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Forum Discussion
Media Applications Recommendations
I seek opinions, recommendations, etc. from users with experience with the applications avaiable for my new RN102 as to which I should use for sending Photos and maybe music and videos from the NAS to computers on the LAN and maybe a DNLA enabled TV.
I did a quick scan of the applications available and there seem to be options to choose from, some in the list have links to more info and some do not. Which applicaitons do others use and are they happy which what they use? Are there some to stay away from? There is no ratings available for the applications - maybe that is something NetGear might consider adding some day.
Is adding applications easy and straight forward? Can applications be removed completely just as easy, with no side affects so typical in the MS Windows world?
My first need is to view JPEG pictures using a slide show tool on LAN connected computer and maybe the DNLA TV. Family members prefer to use a slide show feature to look at photos rather than have to individually click on a picture file to move to the next one in a series.
With only a low horsepower RN102 I know not to expect transcoding on the fly from Plex for video. But maybe MP4 encoded videos can be served up by this NAS.
All suggestions, comments, and opinions are welcome.
Thanks.
I did a quick scan of the applications available and there seem to be options to choose from, some in the list have links to more info and some do not. Which applicaitons do others use and are they happy which what they use? Are there some to stay away from? There is no ratings available for the applications - maybe that is something NetGear might consider adding some day.
Is adding applications easy and straight forward? Can applications be removed completely just as easy, with no side affects so typical in the MS Windows world?
My first need is to view JPEG pictures using a slide show tool on LAN connected computer and maybe the DNLA TV. Family members prefer to use a slide show feature to look at photos rather than have to individually click on a picture file to move to the next one in a series.
With only a low horsepower RN102 I know not to expect transcoding on the fly from Plex for video. But maybe MP4 encoded videos can be served up by this NAS.
All suggestions, comments, and opinions are welcome.
Thanks.
20 Replies
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- With DLNA, the experience you get depends on both the client and the server. So I'd suggest trying both ReadyDLNA and Plex out. Personally I favor Plex (and am running it on my RN102). I don't do much with photos on the TV though. Plex will serve up MP4 videos with no problem (though this does depend on your TV's support for mp4 too).
For the computers I'd use native SMB/CIFS and AFP, and access the media directly from your players of choice. VLC for videos for instance.
Are there any mobile devices in the mix? - Thanks - no mobile devices currently. I have Plex installed on a Tower computer and it seems to work well, so I will try PLex on the NAS.
i assume I would create a new share "media" with folders for video, music, photos and direct Plex to use those and remove the shares installed during installation of the NAS. Is that the proper way to configure the NAS & Plex? - I created my own shares for media. You can use more than one if you want, both plex and ReadyDLNA give you the ability to do that.
With plex, you configure it using the web UI. ReadyDLNA service is one of the settings for each share. - Stephen,
I installed Plex on my RN102, the one test movie I added to my default Videos share (where I told Plex to find movies) is enabled for DNLA. The one movie file is MP4 file type. Attempting to play the movie in Plex gives me an error "Media server does not support transcoding". The info for the movie says it is not optimized for Web. Is there a setting in Plex I am not seeing? I would think this Plex build would support MP4 and MP3 (audio) files at a minimum.
The movie file on the NAS does play in VLC on a Linux computer when accessed via the file manager (open in VLC).
Also, some meta information (poster, cast, ect.) for the movie is not being fetched from the Internet. Does that work for you and is there a setting to get that to work?
I have Plex installed on another Linux computer with more horsepower and it works well, plays media (same movie file loaded to the NAS) and fetches data from the Internet for the movie. I understand the Plex build for ReadyNAS is probably scaled down from the full version and is obviously a dersion of Plex, but the basics should work.
Any suggestions - thanks - It is the same plex, but configured not to transcode. Metadata should work the same as your other system.
What browser are you using for playback? - Firefox current version for Linux Mint (basically the same as Ubuntu) Filefox Help - About says versoin 32.0
The same browser plays movie from other Plex (on the computer), but that computer is powerful enough to perform transcode when needed. - Right. And the need for transcoding depends on the connection speed and the codecs advertised by the browser.
When I choose my RN102 server from https://plex.tv/ SD-resolution MP4s with H.264 video and AAC stereo audio play for me - in both FireFox and Chrome (running on on Windows). - It looks, to me, I have correct properties of the movie file and that the RN102 should play the movie.
I did another refresh and the Poster art appeared - good sign. I am now suspecting the RN102 is just not up to the task of pumping out a MP4 over my network; strange! My network should be capable. I have Fast Ethernet (100 mbps) over cat-5; nothing wireless is in the mix. Like I said, another node on the same LAN with Plex can pass the same MP4 file. I have only DSL at 3 Mbps Internet which I don't expect to support movies, but the LAN should handle it.
The movie file is using H264 and ACC
Movie information in XML format:<MediaContainer size="1" allowSync="1" identifier="com.plexapp.plugins.library" librarySectionID="3" librarySectionUUID="3b623d83-05ca-4051-8760-03b19c66495c" mediaTagPrefix="/system/bundle/media/flags/" mediaTagVersion="1370274120"><Video ratingKey="2" key="/library/metadata/2" guid="com.plexapp.agents.imdb://tt0033045?lang=en" studio="Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer" type="movie" title="THE_SHOP_AROUND_THE_CORNER" contentRating="NR" summary="Two employees at a gift shop can barely stand one another, without realising that they are falling in love through the post as each other's anonymous pen pal." rating="8.3999996185302699" year="1940" thumb="/library/metadata/2/thumb/1410806542" art="/library/metadata/2/art/1410806542" duration="11850000" originallyAvailableAt="1940-01-12" addedAt="1410730280" updatedAt="1410806542"><Media id="2" duration="11850000" bitrate="1383" width="720" height="480" aspectRatio="1.33" audioChannels="1" audioCodec="aac" videoCodec="h264" videoResolution="480" container="mp4" videoFrameRate="24p" optimizedForStreaming="0"><Part accessible="1" exists="1" id="95" key="/library/parts/95/file.mp4" duration="5925000" file="/run/nfs4/data/Videos/The Shop Around the Corner (1940).mp4" size="1024369100" container="mp4" has64bitOffsets="0" hasChapterTextStream="1" optimizedForStreaming="0"><Stream id="81" streamType="1" codec="h264" index="0" bitrate="1216" anamorphic="1" bitDepth="8" cabac="1" chromaSubsampling="4:2:0" colorSpace="yuv" duration="5924953" frameRate="24.000" frameRateMode="vfr" hasScalingMatrix="0" height="480" level="40" pixelAspectRatio="8:9" profile="main" refFrames="4" scanType="progressive" width="720"/><Stream id="82" streamType="2" selected="1" [b]codec="aac"[/b] index="1" channels="1" bitrate="160" language="English" languageCode="eng" bitrateMode="vbr" duration="5924864" profile="lc" samplingRate="48000"/></Part></Media><Genre id="37" tag="Romance Film"/><Genre id="38" tag="Romantic comedy"/><Genre id="39" tag="Drama"/><Genre id="40" tag="Comedy"/><Writer id="23" tag="Samson Raphaelson"/><Writer id="24" tag="Ben Hecht"/><Director id="22" tag="Ernst Lubitsch"/><Country id="21" tag="USA"/><Role id="25" tag="Joseph Schildkraut" role="Ferencz Vadas"/><Role id="26" tag="Charles Smith" role="Rudy"/><Role id="27" tag="Edwin Maxwell" role="Doctor"/><Role id="28" tag="William Tracy" role="Pepi Katona"/><Role id="29" tag="Margaret Sullavan" role="Klara Novak"/><Role id="30" tag="Sara Haden" role="Flora"/><Role id="31" tag="Frank Morgan" role="Hugo Matuschek"/><Role id="32" tag="James Stewart" role="Alfred Kralik"/><Role id="33" tag="Inez Courtney" role="Ilona"/><Role id="34" tag="Felix Bressart" role="Pirovitch"/><Role id="35" tag="Sarah Edwards" role="Customer"/><Role id="36" tag="Charles Halton" role="Detective"/></Video></MediaContainer>
I will research the Plex forums and the Internet for ideas. If you come up with other suggestions please pass them on.
Thanks - It certainly has the horsepower, as I mentioned my RN102 is serving similar stuff. For instance.
General
Complete name : xxx
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : Base Media
Codec ID : isom
File size : 323 MiB
Duration : 42mn 29s
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 1 063 Kbps
Collection : xxx
Season : 1
Part : 7
Encoded date : UTC 2014-01-06 17:21:37
Tagged date : UTC 2014-01-06 17:21:37
Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L3.1
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 5 frames
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 42mn 29s
Bit rate : 933 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 6 867 Kbps
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 404 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.134
Stream size : 283 MiB (88%)
Writing library : x264 core 140 r2377 1ca7bb9
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=5 / deblock=1:1:1 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=umh / subme=9 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=2 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=18 / lookahead_threads=1 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=23 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=60 / rc=crf / mbtree=1 / crf=20.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Encoded date : UTC 2014-01-06 17:00:59
Tagged date : UTC 2014-01-06 17:21:39
Matrix coefficients : BT.709
Audio
ID : 2
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile : LC
Codec ID : 40
Duration : 42mn 29s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 126 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 160 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 38.4 MiB (12%)
Encoded date : UTC 2014-01-06 17:21:38
Tagged date : UTC 2014-01-06 17:21:39
Do you have any other devices you can try? Preferably a windows or mac OS? Codecs advertised in the browser is most likely the problem. I think H.264 requires you to use the gstreamer codecs in linux versions of FireFox. - Later this week I will have Ethernet cable run to my DLNA-enabled TV. I do have a very old laptop running WIndows XP (Firefox browser) that when connecting to the NAS Plex server it reports the same error. I tried MS Internet Explorer from that XP machine and it wont connect to Plex, reports missing applications. Never use IE.
The Plex dashboard on the NAS sees and permits access to both Plex servers on my LAN (Computer & NAS) The test movie plays from the Plex server on the computer and reports no transcoding when selecting the RN102 Plex server. My Plex on the NAS reports software versions: 0.9.7.28 and the Web software is version 2.2.5. Is that what you are running? Looking at the Info for my movie has different fields and ordering that the info you provided, thus my thought of a different version of Plex software. Maybe the differences are due to your data appears to be a TV show not a feature movie. Thanks for sharing you Media Info; much easier to read than my XML I wasn't sure a copy of the media info would paste into a code block on the forum, guess I was wrong.
My movie file info gives an NFS protocol share path, fould that be interferring with the Plex? Path to movie is:
/run/nfs4/data/Videos/The Shop Around the Corner (1940).mp4
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