An Inordinate Amount Of Pleasure....

You have a theatre in your home?

Kin L

😉

Well done, T&e. What does an upscaled DVD image actually look like? Is it visibly "better than DVD but not as good as Blu Ray", which is what I imagine?

Interesting it's that good.

We have a million DVDs, but I ripped them all to a NAS and play them back that way, via my ancient but much-loved Apple TV.

I daresay the quality has taken a hit in that process. I wonder if an upscaling DVD player would in fact be better, although of course, with physical media it's way less quick and easy to find what you want, store them, and so on. They're all in the loft at the moment and I suppose I don't really want to get them all out and have to find a home for them downstairs again.

Hmm..

Hmm Yes CDs. I have a unit staring at me with hundreds of the things on little shelves. Its messy, untidy, and takes up far too much space. Time to consider a hard disk based player? Which one?

...without a PC in the house, I'm not sure I'd go for a NAS-based solution, but maybe rather a dedicated hard-disc player (though you might lose the potential of multi-room).

Apologies for the length of the following:

Streaming is really only one of the capabilities I use NAS for; with up to 7 PCs in use in the house (two of them admittedly only occasionally), I first wanted a NAS drive for file backup, print-serving, and file-sharing. (For that purpose I bought a Buffalo Linkstation, much reduced, in Comet not long before they disappeared)

Further playing with the included add-ons, I activated the DLNA server to play video and photographs through the DLNA-enabled TV. That original NAS had 2x1TB discs used in JBOD mode. I considered "Mirroring" instead, but avoided it because of limited capacity, and it now doesn't have enough capacity to revert to Raid1 and keep all my data.

Ease of playing (and potential for multi-room) drew me further towards streaming as a music solution, and, as posted elsewhere, after a few false-starts, I've ended up with an upgraded HiFi based around a Cyrus Lyric unit with a high-quality streaming client included.

Having a unit that will play (above-) CD-Quality streams meant a natural progression to re-ripping my music to FLAC (which is lossless, archive quality as opposed to the smaller lossy MP3 rips I already have for vehicle use). This means streamed output is indistinguishable from CD, but it also created even more demand for on-line storage, so the Buffalo had to be replaced.

I still only wanted fairly basic NAS functionality but much more storage (and a bit better recoverability) so I now have an Asustor 1002T with 2x3TB disks in Raid1 (mirrored) configuration. This cost me just under £350, with the disk capacity being the larger part of the cost (and it can be bought with less of this - a functional unit could be as low as £200). It can also be bought pre-configured for about £10 more, but it was pretty much plug-and-play to get the disks installed and the unit up and running. 

The NAS comes with some basic capability included (print server, etc.) but other applications (of which there is a fairly large choice) are downloadable as required and (easily) music that than the other, which I use for photos and video). Basic set-up for these servers was very simple (but I've much improved on this by going "under the covers").

CDs were ripped to FLAC on Windows using "Exact Audio Copy" (EAC) (free) which does comprehensive error-correction and, with a plug-in, will "verify" the rip as being exactly what was on the CD, by comparing hash counts with other users' results. A further free plug-in creates FLAC output "on the fly". EAC will do basic "tagging" of the output files via freedb lookup, but if you're going to make the best of the indexing capabilities of streaming (or correct any errors), then a tag editor such as Tagscanner or MP3tag (both free for the PC) is required.   

With basic configuration, and the files in the correct folder (s) on the NAS, the Cyrus (and the TV) simply picks them up once the inbuilt DLNA capability is used. The Cyrus can be controlled via a small display on the front, or via an Apple or Android app.

I've added a very cheap (£30, much reduced) QED streamer to the inputs on my second hifi system in another room, and control this via an app to stream the same, CD-quality files to that. A wireless speaker is to follow for the kitchen.

So, relatively easy (but I'm reasonably computer savvy) to get the basics, but the following gives a bit more insight:

Nearly all the major NAS manufacturers offer DLNA apps, either pre-installed or downloadable, BUT, you need to take aware when selecting the box and/or the particular app just what is offered and what the capability is. Neither of the Asustor DLNA apps offer satisfactory FLAC capability, and I'm using other alternatives (albeit Asustor validated). In addition, the DLNA capability on the NAS box needs to be matched and compatible with that on the 'client' unit(s) on which the content will be rendered. (formats, bit rates, album art format, etc. for satisfactory results). You can generally work round issues, but this may not give optimum results.

Most of the NAS boxes are Linux-based in some form or another. They expose little of the internal workings of the OS or applications to the end user without "going under the covers". This can, in some circumstances, be a pain. The server I'm using for music (Minimserver) is very well thought out, and exposes much of its configuration to the user (both by putting values in user-storage, and by providing a PC configuration interface). This is good, because it is mildly configurable to significant advantage. The other (Minidlna) puts everything on the system side of the divide, and you need to use root access via SCP or similar to get at the parameters (there aren't many, but those that there are can be changed to make things much neater).     

I've reached the point now where I'm not really 'playing' with it, and the whole thing is as functional as I will want it. I'm considering ripping the vinyl that I don't have duplicated on CD, and I'm sure I can improve some of the "tagging", but I have high-quality output across two rooms, completely controllable from the armchair, so I'm just about there (extra room speaker to come). 

...I note that something got lost/mangled in a paragraph in the middle, which (in its entirety) should read:


The NAS comes with some basic capability included (print server, etc.) but other applications (of which there is a fairly large choice) are downloadable as required and (easily) self installable. I have two different DLNA server modules installed; Minimserver for music (and with a bit of tweaking, HQ BBC radio streaming), and Minidlna for other stuff. Minimserver has better indexing for music (esp. classical) and handles Album Art better than Minidlna, which I use for photos and video entirely successfully). Basic set-up for these servers was very simple (but I've much improved on this by going "under the covers").