I recently found that my Synology NAS 218+ should be updated but also found that the update will discontinue Video Station which is their video player and how I get my ripped DVDs to my AppleTV. They are suggesting Plex, JellyFin or Emby and I am looking for suggestions on which to choose.
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Synology NAS - Video Station Discontinued
- Thread starter icanhazmac
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You can also just use your Syno as network file share and use Infuse on AppleTV to connect to it. No mediaserver software needed at all.
VLC on tvOS would do the same, but I prefer the UI of Infuse.
VLC on tvOS would do the same, but I prefer the UI of Infuse.
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HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Or spend peanuts to buy yourself a great big HDD, attach it to your Mac, turn on home sharing, organize all your rips in the TV app on Mac, then watch them whenever you like in the Computers app on AppleTV...
Bonus: Computers app will also bring your ripped music in Music app to probably the best speakers in the home too... and your Photos app collection or albums... and home movies... etc... all WITHOUT the bombardment of pitches to buy/rent more media so prevalent in the TV app on AppleTV.
Big storage is dirt cheap. Buy big, store it all there and enjoy a great way to enjoy your AppleTV (very much like the original AppleTV, before Apple decided to maximize every possible nickel). Computers app is the second most used app in my home, right behind the dazzling Channels app. We barely open the TV app and the streamers only get limited use too.
If you have purchased any media from iTunes/Apple too, download it (so you actually possess it vs. trusting for-profit strangers in the cloud), store it on the same big storage and index it just like the ripped discs in the Mac TV app. Then watch that media in Computers too. Basically, you can retire or mostly put away the AppleTV TV app, subbing in Computers to do much of the best of what TV (app) has to offer... again MINUS all the relentless marketing.
If your household is more than just you... and your own Mac tends to be mobile, resurrect any old Mac or PC that can run iTunes or TV app, attach the big HDD to it and dedicate it to be the always-at-home media library server to any number of AppleTVs in your home. Then you can hit the road with your MB and those back at home can still watch any of it whenever they like.
Bonus: Computers app will also bring your ripped music in Music app to probably the best speakers in the home too... and your Photos app collection or albums... and home movies... etc... all WITHOUT the bombardment of pitches to buy/rent more media so prevalent in the TV app on AppleTV.
Big storage is dirt cheap. Buy big, store it all there and enjoy a great way to enjoy your AppleTV (very much like the original AppleTV, before Apple decided to maximize every possible nickel). Computers app is the second most used app in my home, right behind the dazzling Channels app. We barely open the TV app and the streamers only get limited use too.
If you have purchased any media from iTunes/Apple too, download it (so you actually possess it vs. trusting for-profit strangers in the cloud), store it on the same big storage and index it just like the ripped discs in the Mac TV app. Then watch that media in Computers too. Basically, you can retire or mostly put away the AppleTV TV app, subbing in Computers to do much of the best of what TV (app) has to offer... again MINUS all the relentless marketing.
If your household is more than just you... and your own Mac tends to be mobile, resurrect any old Mac or PC that can run iTunes or TV app, attach the big HDD to it and dedicate it to be the always-at-home media library server to any number of AppleTVs in your home. Then you can hit the road with your MB and those back at home can still watch any of it whenever they like.
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Or spend peanuts to buy yourself a great big HDD, attach it to your Mac, turn on home sharing, organize all your rips in the TV app on Mac, then watch them whenever you like in the Computers app on AppleTV...
Bonus: Computers app will also bring your ripped music in Music app to probably the best speakers in the home too... and your Photos app collection or albums... and home movies... etc... all WITHOUT the bombardment of pitches to buy/rent more media so prevalent in the TV app on AppleTV.
Big storage is dirt cheap. Buy big, store it all there and enjoy a great way to enjoy your AppleTV. Computers app is the second most used app in my home, right behind the dazzling Channels app. We barely open the TV app and the streamers only get limited use too.
Interesting... how are you handling backups? Do you have an external enclosure and raid the drives or are you using cloud, etc?
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
I regularly sync my big HDD to my Synology with Chronosync, so you can easily do that too. Or just manually copy new additions of media to your Synology as you add them.
BUT, since having all storage at one location does not protect against the very real risks of fire/flood/theft, I have 2 other big HDDs for Time Machine use:
If you regularly crank a lot of new data, you might want to rotate 2 drives more frequently than monthly... or temp backup your more recent stuff into various cloud services that give away a chunk of space until rotation, etc. I wouldn't pay for cloud since Synology can be my (and your) personal cloud of any size for $0/month (rent)... but the free space option can be a temp "offsite" place to store new data created in the time between offsite-onsite rotation.
And then, lastly, the media from which I ripped is in the attic too... so I have one more at-home backup in the form of the actual discs themselves. Obviously, those would likely be lost in a fire/theft (maybe not flood) scenario.
BUT, since having all storage at one location does not protect against the very real risks of fire/flood/theft, I have 2 other big HDDs for Time Machine use:
- one is the current TM backup drive (plus another backup to Synology TM app too- TM automatically alternates backup saves to them every other hour) and
- drive 2 is a recent TM backup stored in a bank safe deposit box miles away, holding a copy of all of my media too.
If you regularly crank a lot of new data, you might want to rotate 2 drives more frequently than monthly... or temp backup your more recent stuff into various cloud services that give away a chunk of space until rotation, etc. I wouldn't pay for cloud since Synology can be my (and your) personal cloud of any size for $0/month (rent)... but the free space option can be a temp "offsite" place to store new data created in the time between offsite-onsite rotation.
And then, lastly, the media from which I ripped is in the attic too... so I have one more at-home backup in the form of the actual discs themselves. Obviously, those would likely be lost in a fire/theft (maybe not flood) scenario.
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HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Infuse (and similar) look good too but do they handle Apple DRM? Computers- being an Apple app- has no problems with Ecosystem/DRM anything. If OP downloads purchased media from iTunes Store and then tries to play it in Infuse/Plex/etc (not Apple apps), what happens? Did Apple allow third party options keys to DRM somewhere along the way? If so, I missed that news. Or will OP bump into an obstacle of being limited to their own rips that are DRM free?
Of course, OP didn't explicitly reference any iTunes Store purchases, so if they only have their own video creations/rips, this may matter less... or not at all. But if they have even a few things purchased from iTunes (I have a few videos that were gifted by Apple in various promotions over the years), choices are TV app or Computers app if they want one app to play them too... unless OP wants to go to the trouble of stripping Apple DRM from such files.
Computers (app) plays ALL (Apple) with no issues.
Of course, OP didn't explicitly reference any iTunes Store purchases, so if they only have their own video creations/rips, this may matter less... or not at all. But if they have even a few things purchased from iTunes (I have a few videos that were gifted by Apple in various promotions over the years), choices are TV app or Computers app if they want one app to play them too... unless OP wants to go to the trouble of stripping Apple DRM from such files.
Computers (app) plays ALL (Apple) with no issues.
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In the short term I have installed Infuse on my ATV but it really has a problem identifying some things, seems I need to work on my naming conventions and metadata.
Ug, renaming a bunch of Tom and Jerry and Looney Toons cartoons sucks! What I can say is Infuse has way better metadata for all these old cartoons! Net win!
Ask yourself what is it that you are looking for in an interface? Do you really want to see posters of every movie you own? Need all that meta data info on the titles themselves? Or are you only interested in clicking on a title name and having it play?
VLC is free and great if you don't care about all the graphical interface fluff. Only caveat is that you can't do playlists in VLC on Apple TV, and if you have movies encoded with something other than AC3, you will need an app that provides a decoder. Video Station didn't provide such decoders, so if it played there, VLC would play it. There is a license fee associated with it and Synology and VLC don't care to pay it. Infuse for example covers it in the app fee.
VLC will play everything in the order that it appears, one right after another. Poor man's play list. Using folders helps with sorting of content. Like Movies > Marvel > Iron Man or TV > Xena > Season 1 to make navigation easier.
VLC is free and great if you don't care about all the graphical interface fluff. Only caveat is that you can't do playlists in VLC on Apple TV, and if you have movies encoded with something other than AC3, you will need an app that provides a decoder. Video Station didn't provide such decoders, so if it played there, VLC would play it. There is a license fee associated with it and Synology and VLC don't care to pay it. Infuse for example covers it in the app fee.
VLC will play everything in the order that it appears, one right after another. Poor man's play list. Using folders helps with sorting of content. Like Movies > Marvel > Iron Man or TV > Xena > Season 1 to make navigation easier.
I installed Infuse because I needed something in the short term as I wanted to update my Synology, it was an important security update that would also disable Video Station.
I screwed up my first pass with Infuse and needed to delete it and start over so there was a bit of frustration but it was operator error on my part.
Moving forward I am going to try a few more options from VLC to Home Sharing. Thanks to all that offered their thoughts, keep them coming, I couldn't be the only person that was using Video Station.
I screwed up my first pass with Infuse and needed to delete it and start over so there was a bit of frustration but it was operator error on my part.
Moving forward I am going to try a few more options from VLC to Home Sharing. Thanks to all that offered their thoughts, keep them coming, I couldn't be the only person that was using Video Station.
Home Sharing (using media sharing and Computers app) requires very particular file format.
H.264 or H.265 (also hdr and dovi profile 5) in MP4 container file.
Audio - AAC stereo, DD, DD+ (2.0-7.1, also with Atmos) and MP3. Subtitles - timed text only. Thats it.
There are also some 3rd party more flexible apps, that can AirPlay. Beamer comes to mind.
H.264 or H.265 (also hdr and dovi profile 5) in MP4 container file.
Audio - AAC stereo, DD, DD+ (2.0-7.1, also with Atmos) and MP3. Subtitles - timed text only. Thats it.
There are also some 3rd party more flexible apps, that can AirPlay. Beamer comes to mind.
Infuse still struggles with production/DVD vs airing order. My Futurama box sets are the reason I eventually went back to embedded metadata rather than TVDB scraping.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
While it takes some time & effort, embedded metadata is THE way to go. Embedded means you always have the right data associated with the media. The other option is loaded with hope (for proper matches).
I use free tools like Meta-Z and Subler to embed my metadata, including my own poster art... even for my own home movies. No problems with any of it since.
I use free tools like Meta-Z and Subler to embed my metadata, including my own poster art... even for my own home movies. No problems with any of it since.
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Thanks for those suggestions, I was looking into ways to embed in home made stuff.
I've used MetaX for years and it works well enough that I registered it. I've corrected all of the metadata that Plex got wrong the first time.