will run into problems where new software or hardware just do not work.

If you are trying to save money by not buying a Windows 7 license, you can look into making a hackin - tosh. That would give you native iTunes support. Linux would be nice, but there is no native iTunes support.

 

[dpriest]

XP is really old. You will run into problems where new software or hardware just do not work.

If you are trying to save money by not buying a Windows 7 license, you can look into making a hackin - tosh. That would give you native iTunes support. Linux would be nice, but there is no native iTunes support.

Hackin tosh seems a bit in depth. I am fine running my windows 7 PC now. I have to enable wake on lan so it can wake up when need be. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[Boyd01]

I am absolutely amazed how much faster the AppleTV responds with fast forwarding then as before. I don't know exactly why this is, but there is virtually no delay at all and buffering and the AppleTV is still wireless.

How were you storing your media before you got the Synology? If you were using a USB 2.0 drive, that would only give you about 30MB/sec throughput. If the Synology is on gigabit ethernet, that would give you around 100MB/sec.

A direct connected USB 3.0 drive would be even faster than that though. 🙂

 

[dpriest]

How were you storing your media before you got the Synology? If you were using a USB 2.0 drive, that would only give you about 30MB/sec throughput. If the Synology is on gigabit ethernet, that would give you around 100MB/sec.

A direct connected USB 3.0 drive would be even faster than that though. 🙂

My media was stored on a e-SATA external drive. I am now going to use the drive for backup connecting it to my synology. This thing is awesome.😎