Synology DS112j and Airplay - no direct communication

[mentaluproar]

If I try to make my diskstation play content I am certain plays on the appleTV, it insists on passing it through the iPad first. The diskstation will not send data directly to the appleTV. Everything is up to date, I have tried power cycling (and that NAS takes forever to boot), even tried using the web interface, but that little icon is not there.

How can I make my DiskStation send media directly to my AppleTV?

 

[ColdCase]

Unless something has changed recently, you can't do that with a diskstation. The appleTV needs a computer sharing its iTunes library or airplay from a device like the iPad. Not sure how the recent AppleTV upgrade changes that, but I think it just allows your purchased Apple store content to be played directly.

 

[mentaluproar]

DSM 4.3 introduced this feature. Restarting video station fixes it, but it eventually loses the stream button again.

 

[oceanscrashing]

No direct communication?

I could be wrong here (I really hope I am,) but I don't think that any version of DSM truly supports direct Airplay. I have the streaming icon showing at all times no problem, but herein lies the problem:

If I use the DS Video app on my iPad and launch the video, set it to stream to the Apple TV, it plays fine. If I shut the iPad down, or close the DS Video app, the stream continues until the buffer runs out, then stops. I tested a few times, and it seems to take anywhere from 1 minute to several minutes for the buffer to run out, depending on how soon I shut down the app after initiating playback.

Same goes for playback from my mac: I navigate to the Diskstation in firefox or safari or chrome, and once I start streaming to the Apple TV, playback only continues while I have the browser open.

Seems massively inefficient: Playback streams from my Diskstation through my wireless access point to my laptop, back from my laptop and through the access point and out to the Apple TV. Not to mention the CPU overhead that the transcoding on the DS entails.

I don't want to fry my access point and potentially take out a city-block of power just because I decided to stream an HD video. Seems like there should be a better way.

Please correct me if I'm missing something here

 

[oceanscrashing]

I could be wrong here (I really hope I am,) but I don't think that any version of DSM truly supports direct Airplay. I have the streaming icon showing at all times no problem, but herein lies the problem:

If I use the DS Video app on my iPad and launch the video, set it to stream to the Apple TV, it plays fine. If I shut the iPad down, or close the DS Video app, the stream continues until the buffer runs out, then stops. I tested a few times, and it seems to take anywhere from 1 minute to several minutes for the buffer to run out, depending on how soon I shut down the app after initiating playback.

Same goes for playback from my mac: I navigate to the Diskstation in firefox or safari or chrome, and once I start streaming to the Apple TV, playback only continues while I have the browser open.

Seems massively inefficient: Playback streams from my Diskstation through my wireless access point to my laptop, back from my laptop and through the access point and out to the Apple TV. Not to mention the CPU overhead that the transcoding on the DS entails.

I don't want to fry my access point and potentially take out a city-block of power just because I decided to stream an HD video. Seems like there should be a better way.

Please correct me if I'm missing something here

…And as soon as I post this, things start working as I'd hoped…

I tried streaming from the Diskstation to Apple TV via audio station, and I shut down my wireless. Stream continued for minutes no problem. I figured it was a fluke, as the audio source was an internet radio stream.

I tried once again using video station, and it worked like a charm. Tried from both iPad and laptop, shutting down the iPad completely, and shutting off the wireless on my laptop.

I'm psyched about this solution. For the first time, my media (both video and audio,) is organized in a way that makes sense, and FINALLY I can access it from any/all of my devices.