I would "ideally" like to be able to buy a tablet that will allow me to stream from my NAS.
Can anyone please tell me what I should be looking out for in the specifications? or even recommend a model; I don't need the tablet to be too fancy or pricey just functional.
When I ask at the local stores they don't know the answer and simply say I should refer to Netgear.
If you want to stream video from a Sparc ReadyNAS (has slow Infrant Sparc CPU e.g. Duo) it will need to be in the format recommended for playback on your tablet so no transcoding (converting video on the fly) or remuxing need take place. I'm not sure what services there are that you can use to stream like this to a tablet device from the Duo.
If you want to stream video e.g. transcoding (converting video on the fly) you're best to get an x86 ReadyNAS, preferably a Pro 6 (RNDP6000-200 aka RNDP6000v2) as this has a fast CPU that can transcode HD 1080p video. See http://www.readynas.com/plex
It's video i'm looking to stream (avi generally). I have a Duo (RND2110).
I'm a novice at this. I was hoping that I could find a tablet that would simply locate the files from the NAS and play them but if I read your reply correctly the tablets have to read the files in a particular format.
The player would need to be able to natively play your files (e.g. avi) without needing them to be converted. I don't think this is likely to be the case.
Your best to upgrade to a newer NAS that can do the transcoding to convert the video into a format acceptable for a tablet device e.g. iPad 2.
Or, you can use something like Handbrake (http://handbrake.fr/) to transcode your video offline into an iOS-friendly format (Handbrake has many built-in presets specifically for this purpose) and stream those from the ReadyNAS (sparc or otherwise). My personal experience is that the quality of the wifi connection becomes the limiting case. No need to throw money at the problem just yet.
This advice also applies to the various non-Apple tablet devices, but then your format flexibility is much greater and this pre-processing step with Handbrake may not be necessary in that case.
