Synology, the maker of some of the best NAS hardware and software on the market, recently announced the release of their latest operating software, DSM 4.1 to beta, and with it comes a brand new feature, Video Station, which looks very similar to the Plex Media Server. While there are still many outstanding questions, here’s the first published look comparing the two pieces of software with the understanding the full Video Station specs aren’t available:
|
Plex Media Server |
Synology Video Station |
|
| 1. Transcoding |
Yes |
Yes |
| 2. Mobile Clients |
Android/iOS |
Android/iOS |
| 3. Live TV Record |
No |
Yes |
| 4. Local Playback |
Windows/Mac/Roku/LG/Samsung/GoogleTV |
? |
| 5. Remote Playback |
Yes |
Yes |
| 6. Content Sharing |
myPlex |
? |
| 7. Meta Data |
Yes |
Yes |
That’s all we know for now, here are screen shots of the two pieces of software:
Synology Video Station
Plex Media Server
I am currently testing the 4.1 beta and find it to be pretty on par with Plex Media Server data collection and ease of use. I am still trying to get the LiveTV recording working with my HDHomeRun, and other than the web interface, have yet to identify a way to playback video, as the companion iOS app has yet to be released. Synology NAS owners should give DSM 4.1 and Video Station a try, keeping in mind that 4.1 is still officially beta, so backup protocol still applies. Here is the link to the blog post over at Synology. http://blog.synology.com/blog/?p=1267
Video Station App in in iTunes store now. Works very well both locally and remotely!
How is DSM 4.1 working for you?
No issues whatsoever apart from scraping TV shows in Video Station. I use a DS712+ with XBMC Eden as my front end so my TV shows are filed according to the XBMC recommendation. This works well for XBMC but VS was not so happy. It picked up my collection of Undercover Boss (US) and catalogued one season as Undercover Boss (UK). Reported it as a bug. Manually edited the show title that VS had picked up and reindexed and it came right. You?
Going to write up a full report an my experience. I’m a plex user but this is a very interesting development. Curious to see transcoding abilities. Will be a direct compare of Synology vs Plex coding chops.
I’ve tried playing (transcoding) media files on my iPhone (locally and via 3G) and on my iPad locally and it works an absolute charm. Nice to have access to my library on IOS. Thankful I recently upgraded to the 712+ with plenty of horsepower!
Nice. But the real question is whether the disk stations with less horsepower can transcode what my iMac i5 with PMS on it have difficulty…I have a DS209 and one PMS transcode basically takes all of its horsepower…full review to come…
I made a little video of the 712+ resource monitor in action streaming a 7GB .mkv file to my iPad. 50% CPU use that drops to <3% when I stop the movie. I have a DS210J that I'll try it on too but I don't hold too much hope for that. http://screencast.com/t/kzHBCyXN
Good to know, ARM DS’s don’t seem to fare as well….