General Forum

Re: Best NAS Server for use with a PS3

mbee — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 05:15:30 GMT

timhanna:

Thanks for the advice guys... what Ipod lineup update? Any rumors,

Rumors are that the iPod Touch will have a consequent price decrease, and get a camera. Note that a camera on an iPod is not really useful for taking pictures, but it will be mandatory for some enhanced reality applications such as "New York Nearest Metro", so it will become more and more useful...
Another rumor is that the classic lineup, with hard drive, will be stopped...

And last rumor : iTunes 9 would get DVD playback and ripping functionnality, along with support for non-iPod mp3 players. (if the ripping functionnality rumor turns to be real, it will be a revolution, as today there haven't been any "official" application authorized to do that.

Rumors concerning the Apple TV are an integrated digital tuner and a more compact size...

Wait and see!

Re: Best NAS Server for use with a PS3

JoC — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 13:05:13 GMT

scott451:

i have been looking at a qnap nas solution to serve media files for my stb. i have two, slightly off-topic, questions.

* is the license for twonky included, or is it a trial version ?

* what made it a pain to setup ?

1. Yes the license for Twonky is included, altho the QNap is still at version 4.4.17, still no word on upgrading to version 5 - yet. but with version 5 removing the 'Custom Tree' feature I think I'd like to stick with V4.

2. It was a pain because after I eventually copied on approx 2tb of videos, 3 drives fell out of the raid5 array (dunno why), it went into degraded mode - then it decided to find the sodding drives again - only to rebuild the array (after it done a format). so I lost alot of stuff. that, and there is little to NO documentation on how to configure Twonky & the Twonky forums are next to useless.

Other than that, it is quite cool when it is setup, and streaming all those videos over to the PS3 (& onto the BV7).

But as the PS3 cant handle MKV/BluRay rips, I'd like to switch to a HTPC - or even a popcorn hour or maybe the new (soon to be released) western digital WD TV2.

Re: Best NAS Server for use with a PS3

timhanna — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 12:47:50 GMT

Thanks for the advice guys... what Ipod lineup update? Any rumors,

Re: Best NAS Server for use with a PS3

mbee — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 12:35:29 GMT

I would choose an Apple TV for MP3 playback (and some video playback as a bonus, but a ps3 with blu ray is far superior...) over a Sonos... Both systems aren't compatible with the puc, but both systems allow you to choose easily your music with an iPod touch/iPhone or (for the Sonos) the proprietary touch screen remote. Then you are able to play what you want with a great user interface and the Beovision in P.Mute!

If you are interested by the Apple TV, I would wait for the 9/09, as it may be updated with the iPod lineup...

Re: Best NAS Server for use with a PS3

timhanna — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 11:53:44 GMT

So is Sonos compatible with the STB or do I have to use the remote that comes with it?

Re: Best NAS Server for use with a PS3

Toubro — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 11:44:07 GMT

I agree with mbee, the PS3 is a horrible MP3 player. The structure of the music is, IMHO, unusable. On another note, the PS3 isn't the most economical player as it uses quite a lot of power, (although the 40gb & 80gb uses less than the 60gb version).

2. You do not void the warranty if you change the harddrive, it's even illustrated in the manual how to do it.

I would go for a Sonos system if it was solely for MP3 playing.

Re: Best NAS Server for use with a PS3

timhanna — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 08:00:07 GMT

True, but:

I wanted something to play BluRay Movies, so I was going to get the PS3 anyway
If I opened the PS3 I would have lost the warrenty, plus I believe that the max size is less than 1TB (320GB?) for the internal drive. Also navigating it would be tiresome plus by using the NAS, I could access it using any other device such as another laptop etc that I have. Otherwise I would need to turn the PS3 on and stream the music...
I did hear about the BT/IR converter but I think its aroun £60, so there is no point.
Once the TV is on P.MUTE, there is no way to change songs etc using the remote, so I have to un-P.MUTE it everytime. And if I macro te speaker 2 functionality, then I have to remember to put it to speaker 3 when I want to watch movies...

hehe....

mbee:

I have to admit that you didn't choose the easiest solution as :

1. The PS3 is not the best mp3 player on the market concerning ease of use...
2. You could have put a 1Tb hard drive directly INSIDE your PS3 and filled it with your music instead of searching complexity with a NAS (but as you also want to play video, I see the utility of a NAS)
3. You could have turned on/off the PS3 with a BT/IR converter instead of a USB stick. Now you can also turn it on via a Bravia TV, but that's another story...
4. As you have a Beo5, you should be able to make a macro which turns the TV ON, select the PS3 input, turns the screen off (picture mute) and select Speaker 2, everything with just one button... Two with the PS3 ON button!

Re: Best NAS Server for use with a PS3

mbee — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 07:45:40 GMT

I have to admit that you didn't choose the easiest solution as :

1. The PS3 is not the best mp3 player on the market concerning ease of use...
2. You could have put a 1Tb hard drive directly INSIDE your PS3 and filled it with your music instead of searching complexity with a NAS (but as you also want to play video, I see the utility of a NAS)
3. You could have turned on/off the PS3 with a BT/IR converter instead of a USB stick. Now you can also turn it on via a Bravia TV, but that's another story...
4. As you have a Beo5, you should be able to make a macro which turns the TV ON, select the PS3 input, turns the screen off (picture mute) and select Speaker 2, everything with just one button... Two with the PS3 ON button!

Re: Best NAS Server for use with a PS3

timhanna — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 07:36:38 GMT

You are probably right. I think ill buy an Airport Extreme base station and connect everything to that. Then ill bridge the connection to the cable provider's router...

Funny thing is that once a non-B&O item gets introduced into your entertainment arena, everything is so much more complicated... and you do get to appreciate B&O's simplicity!

For example, I have a PS3 (that i cant turn on using the Beo5, and can only switch it off by navigating and selecting off) cost £285, I got a WD World Book cost £130 and now I need an AExtreme Router cost £135, bringing my total cost to: £550 and all I want is to be able to listen to mp3s with my PC off.

But even though this is (will be) the case, I need to have my TV on and switch the SPEAKERS setting to 2. Both are disadvantages... in the end, although im really apathetic towards the BeoSound 5, you can see its advantages and simplicity.

Just the fact that i can switch it off and on easily and that there are no dependancies is such a great feature! hehe

Shame about the price £550 vs. £3500 and shame about the BM5 video playback and storage capacity

Re: Best NAS Server for use with a PS3

mbee — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 06:39:22 GMT

I use a WD My Book world, and I have no cuts on high definition movies (I do not watch SD on it). Maybe you must look at your connection settings befor buying another NAS, which will surely give you the same issue (as the WD also use Twonky Media to act as a DLNA server).

Scott : concerning Twonky Media, as far as I know, it is a free open source software.

Re: Best NAS Server for use with a PS3

scott451 — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 05:45:11 GMT

hi,

i have been looking at a qnap nas solution to serve media files for my stb. i have two, slightly off-topic, questions.

* is the license for twonky included, or is it a trial version ?

* what made it a pain to setup ?

thanks,

scott

Re: Best NAS Server for use with a PS3

Dafinity — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 01:55:33 GMT

Hi, I use a Synology 207 with two 500gb in Raid 1 (mirrored) config. I chose this primarily for support, as they have awesome forums etc and secondly for the specs. Been is use for couple of years without fault.

I have also purchased many Buffalo Linkstations for my customers which also setup and work very well, although as they have less than professional web and forum pages I hope i dont need support as it may be difficult to tie them down..

Cheers

Russ

Re: Best NAS Server for use with a PS3

JoC — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 03:38:43 GMT

Well a Nas is just a that, a mini computer... Just packaged very small(ish), and designed to do the one job - to store data. Even your WD World Edition is just a Linux computer with an ARM9 processor.

Nas's from the likes of Synology, QNap, Netgear, et-all, do have some 2, 4, 6, 8+ bay models so they can range in size... also bear in mind if you get say a 4/5 bay model, you can put one drive in and start in like JBOD mode, then later as you could put more drives in you can and expand the raid to raid 5 etc.

Also the drives in the Nas do spin down (I am using WD Caviar Green drives), and the QNap that I have does go into a kind of suspend/low power mode after 20 minutes (I assume the other Nas's do also).

Re: Best NAS Server for use with a PS3

timhanna — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 17:48:51 GMT

Thanks everyone for your comments.

The WD is connected via LAN (ethernet) to the router and the PS3 is via WIFI... however the files I'm trying to stream are nothing more than 700mb divx movies... so I doubt that its a bandwidth problem really.

All those NAS servers you guys have sound great, however they feel like mini computers! The idea of the WD being small and very energy efficient is good for me, because I dont mind it being constantly running (and sleeping) and it might live longer when not in use...

Re: Best NAS Server for use with a PS3

Toubro — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 15:48:54 GMT

Which is best is hard to say as it is a personal opinion, but I'm very happy with Synology. I have a CS-407 with the new beta firmware which is launched next month. This works with the PS3 out of the box, and has other nice features too.One of the new is streaming music to the iPhone.

Is your WD connected through LAN or WIFI?? If you're trying to stream HD material you need a LAN cable.