NAS/Media server Newbie

[kiethb]

Wow, I jumped in feet first on this one. I hope this is the right area for this type of question. I am hoping to speed up some of the learning curve by asking a few high level questions. Thanks

Main Objective: Store all of my DVDs for access and playback on my TV.

What I have bought to accomplish this: DS212J Disk Station (and 2x2TB drives), Roku XS. I also have an AT&T modem/Router.

What I have done so far: set up the system, mirrored the drives, created volume/Folder.

What I am curious about at this point to get this up and running:
1. Cannot find how to connect my NAS to the Roku wirelessly to serve these movies. I believe I could connect via USB 2.0, which is faster?
2. Do I need a dongle to be able to serve these wirelessly?
3. I have activated DLNA which I understand is what I wanted to do, is this all I need to be able to stream media to the Roku?
4. Docs mention DMA device. Is that my Roku?

Any other advice would be appreciated.

[TommyN]

1. Cannot find how to connect my NAS to the Roku wirelessly to serve these movies. I believe I could connect via USB 2.0, which is faster?

If you have your Synology already connected to the network, just connect your Roku to your wireless network and set it up.
You can't connect the NAS to the Roku by USB.

2. Do I need a dongle to be able to serve these wirelessly?

Yes, if you want to have your Synology connected wireless to your network.

3. I have activated DLNA which I understand is what I wanted to do, is this all I need to be able to stream media to the Roku?

It should be.

4. Docs mention DMA device. Is that my Roku?

Yes, DMA = Digital Media Adapter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_media_adapter

[Taxman]

Wow, I jumped in feet first on this one. I hope this is the right area for this type of question. I am hoping to speed up some of the learning curve by asking a few high level questions. Thanks

Main Objective: Store all of my DVDs for access and playback on my TV.

What I have bought to accomplish this: DS212J Disk Station (and 2x2TB drives), Roku XS. I also have an AT&T modem/Router.

What I have done so far: set up the system, mirrored the drives, created volume/Folder.

What I am curious about at this point to get this up and running:
1. Cannot find how to connect my NAS to the Roku wirelessly to serve these movies. I believe I could connect via USB 2.0, which is faster?
2. Do I need a dongle to be able to serve these wirelessly?
3. I have activated DLNA which I understand is what I wanted to do, is this all I need to be able to stream media to the Roku?
4. Docs mention DMA device. Is that my Roku?

Any other advice would be appreciated.

You have the wrong device Roku's are not network media players, they are IPTV devices for streaming online media from the Internet. Roku's do not support DVD's either only H.264 video.

You need a network media player like a WDTV Live and it can read the NAS same as your PC can via SMB/Samba so you don't even bother with DLNA as it just gets in the way.

You rip your DVD's as .iso disc images using AnyDVD and the WDTV will play them with full menus, alternatively rip them with MakeMKV if you just want the main movie.

[TommyN]

You have the wrong device Roku's are not network media players, they are IPTV devices for streaming online media from the Internet. Roku's do not support DVD's either only H.264 video.

I did not know that, but I do now

[kiethb]

Does anyone have experience with the WD Live product? After reading the reviews, there were enough negative ones to warrant suspicion as to if this is the best unit to purchase. I really dont mind spending more as long as I get the best performance.

Since its setup to RAID, I only have 2tb for about 400-500 movies. so I am really just wanting to rip the main feature without the extras. I understand this MKV product is pretty good so I will use the anyDVD and MKV software to create my library, so bottom line, I need a great recommendation on a streaming player dedicated to just this since I really dont care about the netflix and hulu stuff.

any and all advice is welcome. im that guy that just wants it to work effortlessly, so anything I can do to make it a simple and robust solution is good for me.

Thanks to all!

[TommyN]

I thought about buying a WDTV Live but ended up buying a D-Link Boxee Box.

The Boxee Box can be setup wired and wireless and you just connect it to a Samba share and it indexes the movies and tv shows and what not.

I mainly play 1080p mkv files from my Syno to the Boxee Box via gigabit LAN and I have never had any problems.

Just wanted to share my experience with this D-Link product

[Taxman]

Yeah I'd go with the Boxee Box, better quality media player with an automatic media library scanner it looks at the name of the file then downloads relevant info about the movie.

You only need to use MakeMKV nothing else, it will read the DVD's and extract the movie.

[kiethb]

OK, so I thought I would post the results so others could get some closure and hopefully get valuable information to help them in a similar endeavor.

I am happy to report that everything is 100% operational.

Just for what I wanted to do it was really very easy. I did end up sending the Roku back and immediately buying the WDTV unit. I buy from amazon so if it didn't work, its a very simple process to send it right back to them. I also hard wired the Synology box to the router so no need for a dongle. I used the MKV utility and although it takes a ton of time to rip a movie and then upload it to the server, over time it will be worth it as I build my electronic library.

On the flip side, I think I would have gone with larger hard drives since I was hoping to be able to keep the files to about 4gb each. I ripped Collateral with Tom Cruise as my very first test and it came in at a whopping 7gb. So this just means that there is probably no way I am going to be able to get 500 movies on this system unless I un-RAID or I guess buy another Synology box which I really wouldnt be opposed to.

If anyone knows of a better way to upgrade this solution I would be all ears! Considering what Ive read, this box can only handle up to 3gb drives, thats not very scalable in my opinion. Just throwing that out there.

One last thing, I noticed that the WDTV box only showed me the three core folders from the Diskstation even though I created my own MyMovies folder. If anyone knows how I can get other folders to show up and even more than that, would like to figure out how I can password protect or use a hidden folder for our adult movie collection, that would set me on my way.

Special shout out to the Taxman... I wanted an easy solution, I got an easy solution. Thanks man.

[kbb0118]

Thanks for this post. I just got the DS1512+ and have the same goals!

[TommyN]

Considering what Ive read, this box can only handle up to 3gb drives, thats not very scalable in my opinion. Just throwing that out there

I don't think there's a hardware limitation on the disk size, but I could imagine that it's only tested compatible with 3 TB drives so far.

[csimon]

On the flip side, I think I would have gone with larger hard drives since I was hoping to be able to keep the files to about 4gb each. I ripped Collateral with Tom Cruise as my very first test and it came in at a whopping 7gb.

I have done the same thing and have been told that you can compress the MKV to H.264 encoding which is more efficient on file space, using programs such as Handbrake.

One last thing, I noticed that the WDTV box only showed me the three core folders from the Diskstation even though I created my own MyMovies folder. If anyone knows how I can get other folders to show up and even more than that

From the sticky at the top of this forum: "the means to add other folders is built into the DLNA media server as of DSM 3.2, look under control panel\media server\indexed folder".

would like to figure out how I can password protect or use a hidden folder for our adult movie collection, that would set me on my way.

See the discussion at http://forum.synology.com/enu/viewtopic.php?f=114&t=53248.

Short answer is: you can't do this using a single DLNA server. You will have to serve your different collections by different means/protocols/servers.

[Shep]

1. Cannot find how to connect my NAS to the Roku wirelessly to serve these movies.

I have a write-up for getting the Roku to work with content on a Synology NAS. It works with both wired and wireless Rokus. The Roku solution isn't DLNA, but I have my Synology DS209 serving the media as both DLNA and via a web interface that Roku uses.
http://onelastbit.com/?p=282

[alexdv1]

I installed the Roku Plex channel and everything works and streams perfectly. Seems more reliable than Plex on an idevice streaming using airplay (to an apple tv).

I did not have to do anything else once Plex was running on the Ds1512 and Plex channel added to the Roku.