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synology or qnap for tivo & PS3 integration

post #1 of 14
5/30/12 at 3:33pm
Thread Starter 
I am in the process of ripping my DVD and Bluray collection to HDD for the purposes of streaming to various endpoints throughout my home. I'm looking for an 8-bay solution for storage & streaming. In the near future, my overall system will include the following:

- PS3
- Tivo HD
- a new 'smart' HDTV (various streaming services + can see video files on a network)

It seems that the PS3 and TV are capable of seeing files in a typical windows share drive. Both the QNAP and Synology appear to have this capability.

However, I can't seem to find any information on Tivo streaming. Is there a solution from either company? I know ReadyNAS offers this option in their consumer 6-bay products but it seems that QNAP and Synology have a better reputation.

Has anyone encountered this issue and come up with a solution? Thanks!
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post #2 of 14
5/30/12 at 3:46pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Greg_R View Post

Any information on Tivo streaming. Is there a solution from either company? I know ReadyNAS offers this option in their consumer 6-bay products but it seems that QNAP and Synology have a better reputation.

Not helpful based on what you are looking for... however ReadyNAS has added support for TiVo streaming/archiving to their arm based NAS devices (starting with RAIDiator 5.3.5)... their new(er) low-end models. Keep in mind it's very easy to remove the TiVo in TiVo files (maintaining the same quality) making them playable on virtually any device. It's free too with kmttg.
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post #3 of 14
5/30/12 at 3:59pm
How are you planning on streaming to the PS3 and TiVo? DLNA? UPNP? All of these are terrible. You would be better off getting a dedicated streamer that can stream the file via direct SMB or NFS sharing with reliable performance. Boxee Box is not bad, cheap PC with XBMC is much much better. Dune is expensive and has a cryptic interface. All of them are superior to what you are going to get with PS3 or TiVo.
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post #4 of 14
5/30/12 at 4:23pm
Thread Starter 
Charles, you are right r.e. Tivo file conversion. What I've got is a tivo connected to an old TV and I use it to pull programs from my PC/storage. I could add a dedicated box for SMB streaming but I'd like to avoid that expense -IF- there is a reasonable built-in solution with the QNAP or Synology options.

Currently I'm running Pytivo on my server with a high level of success & quality. This converts the file format to a Tivo friendly format and puts the file on the Tivo HDD. I have a perl script I wrote that queries IMDB and creates the *.txt Tivo info files so all the title/season/actor info appears on the Tivo for each file.
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post #5 of 14
5/31/12 at 11:38am
Thread Starter 
... so it sounds like the QNAP and Synology do NOT have a Tivo HMO (Home Media Option) server function?

jmpage2: Can you provide more detail on why the PS3 is horrible for streaming? Is it the lack of format support? I agree that browsing to the file sucks (compared to XBMC, etc.) but I haven't had any problems playing a supported filetype off my current server.
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post #6 of 14
5/31/12 at 11:57am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Greg_R View Post

... so it sounds like the QNAP and Synology do NOT have a Tivo HMO (Home Media Option) server function?

jmpage2: Can you provide more detail on why the PS3 is horrible for streaming? Is it the lack of format support? I agree that browsing to the file sucks (compared to XBMC, etc.) but I haven't had any problems playing a supported filetype off my current server.

The only NAS/Server provider that I am aware of that ever went to the trouble of creating some kind of TiVo HMO integration were HP with their line of windows home servers, which you can still get, but are getting pretty dated. None of the "big boys" like WD, Synology, QNAP, Thecus, etc, do this. I also don't believe you can easily do it with an UNRAID or other home rolled NAS solution.

I am not saying that the PS3 in and of itself is terrible for streaming, what I am saying is that using upnp/dlna to do the streaming is prone to problems as there are many things which often don't work correctly or work differently depending on server and client being used. For example, HD audio tracks not working, forced subtitles not working, chapter skip not working properly, FF/REW being very jerky and un-predictable.

If the PS3 could simply play an MKV or BD ISO file then all of this would go away, but since Sony is in both the content creation and content playback business this is not going to happen.

There are plenty of people who run servers that transcode ISO and MKV to H.264 formats that the PS3 is comfortable with playing over upnp, etc, it's just not the route that I would choose.

When I play the MKV from a BD of a movie I care about I want it to be 100% bit for bit the same as it is on the disc and none of the transcoding ways of delivering this content to something like PS3 or TiVo can achieve this. Enter dedicated media streamer box, like Boxee, Western Live TV or best of all worlds an XBMC PC.
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post #7 of 14
5/31/12 at 12:09pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by jmpage2 View Post

The only NAS/Server provider that I am aware of that ever went to the trouble of creating some kind of TiVo HMO integration were HP with their line of windows home servers, which you can still get, but are getting pretty dated.

http://www.readynas.com/?p=4324

It simply uploads/serves files. No file conversion, etc. Regarding TiVo it handles DVDs via lossless MKV wonderfully... Blu-rays not so much.
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post #8 of 14
5/31/12 at 12:16pm
DVD yick.
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post #9 of 14
5/31/12 at 1:49pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by jmpage2 View Post

The only NAS/Server provider that I am aware of that ever went to the trouble of creating some kind of TiVo HMO integration were HP with their line of windows home servers, which you can still get, but are getting pretty dated. None of the "big boys" like WD, Synology, QNAP, Thecus, etc, do this. I also don't believe you can easily do it with an UNRAID or other home rolled NAS solution.

I am not saying that the PS3 in and of itself is terrible for streaming, what I am saying is that using upnp/dlna to do the streaming is prone to problems as there are many things which often don't work correctly or work differently depending on server and client being used. For example, HD audio tracks not working, forced subtitles not working, chapter skip not working properly, FF/REW being very jerky and un-predictable.

If the PS3 could simply play an MKV or BD ISO file then all of this would go away, but since Sony is in both the content creation and content playback business this is not going to happen.

There are plenty of people who run servers that transcode ISO and MKV to H.264 formats that the PS3 is comfortable with playing over upnp, etc, it's just not the route that I would choose.

When I play the MKV from a BD of a movie I care about I want it to be 100% bit for bit the same as it is on the disc and none of the transcoding ways of delivering this content to something like PS3 or TiVo can achieve this. Enter dedicated media streamer box, like Boxee, Western Live TV or best of all worlds an XBMC PC.

Understood, I've only streamed H.264 files to the PS3. I've got a high quality solution in my theater but for something like a kitchen or bedroom TV I'm not as concerned about image quality. However, click-and-play functionality is critical so if I have to buy a bunch of $200 Asus mini-PCs to accomplish this (or DuneHD, popcorn hours, etc.) then so be it. I would really like to be able to handle Bluray backups with this system so some amount of horsepower is going to be required.
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post #10 of 14
5/31/12 at 1:53pm
Well, there is more than one solution to this problem. I needed family friendly access and the muscle to handle full bitrate rips.

I settled on an XBMC HTPC in the main viewing area and Boxee Boxes elsewhere. The Boxees have a lot of problems but for reasonably good ability to stream BD media they work fairly well. If I was doing it again I might opt for Dune players but would still want XBMC in the main viewing area.
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post #11 of 14
5/31/12 at 3:41pm
Thread Starter 
jmpage2,
What PC are you using for your HTPC in the main area? Is it a micro PC (like the Asus EeeBox) or is it something more substantial?
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post #12 of 14
5/31/12 at 4:27pm
I built a small custom HTPC with a Wesena case and a Pico-PSU. It's very compact, very quiet, etc. I run Win 7 on it and it just boots right into XBMC. I have a license for Any DVD HD on it, so I can also pop a blu-ray into the optical drive and watch a blu-ray movie without any annoying trailers or previews (or stupid menus).
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post #13 of 14
6/1/12 at 12:03pm
Thread Starter 
Are you running an Atom, Sandy Bridge, or ??? Thanks, your comments so far have been very helpful!
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post #14 of 14
6/1/12 at 2:06pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Greg_R View Post

Are you running an Atom, Sandy Bridge, or ??? Thanks, your comments so far have been very helpful!

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php...2940#pid922940

Pictures;

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php...2973#pid922973

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php...3099#pid923099

Ultimately I ended up with an Intel I3-2100 and a Radeon HD6450. The 6450 is the best video card at the moment for doing proper frame-rate lock for 23.976 content. As I have a 24P capable plasma display (a big one) this was a pretty important thing to me. I am running the latest XBMC builds on it that has HD audio support and it's pretty amazing.
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