HP Gen8 - Xpenology as Media Server?

5to1

My wife has a stack of DVD's (200) that she'd forgotten about until they were found in a recent clear out. She's collected them for years, but with nowhere to put them it became a chore to go through them and pick a film to watch, so they slowly got pushed to the back of a cupboard. It's mostly foreign stuff you won't find on streaming sites, so binning them isn't an option.

I have a GEN 8 Microserver (4GB) running Xpenology (DSM 6). Currently used for CCTV (4 Cameras), Time Machine backups, VPN access and odd file storage. I have plenty of drive space, so was thinking this would be a good place to burn and store them. What i'm not sure about is what media server to use. There are a few options on the package centre. But given it only has the standard 4GB, I'm not sure which it could handle. And also which would be best.

In terms of viewing devices, it would primarily be the main TV (Panasonic 65FZ952) and iPhone/iPad/Mac.

Any advice would be great. Dont want to go to the trouble of transcoding/importing everything only to find out i've picked the wrong server.

5to1

I've had a play around with the various options now:

Synology Video Station

Very easy to use.
Appears to be light weight (not affecting NAS)
Web interface and Apps are snappy
Picks up meta data automatically
Doesn't seem to impact NAS performance

But, there is no Panasonic App, so I'm having to use DLNA :/ which is pretty basic.

Plex

There is a Panasonic App for Plex, so thought I'd give it a try.
CPU/RAM seemed fine, but NAS appeared a bit sluggish.
Then I tried to launch the web interface and it took a long time. First time it took several minutes. Second time 30s . CPU/RAM seemed fine so not sure what's going on here :/

Anyone else running Plex on a Gen 8 with the standard 4GB RAM and Xpenology?

mickevh

It is not required to use a "media server" backend to serve media: Anything that can store the files and make them available using "bog standard" network shares such as CIFS/SMB/NFS should be just fine - most players can read from such sources.

However, depending on the media player you use, you may need a back end to avail some of the more "fancy" features such as web scrapers, "movie wall" and so on. Much depends on the capabilities and requirements of your playback devices.

For example, my elderly NetGear media streamer can do all the movie wall itself, all it required is to be taught where the files reside (simple CIFS/SNB/NFS shares) and the data to be organised within them in a "certain kind of way."

The key thing is to store the files in a format that all your playback devices can read and render correctly. MPEG2 and MPEG4 (H.264/AVC) used on DVD and Blu-Ray are widely supported and many devices are happy to read such formats encoded into Matroska (MKV) files. Ripping your media using something like MakeMKV (which is free) will do that for you.

5to1

Thanks for the response and recommendation of MakeMKV. I've been using Handbrake currently, but have only ripped a couple of DVD's (H.264/AVC) to test.

Firstly, just to clarify what I want to achieve:

Devices: iOS, Android, OSX, Panasonic FZ952, LG Smart TV

1) Avoid transcoding on the NAS
2) Have the Meta Data collected automatically where possible.
3) On the devices have an interface similar to DS Video Station. Tiles showing the DVD cover, description, etc, so the user can flick through. Ability to search. Ability to Favourite or stack titles I want to watch next (possibly on another device).
4) As far as possible a consistent interface on all the devices.

I had presumed the best route would be to use Video Station or similar to provide this. So one DB is constructed on the NAS. Then all the devices simply query this DB for search, favourites, etc.

If I understand you correctly, you're suggesting leaving the NAS to simply store the rips. Then use the player on the device to pull the Meta Data and construct the DB and provide all the other features.

The only player I can see that's on all the devices is Plex. Would it be possible to install Plex on all the devices and then just point it to the NAS for the source files? How does it then construct the DB for search/etc of the Meta Data? Does it pull all the Meta Data on the fly, or have some local or cloud based DB?

I haven't looked at media streaming for a long time. So trying to save myself lots of messing about. As I'm sure other people have done this all before and figured out the best route.

bubblegum57

I would first install Plex server on the Microserver. Go to the web interface to add paths to the movies/Films. Install Plex client to a device, & try playing back the largest file you have. Plex can be set to update the library every now & again.

I have a new Samsung TV & it doesn't recognise the mkv files using DS Video.

mickevh

I'm not an expert in Plex, but as I understand it, it can be configured to not transcode (I would argue avoiding real time transcoding is a "good thing.")

Things like data scraping is a much lower CPU activity, so one could see that it's no big deal running an agent on a NAS that does such. Of course, having any meta-data so generated in one place accessed by all is also a "good thing" in terms of consistency of data.

The approach advocated by bubblegum57 sounds reasonable to me, but the jumping off point would seem to be determining what the requirements of all your players are as that, especially for those integrated into TV's which cannot be changed, may dictate how you proceed. I'm sure you'll find plenty of advice on specifisc here.

5to1

I’ll only be using it for DVD rips. The newer stuff is available on the various streaming services anyway. All my devices play H264/AVC MKVs, so that isn’t a problem fortunately

The main problem I ran into was Plex ran very slowly on the GEN8. I installed it and the web interface took several minutes to load. I’m not sure why as CPU/RAM util was low.

After that it still took 30s  to open the web interface. And the NAS seemed sluggish. So I gave up at that point.

DS video runs fine. But there’s no App on the Panasonic.

I guess I’ll have to give Plex another shot.

bubblegum57

What about Emby? What apps does the panasonic have? Or buy a cheap android box, or Firetv stick.

5to1

Looks like its just Plex when it comes to streaming servers/clients :/

Everything else appears to be streaming sites like Amazon Prime, Rakuten etc.

If Plex doesnt work then eventually will have to grab an external solution. Bit reluctant to right now as everything else is available on the TV right now. And i'm not sure how much the Mrs will actually use the ripped DVD's.

The TV doesnt pass through Atmos, so an external smart box will be required when I get my sound sorted out. But right now its not a priority.

5to1

Thought i'd come back and update for anyone else trying to do the same.

After some digging it appears the best route right now is DS Video, but using DLNA on the Panasonic TV

Plex requires an IAP to be able to use the iOS/Android App. Which pretty much rules it out for us as i'd be better off spending the money on a chromecast/fire stick for the TV to get DS Video.

Going forward I think i'll grab an external box like chromecast ultra or fire stick. It's always been the plan as I dont trust TV manufacturers to stay on top of their smart TV offerings once a new model turns up. Also as the FZ won't decode/pass Atmos, it would solve that issue going forward as well for App content.

Already have Chromecast for Multiroom Audio setup. So its probably the best option to keep things consistent. Then can just use DS Video on mobile devices to search through DVD collection and cast to TV. My only concern is netflix for example dont support Atmos with casting. So perhaps a conventional smart stick/box would be the better route.