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Knowledge Center

Media Server

Synology NAS can serve as a multimedia server on the local area network, allowing home devices, such as TVs/stereo systems and Sony PlayStation3/Xbox 360, to play its multimedia contents. These devices are DLNA/UPnP-compliant DMAs. To stream multimedia contents from your Synology NAS to DMA devices for playback, you need to configure media playback settings, including adjusting the basic settings of DMA devices, managing browsing settings of media files, and enhancing the compatibility of the files.

In order to play multimedia contents on your DMA devices, you need to manage the settings related to media playback including the following:

  • Set DMA menu language and style to organize your multimedia files by selecting a predefined menu style or customizing your own. (Go to Media Server > General Settings)
  • Adjust media browsing settings depending on your preferences and enable conversion support to play more multimedia files of various formats. (Go to Media Server > Browsing Settings) 2
  • Manage the device list to enhance DMA compatibility to make sure the multimedia contents are played smoothly on your DMA devices. (Go to Media Server > DMA Compatibility)
  • Categorize multimedia files within the indexed folder to be browsed and played by the DMA devices within the local network. (Go to Control Panel > Indexing Service > Media Indexing > Indexed Folder)

Term Explanations:

  • DLNA: Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) is a cross-industry organization of consumer electronics, computing industry, and mobile electronics manufacturers. DLNA actively promotes wired and wireless networks of consumer electronics products, personal computers, and mobile devices, in the home and on the road, for sharing new digital media and content services. Examples include home devices, such as TVs/stereo systems and Sony PlayStation3/Xbox 360.
  • UPnP: Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) is a collaboration of protocols that allows a wide range of devices to be interconnected, both wired and wireless, and to work seamlessly with one another by establishing network services, of which media streaming is the most popular in that media files can be directly streamed to TV and no transfer of files is required for playback. UPnP supports zero configuration networking. In other words, it spares users the trouble of setting up networking configurations as it is automatically completed once UPnP devices are connected to a network, which exhibits the concept of “plug-n-play” technology.
  • DMA: DMA, commonly known as digital media adapter, is a home entertainment device that can connect to a home network to retrieve digital media files (such as music, photos, or video) from a personal computer or other networked media server and play them back on DLNA/UPnP-enabled devices.

Note:

  1. When streaming videos to your DLNA-certified devices, the supported file formats and subtitle display will depend on the playback capabilities of your DLNA player.
  2. The video conversion feature will be discontinued on DSM 7.2.2 and above due to the wide range of media formats supported on most end devices. This change aims to reduce unnecessary resource usage and enhance system efficiency.