Info What do you use your NAS for?

[fredbert]

Many of the Synology packages disable disk hibernation, or more precisely DSM ignores the setting when these are installed and running. Hibernation will save power but at the expense of spin up time when the storage is needed. You may already have hibernation disabled without realising.

There's no one right way for playing media, it's whatever suits you. I would say that Plex can generate quite a bit of metadata too but it is consigned to its own locations:

DSM: the Plex shared folder​

Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/ and ~/Library/Caches/PlexMediaServer/​

If you're on a Mac with limited storage then you should monitor your usage of Plex. My Mac's Plex support and cache files are 10GB for about 4TB of music and TV/films. On my 128GB MacBook Air I wouldn't want that much used.

DSM has 6.5GB of support and cache files for pretty well the same content.

You can try Plex and create libraries that use the same media file that you're using with Infuse. See which works best.

 

[tekguru]

I may as well give Plex another go then. I turned hibernation off as I was advised the IronWolf dives are designed to run 24/7 and it does more harm than good to spin them up/down via hibernation.

My Mac Mini has 512Gb of storage with 219Gb free so no problems there. The NAS has over 6Tb of space so that is not an issue either.

 

[Rusty]

Personally I love Plex. As someone who uses multiple Plex servers (on my end), I can safely say that it's my platform of choice. @tekguru if you indeed wanna use Plex on your NAS, 918 will deliver no question about it. Keep in mind though that to use the full potential of Plex running on this NAS, and to avoid transcoding problems that might happen depending on your Plex client palette, one might consider buying Plex Pass subscription. With that, you will install a paid plex version that will allow you to use HW transcoding features, utilizing Quicksync tech supported by the Celeron CPU running in 918.

Transcoding on a NAS can often hit (even without the need to change resolutions) when audio needs to be converted, or simply by running certain subtitles (if needed). Ofc none of this matters if your needs will not include transcoding, then just as @fredbert said, give it a spin and see how it works.

 

[tekguru]

Yep Plex is back and I'm on my Plex Pass trial. I have heard that DS Video will install on the Apple TV though so I'll check that out too

 

[Rusty]

Yep Plex is back and I'm on my Plex Pass trial. I have heard that DS Video will install on the Apple TV though so I'll check that out too

Think Plex will be the winner here but do give them both a chance

 

[fredbert]

Yep Plex is back and I'm on my Plex Pass trial. I have heard that DS Video will install on the Apple TV though so I'll check that out too

Apple TV HD (4th gen) and 4K (5th gen, latest) both support the DS video app.

I've both DS video and Plex on both these Apple TV. Initially I stopped adding TV and films to my Mac's iTunes library and started just syncing files to the NAS locations that Video Station uses. I then 'trained'* the family to use DS video. Only later have I added Plex, and it has pretty well the same content but also music and photos ... and my free year of Tidal HD (bought a car that for some reason it had this perk... first car for 17 years).

DS video and Plex pros vs iTunes/Apple TV linked to Computers

• automated tagging ... oh the saved time!!!!

DS video vs Plex

• DS video
  • pros (mostly what you get for free without buying a 'Plex Pass'):
    • will use any hardware transcoding capability without buying any extra licence
    • DSM users get access to the libraries they are assigned
    • DSM users can have age classification restrictions (e.g. only allow access to age tags X, Y, Z)
    • for a user to access media that is not in their age restrictions there is PIN override.
  • cons
    • TV shows only use TVDB so if it's not there or hard to find then it takes effort to re-tag.
    • Films only use MovieDB so if it's not there or hard to find then it takes effort to re-tag. But is usually better than TVDB.
    • age classifications are a mix of whichever country it happens to find
    • without my Bash scripts to edit the VS databases then maintaining age classifications is onerous due to TV episodes classified individually
    • issues with some audio codecs (but seems to be with EAC3/AC3 and Chrome stuff, which I don't have)
    • password and PIN entry is in cleartext ... I mean, well, really how secure! D'oh!!!
    • [Flipping] subtitles are ALWAYS displayed if they exist. Each first play needs to have the subtitle disabled.
  • tip
    • once tagged to your satisfaction you should export the data so each media item has an associated .vsmeta file. This speeds up any re-indexing and preserves your self-assigned tagging.
    • adjust DS video's subtitle display so that they are 100% transparent so that they never display. Also set Apple TV subtitle language to Auto (don't know why but this was a problem too).
• Plex pros
  • pros
    • tagging is much better as you can configure multiple data sources per media type.
    • age classification can't (so far as I can find) be scripted but is a lot easier to maintain due to library views and multi-item editing.
  • cons
    • multi-user support requires Plex Pass
    • which means kids accounts is a paid extra
    • no PIN override for a Home account on a shared Apple TV
  • tips
    • it combines other media types that Synology doesn't have Apple TV apps

Generally, without VS's exported .vsmeta files I would really dread rebuilding or setting up a new VS. With Plex I'd be happy to start from fresh as it's so much less effort to keep maintained.

* meaning 'if you want to see the newest stuff you have to use DS video'

 

[tekguru]

Well I tried DS Video with a few films I thought might be problematical (on the iPhone & iPad) and it gives a 'Failed to transcode: The format of this video is not supported error'. It does offer to play with VLC which does work, but it is not a clean a process. I could live with it but the other half wont.

So Plex it is I've tried it with 5 films I know DS Vide can't handle and it plays them without any issues

I'm not going through the process of identifying the problem films and converting them all. So it looks like the Plex Pass will have to stay......

 

[Geeked]

Well I tried DS Video with a few films I thought might be problematical (on the iPhone & iPad) and it gives a 'Failed to transcode: The format of this video is not supported error'. It does offer to play with VLC which does work, but it is not a clean a process. I could live with it but the other half wont.

So Plex it is I've tried it with 5 films I know DS Vide can't handle and it plays them without any issues

I'm not going through the process of identifying the problem films and converting them all. So it looks like the Plex Pass will have to stay......

Just going to throw this out there. Emby is also an option. My preferred media server. I have Plex Pass but don't even use it. I prefer Emby Premiere. Emby administration is much less cluttered and easier to manage for me. Plex has become way too bloated for my liking over the last year.

 

[tekguru]

Just going to throw this out there. Emby is also an option. My preferred media server. I have Plex Pass but don't even use it. I prefer Emby Premiere. Emby administration is much less cluttered and easier to manage for me. Plex has become way too bloated for my liking over the last year.

Interesting, I'll take a look at it. Does it have native Apps for Apple TV & iOS? I'm asking as I can't see Apple TV listed on their site? Ah ha one edit later it looks like it does. I'll take a look at it!

 

[Geeked]

Interesting, I'll take a look at it. Does it have native Apps for Apple TV & iOS? I'm asking as I can't see Apple TV listed on their site? Ah ha one edit later it looks like it does. I'll take a look at it!

iOS for iPhones yes but not sure for Apple TV. There’s one for roku and firestick too.

 

[tekguru]

Well I've just set the server up and it looks pretty damned impressive so far. Playback is great from the iPad even those problematical audio films. So just got to see if there is indeed an Apple TV app.

 

[fredbert]

iOS for iPhones yes but not sure for Apple TV. There’s one for roku and firestick too.

Looking in iOS app store and it says there's an iPad version. Looking for Infuse 6 and that says iPad and Apple TV ... So I guess there isn't an Apple TV version of Emby. May be wrong

 

[Rusty]

Just going to throw this out there. Emby is also an option. My preferred media server. I have Plex Pass but don't even use it. I prefer Emby Premiere. Emby administration is much less cluttered and easier to manage for me. Plex has become way too bloated for my liking over the last year.

I would personally say that I disagree with this. Bloated? Every added feature can be safely ignored if you don’t need it. Customizing the Ui for multiple plex servers/sources is also a welcome addition. All those free movies, news, podcast etc are features that I don’t even know about considering that they can be visually completely removed from all the apps. I guess the main problem is platform support (no apps).

On the other hand emby is a solid competitor for Plex, the one that VS probably never will be

 

[tekguru]

Looking in iOS app store and it says there's an iPad version. Looking for Infuse 6 and that says iPad and Apple TV ... So I guess there isn't an Apple TV version of Emby. May be wrong

Oh yes there is

Emby

media server for personal streaming videos tv music photos in mobile app or browser for all devices android iOS windows phone appletv androidtv smarttv and dlna

emby.media

Looking good!

 

[fredbert]

Here's a stripped back approach:

DSM's Media Server package to the enable a DLNA server and VLC on Apple TV.


Emby on Apple TV ... must be a separate app then.

Whatever works for you, that's all that matters

 

[tekguru]

Here's a stripped back approach:

DSM's Media Server package to the enable a DLNA server and VLC on Apple TV.

Yep I've looked at similar but it still has the audio transcoding issues IIRC

Emby on Apple TV ... must be a separate app then. Whatever works for you, that's all that matters

Yep it looks to be, just tested it out and it works brilliantly and seems not to need the premium service to work! Great for testing etc

 

[fredbert]

Yep I've looked at similar but it still has the audio transcoding issues IIRC

Odd cos I thought you said it worked with VLC.

It does offer to play with VLC which does work, but it is not a clean a process. I could live with it but the other half wont.

Not that it's exactly user friendly, or family-friendly at all, which is why I've looked into various alternatives in my quest to de-link from iTunes libraries and manual tagging (esp. since the apps I used got left behind over recent years of Mac OS X/macOS upgrades).

 

[tekguru]

DS Video does work, but with the films on which the audio is not supported you get prompted on iOS devices to launch VLC to play back the film - so it does work but it is not a good user experience.

So far the best experiences are Plex and Embly both will play back all my movies etc.

 

[fredbert]

Sorry I thought you were specifically aiming at an Apple TV setup. Also, for the stripped back setup, I thought your last response was saying the VLC had the audio transcoding issue.

 

[tekguru]

Looking at it from all angles and trying to get the best experience across all devices. At home the primary access device for the family will be Apple TV though. When we all get released from COVID-19 I'll be looking for remote access as well as downloading content to the iPad for taking away on holiday (not always WiFi where we holiday).

No, VLC will play back but it has to be launched from within DS Video for it to do it (IIRC).

Does that make more sense now. Sorry for being a little obtuse