Just purchased a Synology DS413 NAS

You can run Plex on it, but since it's ARM-based, you won't have the ability to transcode video. If you would've gotten the DS 412+, which is Intel Atom-based, you'd have limited transcoding ability. But if you have no need for transcoding, then it'll serve your needs.

I use an Intel Atom based Synology and run Plex to my Sony GTV box. It Direct Plays and does not require transcoding so it uses very few resources. This would be the same if the client were a PC or Mac. When I send things to the Roku2 it does Direct streaming which essentially seems to switch any containers such as mkv to mp4. This is for h.264 video. I don't know if that would be available to ARM based Synology units. Doesn't require a lot of CPU power so perhaps.

An alternative to Plex is DS Video on a mobile device and Video Station on the Synology. You select what you want to play on your mobile device and it sends it directly to the client such as a GTV or even an ATV3. That is actually a great alternative to Plex. You have the same metadata capabilities as Plex. The transmission is done via DLNA or AirPlay (can be wired).

philip

An alternative to Plex is DS Video on a mobile device and Video Station on the Synology. You select what you want to play on your mobile device and it sends it directly to the client such as a GTV or even an ATV3. That is actually a great alternative to Plex. You have the same metadata capabilities as Plex. The transmission is done via DLNA or AirPlay (can be wired).



Can you elaborate on the DS Video Station as to its capabilities to stream to an ATV3? In what format do I store my video content (.iso, mkv, or mp4) so that it can be sent to the ATV3 and play in its best quality?

I haven't tried iso. Both mkv and m4v/mp4 work great. I would imagine that m4v would be the best way to store things if you want to also view things on other iDevices. That would also be less tacking on the NAS.

Philip

Thanks Philip, You mentioned "the same metadata as Plex for the Synology". By this do you mean the discography, movie art, synopsis of the movie, etc auto-populates the file that's stored under Movie Station? I want to be able to see the movie artwork and search the movies I (will) have stored on the NAS through the ATV3 using the native GUI of the ATV3--I guess I'm trying to decide if storing the movies in iTunes m4V format and allowing the ATV3 to display the selection of movies is smoother, faster, better quality or easier than accessing the movies from the NAS?

I was considering building an unRAID server to do all the usual things like host media (including the ability to transcode video with Plex or PS3 Media Server), manage downloads, run an iTunes server, possibly be a network drive for Time Machine, etc. However, I would rather make life easy on myself and get a nice Synology NAS. If I went this route, I know that I can't count on it to do my transcoding. Is there something else simple and cheap that I can purchase that will read media shares from the Synology and stream to devices like a Panasonic Smart TV app, Roku, PS3, iPad, etc?