Video Station and Apple TV

[Kulver]

Hi everyone, I have a couple of questions regarding Video Station and streaming videos from NAS to Apple TV. The setup is the following:
- QNAP TS-228 connected via ethernet to the wi-fi router
- Apple TV 4K connected to the wi-fi network and to the TV via HDMI
- TV

So, here is my list of questions:
1) If I understand correctly, the Video Station service should work as a substitute to services like Kodi (which is not officially supported on Apple TV). So I made the catalogs of movies and TV shows on my NAS using the naming convention as described in Video Station manual. Now I can see the catalogs with descriptions from IMDB while opening Video Station in my browser on the laptop. I thought that I should see the same catalogs in my Qmedia app on Apple TV. However, there are only shared videos, folders, video collection and smart collection. Is it true that the categorisation of content is not supported in Qmedia Apple TV app or am I doing something wrong?

2) Ok, even if there is no categorisation in Qmedia I can still access my content through folders. But there is a small problem I can't solve. The sorting is Z-A by default and there is no way to change it because there are no options in Qmedia. Is it a bug or am I missing something?

3) The videos are not playing smoothly, some of them are ok, others just freeze. Is there an option to play videos from Qmedia via some other video player such as VLC? There is such an option in the Qvideo iOS app. Because the built-in player there also doesn't work properly.

[mroy5150]

I would recommend you use Plex instead. This is a client/server solution but it is very easy to setup and works great. Install the Plex Server on QNAP and then install the Plex app on the Apple TV. The most recent version of the Plex App for Apple TV is fantastic. You can also install Plex apps on Roku players, Amazon Fire devices and mobile devices. I've been using Plex for about 3 years and there is no substitute.

[gggplaya]

Qmedia ** due to licensing issues.

I don't recommend installing PLEX on the TS228. It only has 1GB of ram, I'm not even sure if plex will work on it. It also doesn't have the power to transcode either.

If you want a DLNA solution, use Twonky or Serviio.

If you want the best solution for apple tv, use INFUSE (https://firecore.com/infuse) which can natively decode the videos and pull metadata leveraging the power of the apple tv instead of your NAS. Your NAS does not need to be powerful, it just needs to serve up files. Infuse will play just about every file you throw at it. And you can sort by date, which is what I do. It puts the newest added movies at the top.

[mroy5150]

I agree that the TS228 may not be powerful enough for Plex. That being said My TS-451+ has a 2GHZ Intel Celeron with only 2GB of RAM and Plex works flawlessly. It may be worth trying it just to see if it will work. If not then I agree that Infuse on the Apple TV is the best DLNA option.

[dolbyman]

the x51+ is a different computational league than x28 units

my 951x runs plex great ... even does hardware transcoding for x265 10bit (just missing the tonemapping for now)

[gggplaya]

The low end ARM nas's should really just be treated as file servers. If you want to run a plex server, I would buy an Nvidia Shield to go with your NAS. Otherwise, do all the decoding on the client side with KODI(android) or INFUSE(iOS).

[Looping123]

I would recommend you use Plex instead. This is a client/server solution but it is very easy to setup and works great. Install the Plex Server on QNAP and then install the Plex app on the Apple TV. The most recent version of the Plex App for Apple TV is fantastic. You can also install Plex apps on Roku players, Amazon Fire devices and mobile devices. I've been using Plex for about 3 years and there is no substitute.

I second that!

[gggplaya]

I would recommend you use Plex instead. This is a client/server solution but it is very easy to setup and works great. Install the Plex Server on QNAP and then install the Plex app on the Apple TV. The most recent version of the Plex App for Apple TV is fantastic. You can also install Plex apps on Roku players, Amazon Fire devices and mobile devices. I've been using Plex for about 3 years and there is no substitute.

I second that!

Again, OP has a low end ARM NAS. I would not second that.