Advice on network setup and NAS configuration

[pmruk]

Hi there,

I'm in the market to buy a NAS but want to make sure it fulfills my needs before shelling out. Hope you guys can help…

Firstly I'd like a centralised place where I can store and backup all my digital media (I guess this is the whole point of a NAS). I'd also like it to stream said content over my wired (via homeplug) network to my TV and AV receiver/speakers. A nice to have is that I’d like to sit on my sofa with my MacBook Pro, rent a film on iTunes and watch it on my TV over the network.

I have a wireless router upstairs (supplied by the broadband company) which is connected to the phone line and has one PC (XP Pro), and a homeplug connected to it via Ethernet. It will also eventually have the NAS.

Downstairs I have another wireless router (Netgear) which has the TV (Sony Bravia KDL-40NX503), an Apple Airport Express and the second homeplug attached, all via Ethernet. The MacBook Pro connects to it wirelessly. The Airport is in Ethernet mode and connects directly to the AV receiver.

The downstairs router gets its IP address via DHCP from the upstairs router and is essentially a wireless network extender/ hub.

I’ve done some experimenting with Twonky and WMP11 installed on the upstairs PC and the TV will pick up Twonky but no matter what I try, it won’t see WMP11. Although this is annoying, I’m not that fussed because the NAS will eventually be the box from which I’ll serve up my content.

My worry at the moment is that the DLNA receiver in the Bravia seems only to support MPEG2 video and MP3 audio. This is unfortunate, as all my music is in an iTunes library (eventually to be stored on and served up from the NAS) and most of my stored video is recorded from my Flip camcorder which records in MPEG4. As the Bravia’s DLNA supported formats seem so limited, do I therefore really have to buy another box (Netgar Digital Entertainer, Buffalo LinkTheater, DragonTech ioBox, PS3) which will receive my MPEG4 content over the network and pipe it to the TV?

And what about transcoding? Is there a NAS on the market that will transcode on the fly to the Bravia? I was looking at the Synology DS210+ but just read that it doesn’t transcode. Maybe a QNAP box will transcode? But do I really need transcoding? Surely if the source file is not supported by the Bravia in the first place, it won’t even see it and therefore won’t allow me to navigate to it and launch it. I don’t really want to have to transcode anything to be honest; I’d like this to be as idiot proof as possible, i.e., download from Flip to NAS. Watch on TV.

Regarding music, my solution of using the Remote app on my iPhone to pipe my iTunes music from library to Airport works well, but it would be nice to have the option to play tunes via the TV menus too.

So what to do? I’m definitely going to buy a NAS although I’m not sure which one. It looks also like I’m going to have to buy a separate DLNA media receiver which is annoying having just spent good money on a decent TV which I thought would do the job.

Any advice on which way to go?

Many thanks,
Pete

 

[Osamede]

It looks also like I’m going to have to buy a separate DLNA media receiver which is annoying having just spent good money on a decent TV which I thought would do the job.

No, a TV was never going to be a good solution for playback of media because they will always have restrictions and issues. And with media playback so immature, your TV would be obsolete pretty quickly if you start relying on it for that.

At the end of the day every new TV is really a monitor and you are best off letting it be a "dumb" device that dispays what you tell it to display via the HDMI in.

If you dont mind spending some money I'd consider buying a Mac Mini server edition and sticking that at your TV. I've done that (added Plex and VLC softtware) and it functions as both Media player as well as a 1 GB NAS. It's not cheap at a thousand bucks, but it's an excellent media player and once you hook up the HDMI to your TV, you can control it with wired or wireless keyboards, iphone tools such as Mobile Air Mouse/Logitech Touchmouse, as well as a remote desktop client on a laptop or your iphone. I recommend the laptop though - the iPhone screen is just to small to be mainstream control .

 

[thiggins]

There are no NASes that transcode on the fly. Osamede's advice is correct that you will probably end up buying a media player.

You don't have to spend a lot, though. Players like the WD TV Live are inexpensive and handle a surprisingly wide array of formats. It also can play from DLNA / UPNP AV servers or can just browse the network to select files to play.

 

[SimonD]

Personally speaking I would perhaps look at a WHS (Windows Home Server) implementation. It does pretty much everything you have asked for, I would also perhaps look at using something like Tversity as a transcoding option.

I use a mix of PS3, WHS and Tversity at home (the Tversity box is actually a virtual).