Have an apple time machine with lots of backups of films on it, I cannot seem to get my samsung tv to detect the film as films, so I use a western digital box to browse to them and play them from there, am I making sense

I am looking to move to a nas which can share/publish the films on the network, and have some redundancy, so other devices can detect them, any ideas ?

Is it PnP ?

As long as the NAS is DLNA compliant it should be seamless if you have a SMART TV. I use a Buffalo linkstation NAS to stream to my Samsungs, works well.

Edit: Out of the box the NAS is set up as RAID0(concat) not RAID1 (mirrored) but it’s easy to change via the web gui, just be aware the mirror sync takes ~19hrs on 3TB disks so you need to allow an extra day before you can really use the NAS.

I use a synology NAS at home and that too can use RAID1 and then I can plug in a USB 3 removable disks to do backups that I can take away and secure or I can backup to another Synology I have elsewhere.

The synology units have some really nice apps as well including a video playing app so you can watch vids from your NAS anywhere you have an internet connection.

No drunken rappers here 🙁

No drunken rappers here

Bit smokey

Cheers guys, dnla is what I was thinking of, somouk, which one have you got ?

Why do you need redundancy?

RAID is not backup; you’ve be far better off putting a second disk in a caddy and backing up to it periodically, rather than putting both disks in the same box and having a problem which affects both at once.

It’d be interesting to see how you get on with this. I love Apple’s stuff, but if you don’t use it “their way” it can be a pig. A quick Google suggests that even Apple’s own Apple TV can’t – or at least isn’t designed to – connect to media backed up using Time Machine or on a Time Capsule.

I’m assuming you are already in the Apple eco-system. If so, I can recommend using iTunes Home Sharing in combination with Apple TV. It will mean converting your media to an Apple-recognised format which may put you off, but I love it. I can access all my media on any (Apple) device on my home network including my TV.

[EDIT – I did try the DLNA route using my BD Player and Twonky Media Server, but found it was a poor experience]

I have a DS213. They’re a little more expensive than the consumer versions but offer better processor power and USB 3 for backing everything up to external drives.

‘Streaming Nas’ – sounds like a medical complaint

Turn it all off & back on again?
Are the films in a format which the TV supports itself? I’ve used Bubble UPnP to stream direct to TV, or ZappoTV (for Samsung) – to stream it to the tv if the NAS/TV/film file format don’t play nicely themselves.

Steaming pile of NAS? Get a Lacie Networkspace. Very pretty but very sloooooooow and incredibly flaky. One for your ‘to avoid’ list.

A quick Google suggests that even Apple’s own Apple TV can’t – or at least isn’t designed to – connect to media backed up using Time Machine or on a Time Capsule.

If you have the previous generation of Apple TV you can run XBMC on it and stream content from a networked drive. Mine streams from an external drive attached to an Airport Extreme. It’s a bit of a faff to set up but works well when once up and running – and plays most things.

Film are xvid, they show on a little buffalo nas I have, but it is small and single drive so no better than i have at the moment
Can’t be bothered to transfer to another format.
I am trying t get away from another box, so Apple TV not on the table at the moment
I have heard of problems with Dnla, but can’t see any other way round

Cheers all guys

If you have the previous generation of Apple TV you can run XBMC on it and stream content from a networked drive. Mine streams from an external drive attached to an Airport Extreme. It’s a bit of a faff to set up but works well when once up and running – and plays most things.

XBMC will also run on a Raspberry Pi and works well with a NAS drive.

Why do you need redundancy?

RAID is not backup; you’ve be far better off putting a second disk in a caddy and backing up to it periodically, rather than putting both disks in the same box and having a problem which affects both at once.

I don’t think OP is after a backup solution Cougar, just something to stream his pirate backup movies from. RAID1 is what I went for as it offered a bit of data protection if a disk popped; if I lost all of my movies it would be a pain but not the end of the world though so a mirror is sufficient. Swings and roundabouts though innit, I guess some people would want the extra space offered by a concat.

You could get a Raspberry Pi with a decent sized SD card (or attach a USB drive if you need more space) and run Raspbmc on it. Not only can you (optionaly) plug it into your TV as a media player but it is also a dnla server to you can access your media files from anywhere on your network.

Random, exactly , my backup films wouldn’t become the end of my world if they disappeared so a mirror is sufficient

Sharkbait, the idea of programming fills me with dread, I am a GUI person I’m afraid

Sharkbait, the idea of programming fills me with dread, I am a GUI person I’m afraid

Haha, no programming required at all, in fact it really is a single mouse click!

This is how it goes:
1) plug sd card into pc/mac
2) run downloaded installer for windows/mac
3) put sd card into rPi – it will then boot, download all the files it needs and complete the installation. It also configures the network for you

Tempting, although it doesn’t really get round my original prob of what nas do I use with it

I don’t want to hijack the thread but maybe my questions would also be useful. I am just about to invest in a NAS and have settled on a Synology because they always seem to come out on top. The choice is the DS213J, the DS213 or the DS213+. Can anyone tell me if I need to pay the extra for the more powerful 213 or 213+? The most intensive thing would be to stream HD movies to my TV (assuming I can get it to work).

Also, If files (for example movies or music) are backed up using time machine, are they locked away only to be accessed using time machine on my mac or can my TV/phone etc. access the files within the time machine backup files?

Pirates ahoy !

The backups are in a proprietor format so only a mac can access them,

I bought my movies in iTunes. I hope that doesn’t make it harder or impossible to stream them from the NAS to TV.