How to play videos or movies natively from NAS to TV

[gggplaya]

- Do I have to open the Plex interface in a web browser ?
- If not bookmarked the lengthy Plex URL, any other way to open Plex interface quickly ?
- To operate the Plex interface, if I dont want to use Keyboard and Mouse, do I need to by a remote control ? or any other options ?

Yes and No. For management, it must be opened a browser. I copied the URL from the web browser and made a shortcut on my desktop.
You can do this by right clicking on the desktop and hitting "create shortcut" and paste the URL into the Shortcut. Then give the shortcut a name.

For playback, there's a windows 10 app, that I think you can get from the windows app store. There, it may be possible to use a remote. However, I would just use a client device like a roku stick, or the LG TV plex app for playback. The computer doesn't not need to be connected to the TV to use PLEX, it was designed to work over your wifi network. The software on your laptop is considered a server, but can also be used for playback.

- When playing mkv file along with .dts /.ac3 file, there is no sound in Plex

I'm not sure what's going on here. Plex should transcode. Perhaps try playing with your windows audio settings. Try setting it to 2ch stereo.

- When the movie playing, if I mouse-click onto the middle of timeline, the movie resume quite slow. But If I play the movie file directly by media player classic, it goes faster. Can this be improved in Plex ?

I believe it may be quicker when using direct play, but if plex is transcoding, it will always be slow.

Playing the movie file in Plex, the volume is still low even though the volume bar reached the max in Plex, Win10 and Browser. How can boost the volume in Plex ?

Again, I would use a client device, like the Plex App on your LG TV app store. The voices may be lower because that typically happens when converting 5.1ch down to stereo sound, since the voice channel is the center speaker.

- Intel processor support hardware acceleration, but AMD doesn't. May I know the reason you pick AMD and not Intel ? Does it mean AMD processor is better then Intel in this HTPC usage ? With hardware acceleration, does it mean the transcoding will be much faster than AMD box ?

Hardware acceleration has it's pro's and cons. Yes, it's significantly faster and uses less power. However, it does this by using a technique called Macroblocking. During fast moving scenes, you can see the macroblocks and artifacting which gives it a terrible picture quality. That's the reason I don't use it, and Intel's implementation is the worst. I only use CPU transcoding which uses the most power but gives the cleanest picture. The choice for AMD is simple when building a computer right now. Intel's design now puts it at a disadvantage unless you buy one of their high performance high clock speed processors. At the mid range and low end, I think AMD has much better offerings than Intel. AMD's motherboards are cheaper and you can get alot more processing cores for the same amount of money. The extra cores gives you more power for transcoding multiple streams, or multitasking like playing Brawl Stars when streaming plex.

[dolbyman]

why a massive watercooled htpc?

I'd get a nice 8th gen beancanyon NUC, the iris655 igpu does all codecs (including vp9) that you would need in hardware and the cpu's (i3,i5,i7) have plenty of passmark to even do software decoding

all that on a footprint of a coaster and around 15W of TDP

[gggplaya]

You can still try out your laptop if you set it to 720p on the plex app on your tv. Your laptop should be powerful enough for that.

If you happen to have a microcenter near you, that's the cheapest place for parts. I have one an hour away and prices are on par with the internet, sometimes cheaper.

If you want a low power system, for the lowest cost possible. I'd get the Athlon 200GE($40) and an A320($55) mATX motherboard. Should be good for 2 simultaneous transcodes. There's no need for a video card. Buy the cheapest DDR4 ram($40) and don't overclock it. Run it at 2133mhz or 2400mhz at 1.2volts(default). This will give you the lowest idle wattage system, as athlons have great low power idle. Go into the Bios and set the motherboard to recover on power outage, and set the processor to low current idle. Then all you need is a case($50), Power supply($40), M.2 SSD($40), wireless keyboard and mouse. Use the TV as a monitor for setup and maintenance.

If you want a more powerful system, you can get a Ryzen 1600 processor, but then you'll also need to buy a video card. I just built a friend a Ryzen 2700 Plex Server, it only uses about 40watts at idle. He has 4 kids, and needed alot of transcoding.

If you want to spend the least and have the smallest box next to your TV, you can get the LenovoM73 miniPC used on ebay. Make sure it has the i5 4570T processor. Then buy a small SSD and ddr3 so-dimm ram. In all, should be less than $150.

I decide to get a new PC box as HTPC
- CPU : AMD Ryzen 2700
- Motherboard : B450, but don't know which brand is good yet
- RAM : DDR4 less than 3000 Mhz
- SSD : 480 GB 2.5" SATA
- Video Card : To be confirmed


SInce there is not much space that I can place the new PC near the 42" TV in the dinning room and the right side of the TV is a wall, left side is the door already, so I plan to make it a simple water-cooling. this is all new to me, so I need to study harder this knowledge recently.

If I need the new HTPC to play 4K@60Hz movie files smoothly, do I need a video card ? which brand and basic model you recommend ?
eg NVidia GeForce GTX 1060 or higher ?

I don't need overclocking in this HTPC, although you metioned I can adjust the clock manually ( I guess is in BIOS ), Is it possible it can automatically adjust the clock to lowest when it is idle and automatically increase it when it is playing movie files via Plex or I use it to play games ?

The Ryzen does not have a built in GPU, so it'll need a video card for sure. For a HTPC, the GTX 1650 SUPER is the best value with a full turing architecture for $160. It has to be the SUPER version though, not the regular 1650. However, this really only matters if you decide to do hardware encoding. If you get the Ryzen 3400G or an Intel processor(non-F), it will have a video gpu built into it.

You don't need to go water cooling to have a cool and quiet PC. Noctua makes decent air cooled models that are just as quiet and perform better than many water coolers.

A NUC is a consideration as dolby said and you can actually mount it to the back of your TV, or get some other vesa wall mounts for it. Uses very little wattage too. But they do get pricey and I think a Ryzen PC is still cheaper for the same amount of cores, especially if you can built it yourself.

For 4k though, I don't think anything can transcode it yet. Plex and Infuse will direct play 4k content. If you're playing it directly on the HTPC, any modern video card will have the codecs to decode it.

For the motherboard, get an ASrock, Gigabyte, MSI, or Asus. Can't go wrong with any of them. I would get the most basic board which will use the least amount of energy. Higher dollar boards have better VRM's, but you only need that for overclocking, which I don't recommend for HTPC. Get a mATX or Mini-ITX size motherboard for a HTPC.

For cases, there are plenty of HTPC cases that look like VCR's. Or you can be like me and make a tempered glass showpiece with RGB ram and RGB light strips. The thermaltake P1, P3, or P5 cases mount on the wall. Throw the thermaltake 240mm RGB AIO water cooler on it and it'll look awesome. The topic of conversation.

Also for the hard drive, I would get an M.2 NVME SSD. They cost about the same now, but mount directly on the motheboard, but are 4x faster than a sata drive.

[gggplaya]

Thanks gggplaya, dolbyman,

Then I go for Fans instead of water-cooling. I won't do over-clocking although I play games. I have totally no idea on setting those parameters for over-clocking.
In the past few days, I keep watching youtube comparing Ryzen 2700 and 3600, talking about 2nd vs 3rd generation stuff, but I still can't distinguish the graphic quality difference in the youtube video. So if 2700 is cheaper, then I will go for 2700. The rest items I will just follow what gggplaya mentioned.

I have no experience of setting up a PC myself, but this time will be a chance.

For CPU transcoding. The Image quality will look the same no matter what, it's all about power(passmark score) which dictates how many streams you can do, as well as the transcoding profile you can choose. I leave mine on automatic, but you can choose "make my cpu hurt" in the plex options to give the best image quality. I don't think you can go wrong with a 2700 or 3600. The 2700 has more cores, but slightly lower IPC and lower clock speeds than the 3600. I think it really boils down to price, I would just buy the cheaper of the two.

For GPU transcoding(hardware accelerated option), it's completely hardware dependent. Intel has the worst image quality, and AMD's GPU's are only slightly better than Intel. Whereas NVIDIA has been working hard on their GPU encoding engine and their latest Turing architecture really made some significant improvements. It's still inferior to CPU transcoding, but it's getting much better. GPU transcoding requires much more bitrate for the same image quality as CPU transcoding. The 1650 SUPER is the cheapest turing video card. The regular non-super 1650 uses a Volta/Pascal video encoder. The 1660, 2060, 2070, and 2080 all use a full turing architecture as well.

[Dorbanik]

Hi guys. Good topic to ask my question/trouble:

I've bought QNAP TS-228a and want to use it the same way as mentioned in the first topic by BossJr:
1) data sharing/backup
2) play movies (from NAS) on my smart TV (philips 42pfl6907k)
3) I want everything on my private LAN, should work without connecting to internet

While keeping in mind point 3), after couple of days I am fine with point 1) (data sharing).

But watching movies on my TV is far from expectations. What I achieved:
- When I connect to NAS from my computer, I can directly stream movie to TV using Cinema28 application. But as TV is one room, NAS in second room and computer in third room, this is definitely not the way I want to use it.
- when browsing my home LAN from my TV I see my NAS. When I go to the NAS, there are three folders visible - Videos, Music and Photos. But these folders do not exist on my NAS and I can't get to any file on NAS.

What I want is to sit in front of my TV and choose a movie from NAS to play using remote controller of TV. In other words I want streaming (from my NAS) on demand. I am obviously missing some important (most likely simple) point

Thank you for any advice

[gggplaya]

Hi guys. Good topic to ask my question/trouble:

I've bought QNAP TS-228a and want to use it the same way as mentioned in the first topic by BossJr:
1) data sharing/backup
2) play movies (from NAS) on my smart TV (philips 42pfl6907k)
3) I want everything on my private LAN, should work without connecting to internet

While keeping in mind point 3), after couple of days I am fine with point 1) (data sharing).

But watching movies on my TV is far from expectations. What I achieved:
- When I connect to NAS from my computer, I can directly stream movie to TV using Cinema28 application. But as TV is one room, NAS in second room and computer in third room, this is definitely not the way I want to use it.
- when browsing my home LAN from my TV I see my NAS. When I go to the NAS, there are three folders visible - Videos, Music and Photos. But these folders do not exist on my NAS and I can't get to any file on NAS.

What I want is to sit in front of my TV and choose a movie from NAS to play using remote controller of TV. In other words I want streaming (from my NAS) on demand. I am obviously missing some important (most likely simple) point

Thank you for any advice

You should still start your own thread.

Go to Settings-->Multimedia Console or Multimedia Management. Then select the share folders for it to scan and create a list of files(Music, Video, Photos). This is the QNAP DLNA software, which will broadcast the list of available files to your TV. As discussed in this thread, you might have some trouble with some codecs and audio being unable to play with DLNA.

[gggplaya]

Thanks for the details. I have come up with a list of items, The only thing worry me most is the video card, GTX 1650 SUPER. Not sure if I am correct, once I plugged in a gamer card in the box, even I don't play game, it will still consume much power and releasing heat. The video card size already big and long enough to cut half of the mATX case, this makes me feel the box even harder to release the heat inside the box.

Will there be any other choice for lowering cost on video card ?

I don't think you'll have a problem with heat. Laptops have problems with heat, but a desktop case with a single 120mm fan has much more airflow than any laptop. A 65w CPu and a lower end GPU shouldn't be any problem at all. Once you step into the 95w+ cpu's, overclocking, and high tier GPU's do you need to step up the airflow.

There are plenty of GPU options which are a little cheaper and use less wattage. The Geforce GT1030(not a great gaming card) and the Geforce 1050. Both come in a half height low profile version which use less wattage and allows for a smaller case.

[Dorbanik]

Thank you very much for the answer and recommendation as well.
Unfortunately, half of my videos are mkv, and cannot be played using DLNA (as you mentioned). But it will be another story. Thank you again

[gggplaya]

Thank you very much for the answer and recommendation as well.
Unfortunately, half of my videos are mkv, and cannot be played using DLNA (as you mentioned). But it will be another story. Thank you again

You should try Plex on a separate PC as well.

Or use KODI or AppleTV with Infuse, or an Nvidia Shield TV with Plex(can act as a Plex server too). These will play all your videos without worries

Cheapest solution is an Amazon Fire TV stick with Kodi Sideloaded: https://troypoint.com/how-to-install-kodi-on-fire-tv/

[Dorbanik]

You should try Plex on a separate PC as well.

After reading this forum, Plex already came to my mind and I have installed it yesterday on my NAS (and have created list of movies, it has created thumbnails, so the Plex server works). So yes, that's the way.

But - my TV sees Plex server, but cannot see the movies there. Basic question: does my TV need Plex client installed? (most likely yes). Or can it work without client like DLNA? The issue is, that for whatever reason, my Smart TV do not respond to Smart TV functions. And I cannot occupy TV for whole evening to return it to factory settings and install it from scratch (last remaining not tried suggestion from Philips to make it work)

[Dorbanik]

I checked more and it looks like my QNAP TS-228a (Realtek RTD1295 CPU, 1 GB RAM) is not powerful enough to transcode video on fly anyway. Even I expected opposite. I should have checked earlier, but how should I have know?

But most likely I will not need streaming 4K videos from NAS, so I will give it a try.

[Darthajack]

It would help if you specified what TV you have (sorry if I don't see it in the comments). Does it have native capability to play videos? Sounds like it does since you played movies from a USB stick, if I understand well. Does it have network capability (WiFi or LAN)? If so, it might be an easy solution.

Here is my setup at the moment. I have an LG TV connected to the network. I turned on DLNA on the QNAP NAS, shared some movie folders, and can see the QNAP when I go to Photos/Movies on the TV. I think it might work also without DLNA, with just plain shared folders, accessing files directly, much like you do reading a USB stick. That might be all you need.

I stopped using the QNAP DLNA server because it doesn't show thumbnails consistently and when it does it's a random image from the movie. QNAP ** in general at multimedia management functions of any kind.

Instead I now use Plex server as it provides the movie posters as thumbnails (which the QNAP DLNA server can't do) and has provides rich information. However the Plex client on the TV is not really good. Too many unneeded functions you can't turn off . Luckily there is an app called XPlay for the LG TV which is very simple and sticks to the movie and TV shows libraries. No news, streaming and other functions I don't need. If you have a smart TV you might have an alternative app.

I hope this help.

[Darthajack]

After reading this forum, Plex already came to my mind and I have installed it yesterday on my NAS (and have created list of movies, it has created thumbnails, so the Plex server works). So yes, that's the way.

But - my TV sees Plex server, but cannot see the movies there. Basic question: does my TV need Plex client installed? (most likely yes). Or can it work without client like DLNA? The issue is, that for whatever reason, my Smart TV do not respond to Smart TV functions. And I cannot occupy TV for whole evening to return it to factory settings and install it from scratch (last remaining not tried suggestion from Philips to make it work)

Just noticed your answer. Yes you need a Plex client. The Plex client is cumbersome. See if there is an alternative for your TV brand.

Regarding encoding, try to make sure in the client and plex you find where to disable transcoding when possible. Play at native settings. I forgot where to do that. There's a setting in the player. Transcoding will make the movies stutter and become unplayable on anything but the most powerful QNAP servers. Also, note that some subtitle formats built in MKV will also choke the NAS because they require transcoding. They are generated as images. Make sure you use .SRT format for subtitles.

[Dorbanik]

The Plex client is cumbersome. See if there is an alternative for your TV brand.

Regarding encoding, try to make sure in the client and plex you find where to disable transcoding when possible. Play at native settings. I forgot where to do that. There's a setting in the player. Transcoding will make the movies stutter and become unplayable on anything but the most powerful QNAP servers. Also, note that some subtitle formats built in MKV will also choke the NAS because they require transcoding. They are generated as images. Make sure you use .SRT format for subtitles.

valuable information for me, thank you