NAS vs PC

[bledd]

Don't transcode, use hardware that has native decoding.

[NotChetHanks]

5 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+

 

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. 

 

Just noticed your comment lol. I actually said exactly what you're saying. You night have missed that part, here it is.

 

//I am also aware that that is akin to me going to the doctor and saying; "It hurts".//

 

The fix for me is simple; stick a power line to the main devices I want to stream to or stick the drives in my main system, or put the files onto a passport drive and connect directly to the TV. Those things have all worked for me.

 

The videos are being played using Plex, which I thought I said. The Synology app is used to transfer files from my PC to the NAS. I posted the MediaInfo data, just not a screenshot. As far as what I'm using to rip, does it matter? I'm honestly asking. I've used Handbrake and I've used Freemake and it's all the same to me.

 

The file type is mkv and as far as what I'm using to host the files, that confused me a bit. They are on a HDD in the NAS. Am I missing something?

[NotChetHanks]

Almost forgot; the issue was really my fault. I can stream just fine. I'm trying to stream 60GB HDR files over WiFi. That's the real issue. Me being dumb enough to think I could actually do that without hiccups.

[Mando]

21 hours ago, mrchetsteadman said:

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

doesnt matter wifi is still involved at one stage aka router to your PC. your total bandwidth and speed is only as quick as the slowest part of said link e.g. NAS---wired----router---wifi~~~~~~PC 

 

And sorry im confused, why transcode at all?

I aint transcoded anything in near a decade, every device around the house and in my hand can manage MP4 and its containers, steambox, android phones, tablets, chromecast, firetv stick.....Pcs.....home cinema boxes....

 

SOHO also router I assume? 

 

wifi 5ghz handles 1080p nps, thats with a fully wired Gb setup here for 4k to the devices that can display it natively.

[DevTech]

1 hour ago, Mando said:

doesnt matter wifi is still involved at one stage aka router to your PC. your total bandwidth and speed is only as quick as the slowest part of said link e.g. NAS---wired----router---wifi~~~~~~PC 

 

And sorry im confused, why transcode at all?

I aint transcoded anything in near a decade, every device around the house and in my hand can manage MP4 and its containers, steambox, android phones, tablets, chromecast, firetv stick.....Pcs.....home cinema boxes....

 

SOHO also router I assume? 

 

wifi 5ghz handles 1080p nps, thats with a fully wired Gb setup here for 4k to the devices that can display it natively.

Wires. Wires. Wires. Pretty color coded wires so bright and comforting, pulsing with the energy of stuff we want. Oh wires, oh wires, life unto thee!

 

Welcome back @Mando

[DevTech]

2 hours ago, mrchetsteadman said:

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.

If at first, you don't succeed... I'm sure with some extra effort on your part you can achieve a 100% responder frustration level. There must be an exclusive  Neowin BADGE for that. I'll go dig it out...

[+Warwagon MVC]

1 hour ago, mrchetsteadman said:

Almost forgot; the issue was really my fault. I can stream just fine. I'm trying to stream 60GB HDR files over WiFi. That's the real issue. Me being dumb enough to think I could actually do that without hiccups.

My rule of thumb is to take the length of the movie, say 2  hours. Can the said connection transfer 60gb in 2 hours? If no then it wouldn't play very well.

[PGHammer]

On 3/25/2018 at 3:33 PM, 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?

The bottleneck with a NAS - any NAS - is the connection to the PC or the network - SANs (essentially a larger NAS) have the same issue.  The smaller NAS devices (Western Digital MyBook, for example) use USB connections - however, they aren't exactly speedy by any stretch; the USB connection is about *simplicity* - not speed.  SANs?  How many use a gigabit connection?  If you truly NEED speed, then nothing beats "inside-the-PC" local drives.  Transcoding is a bandwidth-heavy process - period - you typically won't get any sort of transcoding performance out of any sort of network setup.  What you will need, unfortunately, are local SSDs at each transcoding station - and it's not going to be cheap  You may want a SAN or NAS to store the finished product - however, you won't want any bottlenecks there, either - that means a gigabit connection to the rest of the network, and the fastest connection possible among the drives in the NAS along with the fastest possible/feasible storage devices inside it; the last is where things all too often fall down - because the user is forced - by their wallet - to cheapen out on the drives - it's NOT unique to residential NAS/SAN users; business and commercial users have the same problem.  Example - I have a "prosumer" Netgear WNDR37AV recent-model router that supports all-gigabit ports AND USB-based NASs (such as the MyBooks).  While I can add a MyBook, it wouldn't be the best choice from any standpoint EXCEPT ease of connectivity; from a performance standpoint, a MyBook would actually be one of the WORST choices.  The absolute BEST choice would be a RAID-5 NAS device with a gigabit port - stuffed with SSDs (among non-internal-to-the-PC devices - internal SSDs in my desktop would be a more sensible choice - since the rest of my network - except for one other desktop - are notebooks, phones, and tablets.

[DevTech]

5 minutes ago, PGHammer said:

The bottleneck with a NAS - any NAS - is the connection to the PC or the network - SANs (essentially a larger NAS) have the same issue.  The smaller NAS devices (Western Digital MyBook, for example) use USB connections - however, they aren't exactly speedy by any stretch; the USB connection is about *simplicity* - not speed.  SANs?  How many use a gigabit connection?  If you truly NEED speed, then nothing beats "inside-the-PC" local drives.  Transcoding is a bandwidth-heavy process - period - you typically won't get any sort of transcoding performance out of any sort of network setup.  What you will need, unfortunately, are local SSDs at each transcoding station - and it's not going to be cheap  You may want a SAN or NAS to store the finished product - however, you won't want any bottlenecks there, either - that means a gigabit connection to the rest of the network, and the fastest connection possible among the drives in the NAS along with the fastest possible/feasible storage devices inside it; the last is where things all too often fall down - because the user is forced - by their wallet - to cheapen out on the drives - it's NOT unique to residential NAS/SAN users; business and commercial users have the same problem.  Example - I have a "prosumer" Netgear WNDR37AV recent-model router that supports all-gigabit ports AND USB-based NASs (such as the MyBooks).  While I can add a MyBook, it wouldn't be the best choice from any standpoint EXCEPT ease of connectivity; from a performance standpoint, a MyBook would actually be one of the WORST choices.  The absolute BEST choice would be a RAID-5 NAS device with a gigabit port - stuffed with SSDs (among non-internal-to-the-PC devices - internal SSDs in my desktop would be a more sensible choice - since the rest of my network - except for one other desktop - are notebooks, phones, and tablets.

Your explanation is a bit jumbled up but I think my proposal above to connect a dedicated PC server to the Gigabit LAN with a GTX 1060 for transcoding should be able to deliver a few simultaneous streams across a Gigabit LAN to various devices.

 

He does not want to transcode to the hard disk. He wants to have a static hard drive based collection of 60 gig 4K movie files which are then read by the transcoding device which then transcodes on-the-fly to STREAM to an XBox or Playstation or TV etc etc prob including tablets and phones.

 

IMO only a PC has the power to transcode multiple simultaneous streams of various movies to various devices in any conceivable desired transcoded resolution and encoding.

 

[DevTech]

3 hours ago, bledd said:

Don't transcode, use hardware that has native decoding.

If you have a tablet with 1280 x 720 resolution do you really want to pollute your network bandwidth with 60 gigabyte transmission when 800 megs will do the job? Multiply by multiple people viewing different media on different devices and your idea produces a Rocky Horror Picture Show!

 

It would be crazy to think that Intelligent adaptive transcoding and streaming could not be achieved in 2018.

 

[sc302 Veteran]

20 hours ago, warwagon said:

My rule of thumb is to take the length of the movie, say 2  hours. Can the said connection transfer 60gb in 2 hours? If no then it wouldn't play very well.

What else does that 60GB file contain?  Is the media server compressing the data stream for the client to handle it?  With transcoding could come compression, if it is transcoding to an mp4 (which is compressed) or other proprietary format to be played on your roku/phone/whatever device.   If it is doing any sort of compression, it is very likely that the 60GB file is no longer 60GB and any other audio tracks that aren't being used in that file is also not part of the data stream (as well as captions and/or other features that may exist in that file).  

 

Basically, I wouldn't use your method of transferring 60GB in 2 hours as a means to determine if it will play well or not as there are somethings that you may not know about that could strip that down and allow for buffering.

[+BudMan MVC]

Yeah 60GB in 2 hours is not a good way to do it..  As mentioned there could be whole loads of audio streams that are not part of that file.

 

Ripping Media to play over wifi network to mobile devices make zero sense to rip them to such sizes in the in the first place.. What devices are you watching this media on that are mobile and can even play 4k?

 

A 4k stream only takes about 25Mbps per the companies streaming it like netflix and amazon prime, hulu says you only need 13mbps..

 

60GB/2 hours would be be like 67Mbps...

 

You still have not stated what your actually ripping these files too.. That they are 60GB... How much storage do you have???  Grab media info I linked too and post up some details.

 

 

[DevTech]

5 hours ago, BudMan said:

Yeah 60GB in 2 hours is not a good way to do it..  As mentioned there could be whole loads of audio streams that are not part of that file.

 

Ripping Media to play over wifi network to mobile devices make zero sense to rip them to such sizes in the in the first place.. What devices are you watching this media on that are mobile and can even play 4k?

 

A 4k stream only takes about 25Mbps per the companies streaming it like netflix and amazon prime, hulu says you only need 13mbps..

 

60GB/2 hours would be be like 67Mbps...

 

You still have not stated what your actually ripping these files too.. That they are 60GB... How much storage do you have???  Grab media info I linked too and post up some details.

 

 

This thread is so muddled up as near as I can tell by a combination of incoherent problem description followed by people latching on like Pit Bulls to the sub-topic they are passionate about.

 

What he actually wants to do is dirt simple.

 

1. RIP super high res 4K movie files to a hard drive repository on his LAN. That explains the huge file size, which to me seems a bit small for 4K so there might already be some extra compression involved

 

2. Now that he has a nice library of 4K movies, he obviously does not want to duplicate them on an actual hard drive with multiple copies transcoded to various formats but instead whenever anyone in his household wants to watch a movie, something locates the monster 4K file and Transcodes it on-the-fly to stream it to that device.

 

3. He has already described a multitude of device types including PC, XBox, PS4, TV, Mobile etc 

 

4. Calculations of network bandwidth and Transcode speed should obviously include multiple simultaneous streams of different movies to different devices which will add congestion to:

 

4.A) his LAN network traffic (currently (and stupidly) 100% wireless)

 

4.B) possible wireless signal congestion of simultaneous constant streams to different devices

 

4.C) congestion of multiple 60 gig files being accessed at the storage device

 

4.D) congestion of the Transcoding device taking multiple 4K movies and Transcoding them to stream to different devices simultaneously.

 

5. He needs to devise a testing plan that covers the worst case scenario of maybe 4 family members in the house watching 4 movies at the same time and make sure the final system design has zero lag or stuttering. Making sure every different device gets the correct Transcoded streaming format should be part of the detailed planning and not testing but of course this also needs specific detailed testing anyways to catch mistakes in reading spec sheets wrong etc.

 

6. Methodical planning, implementing, adjusting, and testing is not one of his skill sets. (but we just might be able to walk him through the process  )

 

 

[+BudMan MVC]

53 minutes ago, DevTech said:

something locates the monster 4K file and Transcodes it on-the-fly to stream it to that device.

Yeah for multiple streams at different formats... This is when he will need to throw Horsepower at it.. Sorry but his 300$ nas isn't going to cut it..  Its specs list able to do 2 concurrent in specific scenarios using the specific software which he doesn't seem to be using since he has mentioned plex.

 

And if he is doing even 60GB rips - he is going to need a some serious space if he wants to build up any sort of library   Which I agree 60GB is not full size for sure..  4TB about 60 rips at 60GB each

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

On 28/03/2018 at 9:05 PM, DevTech said:

Multiply by multiple people viewing different media on different devices

That use case has not been presented by the OP

1 hour ago, DevTech said:

2. Now that he has a nice library of 4K movies, he obviously does not want to duplicate them on an actual hard drive with multiple copies transcoded to various formats but instead whenever anyone in his household wants to watch a movie, something locates the monster 4K file and Transcodes it on-the-fly to stream it to that device.

No, he wants to watch it on that device, transcoding has been thrown into the mix as a potential solution not a need.

[DevTech]

1 hour ago, NJL said:

That use case has not been presented by the OP

No, he wants to watch it on that device, transcoding has been thrown into the mix as a potential solution not a need.

Seriously, you don't think the incoherent mumble-jumble needs interpretation? (and then we can always add our own new mumble-jumble on top of it...)

 

Clearly he is describing a media library, and clearly he has listed a diverse set of devices and a large household with multiple people using multiple devices as if we were living in the year 2018 or something like that.

 

Although buying a whole new set of viewing devices to match the specific Transcoding or non-transcoding of a cheap NAS device is a possible solution, it is a backwards solution more like a Tail Wagging The Elephant instead of a Tail Wagging The Dog.

 

Then after equipping the household with new devices, he can install Red Recording Studio Lights for "Streaming In Progress" in every room to indicate viewing in progress so multiple Transcodes won't be needed.

 

The Rube Goldbergness of that design is rather pseudo-delightful in some sort of Pre-Victorian, Post-Gregorian, Almost-Steampunkish kind of post-aesthetic non-art manner...

 

 

 

 

 

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

Except he has stated that he has no desire to go external to his home network.  Transcoding is needless, what he NEEDS is a sensible storage format for his movies.