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So I had a WD MyCloud EX2 Ultra and it sucked at transcoding 4K files to the various parts of my home. So I just bought a Synology DS218+ and it STILL sucks at playing these 4K movies. My internet connection is 300+ Mbps so my network can handle it. Unless I can figure this out, I'm about to return the DS218+ and just stick the drives in my PC since I KNOW it can handle the files. What can I, should I, would YOU do?

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I suffered the same problem!! Do you know anybody that works in IT that can get their hand on a 2nd hand computer? I just received a lovely Dell Optiplex 9020 SFF PC with an i7! It's way overkill but uit was the cost of a pint! I may even virtualize on it!

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What does your internet speed have to do with your local network to be honest?

 

I know many of users that pay for high speed internet and have crap wifi and don't understand why they don't get what they pay for, etc.

 

Are you trying to stream these 4k over wire or wireless? So your trying to transcode on the fly - why would you not just direct play this stuff?

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29 minutes ago, mrchetsteadman said:

So I had a WD MyCloud EX2 Ultra and it sucked at transcoding 4K files to the various parts of my home. So I just bought a Synology DS218+ and it STILL sucks at playing these 4K movies. My internet connection is 300+ Mbps so my network can handle it. Unless I can figure this out, I'm about to return the DS218+ and just stick the drives in my PC since I KNOW it can handle the files. What can I, should I, would YOU do?

4K Movies are huge! That takes a ton of computing power to transcode. Best done on a powerful GPU. This is a challenging task for a PC so forget about some 200 Mhz embedded CPU in a cheap device!

 

 

 

 

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12 minutes ago, BudMan said:

What does your internet speed have to do with your local network to be honest?

 

I know many of users that pay for high speed internet and have crap wifi and don't understand why they don't get what they pay for, etc.

 

Are you trying to stream these 4k over wire or wireless? So your trying to transcode on the fly - why would you not just direct play this stuff?

 

Over WiFi. I'm using eero and the speeds around the house, a little over 3,000sqft, are 325Mbps consistently. Under REALLY heavy load, PS4 downstairs, XB1 in the master bedroom, Netflix in the other 3 bedrooms, I've dropped down to 215Mbps. Direct play doesn't allow for subs like I want with some movies. I guess that has to be the trade-off.

 

1 minute ago, DevTech said:

4K Movies are huge! That takes a ton of computing power to transcode. Best done on a powerful GPU. This is a challenging task for a PC so forget about some 200 Mhz embedded CPU in a cheap device!

 

 

 

 

They are! I'm running an overclocked GTX 1060 6GB. CPU is an overclocked i5 6600k @ 4GHz.

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So your DS218+ transcoding what source to what device?  The specs on what you can expect are here

 

https://www.synology.com/en-us/knowledgebase/DSM/tutorial/Multimedia/Can_my_Synology_NAS_transcode_4K_videos_for_my_device

 

The DS218+ is in group 1 for 4k.

 

Your speeds around the house are speedtests to the internet I take it.. But if your doing wifi to wifi, ie a wifi source?  Is your nas wired or wireless?  To a wifi client you just /2 your available bandwidth.  Also what else is going on when your trying to play your files?  Your Nas should be wired for sure!!!

 

Also what on your NAS are you using to transcode - pretty sure those results are with video station, not say plex running on it, etc.

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22 minutes ago, BudMan said:

So your DS218+ transcoding what source to what device?  The specs on what you can expect are here

 

https://www.synology.com/en-us/knowledgebase/DSM/tutorial/Multimedia/Can_my_Synology_NAS_transcode_4K_videos_for_my_device

 

The DS218+ is in group 1 for 4k.

 

Your speeds around the house are speedtests to the internet I take it.. But if your doing wifi to wifi, ie a wifi source?  Is your nas wired or wireless?  To a wifi client you just /2 your available bandwidth.  Also what else is going on when your trying to play your files?  Your Nas should be wired for sure!!!

 

Also what on your NAS are you using to transcode - pretty sure those results are with video station, not say plex running on it, etc.

That page says the device can transcode on the fly from 4K to 1080p at 30 frames/sec.

 

What CPU is dat thing?

 

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Keep in mind there are specifics at play here... If you think you can take any 4k file you get somewhere, throw it on your nas and expect it to transcode without problem to your what???  Your prob dreaming..

 

My DS918+ can not transcode my home video without stutter and everything is wired.. But then again its 1080P at 23Mbps, and its a bit funky

 


Video
ID                                       : 1
Format                                   : AVC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                           : [email protected]
Format settings                          : CABAC / 2 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC                   : Yes
Format settings, RefFrames               : 2 frames
Format settings, GOP                     : M=3, N=15
Codec ID                                 : avc1
Codec ID/Info                            : Advanced Video Coding
Duration                                 : 23 min 48 s
Bit rate                                 : 23.5 Mb/s
Width                                    : 1 920 pixels
Height                                   : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9
Frame rate mode                          : Constant
Frame rate                               : 29.970 (30000/1001) FPS
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.379
Stream size                              : 3.91 GiB (99%)
Language                                 : English
Encoded date                             : UTC 2018-03-19 18:08:22
Tagged date                              : UTC 2018-03-19 18:08:22
Color range                              : Limited
Color primaries                          : BT.709
Transfer characteristics                 : BT.709
Matrix coefficients                      : BT.709

 

Its from my Canon vixia HFR40..  But then I can transcode it to 265 with handbrake and have zero issues just direct playing it.  So while the NAS can do what they say they can do - need to make sure you read the small print ;)  And sure if you are going to throw odd ball stuff at it, and force transcode because you want subtitles.. Yeah your prob going to need to throw more power at it than some $300 nas..

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What sort of devices are you playing these on? I've never quite understood the need for transcoding unless to a portable device. If lets say you want to watch 4k content on a TV, then I would just a get a Shield TV that could natively decode 4k without the need to transcode.

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Yeah well if there is a problem working the way I want it to, then I'll just keep my PC as the Plex box. I'm about to order a 8TB HDD and just put everything on there including games and stuff. Why pay $300 for a NAS box when I can spend that on a HDD and a nice tempered glass type case? Thanks for all the tips guys. Oh, and off topic, I ordered that Dell AW3418DW thanks to your advice. It comes in on Tuesday finally.

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9 hours ago, mrchetsteadman said:

So I had a WD MyCloud EX2 Ultra and it sucked at transcoding 4K files to the various parts of my home. So I just bought a Synology DS218+ and it STILL sucks at playing these 4K movies. My internet connection is 300+ Mbps so my network can handle it. Unless I can figure this out, I'm about to return the DS218+ and just stick the drives in my PC since I KNOW it can handle the files. What can I, should I, would YOU do?

Transcoding from NAS is not the right way forward. You need to buy AppleTV 4K or Roku 4K (Whichever does Dolby Vision to be futureproof) and connect it to your network. Then use the remote app to play 4K movies without transcoding on your TV.

 

Transcoding reduces movie quality and should be avoided at all costs. It also jacks up power consumption as it is very CPU/GPU heavy.

 

Playing files in your home LAN has nothing to do with your internet connection speed. But if you want, you need to buy a NAS which can accept a 10GBe adapter via PCIe expansion slot. QNAP does those. Then you further need a 10GBe switch and another 10GBe PCIe card for your PC. Also make sure that all are connected by Cat6 cables not more than 50 mts wiring length. (100mts if Cat6a or Cat7)

 

10GBe is a boon for 2-3 simultaneous 4K streams in my family and assures that NAS has enough bandwidth at all times.

 

My setup:

1. Qnap TS-653B with 6 x 4TB Seagate Ironwolf NAS Drives in Raid6 + Intel X540-T2 10Gbe card which is plug and play in that NAS.

2. Netgear XS708Ev2 8-Port 10 GBe switch

3. ASUS XG-c100c 10GBe PCIe card for my PC.

I get 6 Gbps read and 5 Gbps write speed from my PC to the NAS.

I use Apple TV 4K with paid app called Infuse. Works perfectly and enables HDR on my LG OLED if the movie stream supports it. The only thing missing is Dolby ATMOS support which is expected from Apple this year. I let my NAS be just that. A Dumb, but fast storage device.

 

(Nvidia Shield TV 2017 does not support Dolby Vision as it's hardware is not capable. But they are exploring software implementation of DV. But it is not recommended)

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11 hours ago, d5aqoëp said:

Transcoding from NAS is not the right way forward. You need to buy AppleTV 4K or Roku 4K (Whichever does Dolby Vision to be futureproof) and connect it to your network. Then use the remote app to play 4K movies without transcoding on your TV.

 

Transcoding reduces movie quality and should be avoided at all costs. It also jacks up power consumption as it is very CPU/GPU heavy.

 

Playing files in your home LAN has nothing to do with your internet connection speed. But if you want, you need to buy a NAS which can accept a 10GBe adapter via PCIe expansion slot. QNAP does those. Then you further need a 10GBe switch and another 10GBe PCIe card for your PC. Also make sure that all are connected by Cat6 cables not more than 50 mts wiring length. (100mts if Cat6a or Cat7)

 

10GBe is a boon for 2-3 simultaneous 4K streams in my family and assures that NAS has enough bandwidth at all times.

 

My setup:

1. Qnap TS-653B with 6 x 4TB Seagate Ironwolf NAS Drives in Raid6 + Intel X540-T2 10Gbe card which is plug and play in that NAS.

2. Netgear XS708Ev2 8-Port 10 GBe switch

3. ASUS XG-c100c 10GBe PCIe card for my PC.

I get 6 Gbps read and 5 Gbps write speed from my PC to the NAS.

I use Apple TV 4K with paid app called Infuse. Works perfectly and enables HDR on my LG OLED if the movie stream supports it. The only thing missing is Dolby ATMOS support which is expected from Apple this year. I let my NAS be just that. A Dumb, but fast storage device.

 

(Nvidia Shield TV 2017 does not support Dolby Vision as it's hardware is not capable. But they are exploring software implementation of DV. But it is not recommended)

That's an awesome setup! I just checked the price on your NAS box and for $549, I can just buy parts for my PC. I'm not really a Plex junkie since we have Hulu, Netflix, Amazon, HBO and whatever else I'm paying for so going out of my way to pay close to $1k including all costs isn't worth it at all. I haven't really used Plex in 3 months and nobody knew the difference. I appreciate all the help!

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If your not using plex.. What is doing the transocde of your media from pc or nas?

 

While I am all for 10ge in the home sooner vs later - this has ZERO to do with watching of 4k.. You sure and the F do not need 10ge to watch 4K streams..

 

What are you using to transcode this 4k video that you need subtitles with?  I think this thread is all over the place..  What is it exactly your trying to accomplish with what?  To what?  What is the source of this 4k, and what format is it in?  What bitrate is it?  What codec, etc. etc.  What is the audio on it - many times something will transcode because audio can not be direct played, etc.

 

 

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There are a lot of things to consider and that we have no clue as to what you are doing.

 

What are you using to host the files?  Not just hardware but software too.

What are you seeing as device to computer bandwidth? Not speedtest.net or really anything .net or .com in a browser.  This is usually measured by iperf from device to device, internet speed tests aren't exactly qualified to handle internal networking.  

What type of wireless devices do you have, what are your wireless cards or devices, what are you using for your Wireless Access Point?

Even 50Mb/s would support 4k to one device, but that depends on if the host device can transcode quickly enough so that it doesn't buffer.  Transcode isn't a bad thing, it takes the processing off of the end user device and puts the load on the host.  You don't need special software on the end user device end to play whatever media, that is all handled by the host and essentially makes the host a play anything/any format host without the need of special codecs or media players on your end user device.  Transcoding can also compress the media stream, you can still get high quality sound and video if it transcodes, ARM processors will not transcode if using plex.

 

 

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See my thread about iperf3 on neowin, I compile it for windows whenever a new version comes out.  That is a great tool for checking the actual available bandwidth between 2 computers on your network.

 

I am in the process of moving over to a nas, the ds918+ and running plex on it, as stated it has hard time with my home video.. But I can throw other stuff at it without a problem and it either direct plays it or transcode it just fine.  This is to my roku and roku sticks, or my browser or apps on my mobile devices.  I have never even had problem watching on my mobile phone while on a vpn remote, etc.

 

My friends and family watch streams from my plex.  Old one was plex running as a VM on 6 year old HP N40L under esxi.. And it could manage most things - but for the home video if without transcoding it first could not keep up.

 

As sc302 goes into, we really need way more details if going to discuss how you can accomplish what your wanting to do.  Sure you can always throw money at it in have a big bad box that can handle pretty much anything with pure horsepower..  So sure if you have money to burn not only in hardware but electric to power the beast.. Sure do that.. As as a temp solution for say my problem with the home video stuff, I had put another plex on my workstation and let family switch over to that one when wanting to watch home video until I get them all transcoded so my new nas can handle them.  Since it can not handle it on the fly.  But it just used the video from the share on my VM plex.. So it pulled that video across the network and then transcoded it on the fly without any issues..  Then again don't want my workstation as plex because I am always fiddling with it, and don't want to worry about rebooting it when wife is watching something, or have my cpu cycles be eat up transcoding something while trying to do something else, etc.  So I want to move my plex to its own box... And want it to use low power, etc.  And not be all that expensive... And I wanted to play with the synology stuff because lots of people I know rave about its features.. See my other thread where getting 220Mbps plus using smb3 multichannel, etc..  While I would love to play with 10ge at home..  And I did toy with the qnap vs the synology because of the ability to add 10ge.. knew wasn't going to get that that through the budget committee (wife) ;)

 

I went through some media from different sources the other day that were hevc, and 6 channel audio.  While just passed the hevc (video) direct to my roku it had to transcode the audio (way lower requirements)..

 

What is the format of these subtitles your wanting to have on your video.  I don't use them much other than english for non english parts.. But depending on how the they are done it can take more less horse power to get those displayed on your player, etc.

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On 3/26/2018 at 2:04 PM, BudMan said:

If your not using plex.. What is doing the transocde of your media from pc or nas?

 

While I am all for 10ge in the home sooner vs later - this has ZERO to do with watching of 4k.. You sure and the F do not need 10ge to watch 4K streams..

 

What are you using to transcode this 4k video that you need subtitles with?  I think this thread is all over the place..  What is it exactly your trying to accomplish with what?  To what?  What is the source of this 4k, and what format is it in?  What bitrate is it?  What codec, etc. etc.  What is the audio on it - many times something will transcode because audio can not be direct played, etc.

 

 

 

I apologize if it's all over the place. I'm just concerned with sticking a movie in a HDD in the NAS and it playing wherever I want in the house with no issues. I am also aware that that is akin to me going to the doctor and saying; "It hurts".

 

Here is what I do know;

 

I am using the Synology DS218+ and the program that comes with it which I do not know the name of. The movies are rips from my Bluray collection and the average file size is about 40GB-50GB and the container is mkv. Bitrate for the video stream is 49.5 Mb/s @ 3840*2160. Codec is HEVC if I'm not mistaken and it is HDR10. Audio is 4,597 kb/s, 48.0 kHz, True HD and I don't really NEED subtitles. Anything I'm missing, let me know.

 

 

 

21 hours ago, sc302 said:

There are a lot of things to consider and that we have no clue as to what you are doing.

 

What are you using to host the files?  Not just hardware but software too.

What are you seeing as device to computer bandwidth? Not speedtest.net or really anything .net or .com in a browser.  This is usually measured by iperf from device to device, internet speed tests aren't exactly qualified to handle internal networking.  

What type of wireless devices do you have, what are your wireless cards or devices, what are you using for your Wireless Access Point?

Even 50Mb/s would support 4k to one device, but that depends on if the host device can transcode quickly enough so that it doesn't buffer.  Transcode isn't a bad thing, it takes the processing off of the end user device and puts the load on the host.  You don't need special software on the end user device end to play whatever media, that is all handled by the host and essentially makes the host a play anything/any format host without the need of special codecs or media players on your end user device.  Transcoding can also compress the media stream, you can still get high quality sound and video if it transcodes, ARM processors will not transcode if using plex.

 

 

The files are on HDDs in the NAS box. Software is what came with the Synology DS218+, besides using Plex of course. Can you link me to the iperf? The NAS box was hard wired to the router. I just switched my PC to WiFi to cut down on cables and the wireless card is an Archer T9E. The eero system I use has 3 access points. One downstairs in the second living room, one in my office and one in the master bedroom. Just checked and I have 11 devices connected right now but not necessarily using bandwidth that I am aware of. In my home we have 4 laptops, a PS4 & XB1, my office printer, my PC, 6 phones 3 tablets and an echo dot. These are all distributed around 3 access points.

 

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1 hour ago, mrchetsteadman said:

The NAS is hard wired to the router. If I gave the impression otherwise, I misspoke.

But is it wireless to your device you are playing it on?

 

Can you also list the devices you want this video playing on?

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2 hours ago, warwagon said:

But is it wireless to your device you are playing it on?

 

Can you also list the devices you want this video playing on?

Oh okay. The devices I want to stream to are all wireless and in various parts of the house.

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13 minutes ago, mrchetsteadman said:

Oh okay. The devices I want to stream to are all wireless and in various parts of the house.

THAT would be your issue. Wireless isn't the best for 4k encoding...

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4 hours ago, Mindovermaster said:

THAT would be your issue. Wireless isn't the best for 4k encoding...

Yeah this is all so backwards it just hurts with a real bad pain to consider the Rube Goldberg nature of this setup.

 

Wireless was invented by little green Gremlins living underground in the sewers to make humanity as miserable as they were. They laugh and cavort around and dance with glee every time a Real Wire (Reliable Technology (tm)) is replaced with their intentionally glitchy invention with its endless stream of head scratching gotchas and mysterious special cases.

 

1. Feed a Real Wire (tm) from the Internet provider to a High Speed Router with a sufficiently fast CPU to ensure low latency and a Gigabit input. Turn OFF any wireless in that router.

 

2. Feed a Real Wire (tm) from the Router to a High Speed Switch with a sufficiently fast embedded CPU to ensure low latency and with 24 or 48 Gigabit (or faster) ports

 

3. Feed a Real Wire (tm) from the High Speed Switch to a PC running Windows or Universal Media Server or media Portal

 

http://www.universalmediaserver.com/comparison/

 

https://www.team-mediaportal.com/

 

4. Provision the Media Server with a GTX 1070 or GTX 1080 to properly GPU encode the monster 4K media into whatever you want for the various simultaneous streams.

 

5. Feed a Real Wire (tm) from the 48 port High Speed Network Switch to every device in the building. Use CAT-6 cable. If you exceed cable length specs, you are still light years ahead of the Gremlin System...

 

6. There will always remain a few cases where the Gremlin System will be needed and you must keep in mind that they designed it to make your life miserable. Pay careful attention to the frequencies your client devices use and locate Access Points in Line-of-Sight of these devices with Antennas pointed to beam the flat edge of the Donut Shaped Radiation Signal toward the device. If possible turn off 2.4 Ghz and Wireless-G  in all Access Points. Set the Wireless Channel number in each Access Point to the least noisy. Make sure each Access Point has a Real Wire (tm) cable run from the High Speed Network Switch and do not double-up on Gremlin Technology to feed the Access Point.

 

7. There is no 7. Your system will now work correctly. The Gremlins living under your house will be very unhappy and start a new project to make you miserable if they can. Please don't feed them or help them by using anything they come up with...

 

----------------------------------------

 

In your case, the only valid testing and benchmarking will be simultaneous measurement of multiple simultaneous streams since your extensive use of Gremlin Technology will make everything want to interfere with everything else. The more Gremlin stuff you can eliminate, the more predictable and reliable your system will become...

 

 

 

 

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The iperf3 thread is here

 

 

So you don't even know what package your using in synology to play these video's?  How are you accessing them on your device - and application, a web site?  And you don't really even know what your ripping the video too?

 

Wow - and you wonder why your having issues ;)  Yeah mech the car is broke, can you fix it it..  What is wrong with it - its broke..

 

So What are you using to rip these disks? Make MKV? Handbrake?  How about you grab mediainfo and let us know exactly what the video and audio streams are.  https://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo

 

And the details of what your using in your NAS to host/serv up the media - and how your watching it on your devices.  The problem could be as simple as your using a format that software doesn't like to transode.. And changing it to something else could fix you right up, etc..

 

BTW you can run iperf3 on synology with docker... What version of DSM are you running on your ds218+

iperftesttonas.thumb.png.c637a20bff58d6c3f5f0be8cf07afa85.png

 

So you see here getting pretty much as much as you could want out of my gig wired connection.  If I remember I will do the test on my phone or wife's laptop later which are wireless. 

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16 hours ago, mrchetsteadman said:

I'm just concerned with sticking a movie in a HDD in the NAS and it playing wherever I want in the house with no issues.

A very standard use-case, and I've never understood why people overcomplicate this.  I have ALWAYS just dropped files into folders, shared over SMB and had my devices play them directly over the network.

 

Client devices being:

  • Apple TV using VLC
  • Slimline Windows PC using VLC
  • Slimline Windows PC using KODI
  • Original XBOX using XBMC
  • iPad/iPhone using VLC

I think you need to concentrate more on the clients you are consuming the content with, rather than your serving strategy.  Especially considering you aren't looking to stream or serve over the web to your mobile devices.

 

* Only filetype that ever gave me issue was *.RMVB - which nobody uses now.

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12 hours ago, DevTech said:

Yeah this is all so backwards it just hurts with a real bad pain to consider the Rube Goldberg nature of this setup.

 

Wireless was invented by little green Gremlins living underground in the sewers to make humanity as miserable as they were. They laugh and cavort around and dance with glee every time a Real Wire (Reliable Technology (tm)) is replaced with their intentionally glitchy invention with its endless stream of head scratching gotchas and mysterious special cases.

 

1. Feed a Real Wire (tm) from the Internet provider to a High Speed Router with a sufficiently fast CPU to ensure low latency and a Gigabit input. Turn OFF any wireless in that router.

 

2. Feed a Real Wire (tm) from the Router to a High Speed Switch with a sufficiently fast embedded CPU to ensure low latency and with 24 or 48 Gigabit (or faster) ports

 

3. Feed a Real Wire (tm) from the High Speed Switch to a PC running Windows or Universal Media Server or media Portal

 

http://www.universalmediaserver.com/comparison/

 

https://www.team-mediaportal.com/

 

4. Provision the Media Server with a GTX 1070 or GTX 1080 to properly GPU encode the monster 4K media into whatever you want for the various simultaneous streams.

 

5. Feed a Real Wire (tm) from the 48 port High Speed Network Switch to every device in the building. Use CAT-6 cable. If you exceed cable length specs, you are still light years ahead of the Gremlin System...

 

6. There will always remain a few cases where the Gremlin System will be needed and you must keep in mind that they designed it to make your life miserable. Pay careful attention to the frequencies your client devices use and locate Access Points in Line-of-Sight of these devices with Antennas pointed to beam the flat edge of the Donut Shaped Radiation Signal toward the device. If possible turn off 2.4 Ghz and Wireless-G  in all Access Points. Set the Wireless Channel number in each Access Point to the least noisy. Make sure each Access Point has a Real Wire (tm) cable run from the High Speed Network Switch and do not double-up on Gremlin Technology to feed the Access Point.

 

7. There is no 7. Your system will now work correctly. The Gremlins living under your house will be very unhappy and start a new project to make you miserable if they can. Please don't feed them or help them by using anything they come up with...

 

----------------------------------------

 

In your case, the only valid testing and benchmarking will be simultaneous measurement of multiple simultaneous streams since your extensive use of Gremlin Technology will make everything want to interfere with everything else. The more Gremlin stuff you can eliminate, the more predictable and reliable your system will become...

 

 

 

 

 

This literally made me laugh. You have no idea lol.

 

4 hours ago, BudMan said:

The iperf3 thread is here

 

 

So you don't even know what package your using in synology to play these video's?  How are you accessing them on your device - and application, a web site?  And you don't really even know what your ripping the video too?

 

Wow - and you wonder why your having issues ;)  Yeah mech the car is broke, can you fix it it..  What is wrong with it - its broke..

 

So What are you using to rip these disks? Make MKV? Handbrake?  How about you grab mediainfo and let us know exactly what the video and audio streams are.  https://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo

 

And the details of what your using in your NAS to host/serv up the media - and how your watching it on your devices.  The problem could be as simple as your using a format that software doesn't like to transode.. And changing it to something else could fix you right up, etc..

 

BTW you can run iperf3 on synology with docker... What version of DSM are you running on your ds218+

iperftesttonas.thumb.png.c637a20bff58d6c3f5f0be8cf07afa85.png

 

So you see here getting pretty much as much as you could want out of my gig wired connection.  If I remember I will do the test on my phone or wife's laptop later which are wireless. 

 

Thanks for this!! 

 

4 hours ago, NJL said:

A very standard use-case, and I've never understood why people overcomplicate this.  I have ALWAYS just dropped files into folders, shared over SMB and had my devices play them directly over the network.

 

Client devices being:

  • Apple TV using VLC
  • Slimline Windows PC using VLC
  • Slimline Windows PC using KODI
  • Original XBOX using XBMC
  • iPad/iPhone using VLC

I think you need to concentrate more on the clients you are consuming the content with, rather than your serving strategy.  Especially considering you aren't looking to stream or serve over the web to your mobile devices.

 

* Only filetype that ever gave me issue was *.RMVB - which nobody uses now.

 

New Jersey Louch!! Yeah while I'm sure I can figure it all out, since it's only following directions, I've learned to take the simplest route possible. Doesn't work the way I want? Change it.

 

Thanks for all the help folks. You have no idea how much it's appreciated. I'm sure I've frustrated a few of you and if I haven't, God bless you lol.

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