anyone host PLEX videos off this product? if so, hows the quality and what's the amount of videos at once you can play back?
1784263
The CPU is not powerful enough. You might be able to do one SD stream. I use a NUC as my Plex server and the Synology as my file server.
1784264
Plex works flawlessly. I never stream more then one video at a time, but with dual link gigabit should be no problem to do so.
1784265
I am able to stream two 720 60fps 5000 kbps at the same time to two Roku 3's via direct-play. I have converted my videos to direct play on the Roku's and thus I am not using the transcoder function on the Synology. I agree with the other poster, the cpu is not powerful enough to handle on the fly transcoding. It is better to format your videos so they do not require on the fly transcoding.
1784266
As long as you don't expect this unit to do heavy transcoding on the fly, it's great. You can stream a 25GB blu-ray with DTS-MA as far as network and transfer speeds go. You just need something to transcode that for a display, like a mediacenter PC. I've seen mine crush low bitrate HD video down for cell phone viewing, and Standard Def it can handle on the fly, but anything serious will kill the CPU in it. The quality of the Syno based plex server app itself is top notch. I almost never have to restart the service to uncrash it.
1733785
This thing is amazing! It has supported every format ive thrown at it...the pic. quality is awesome...however it depends on the quality of the video before download...it does play and show in HD though.
151883
I have had no problem with this unit at all. It is on my home network (wired and wireless). The performance is very good so far. I plan to put my streaming video on the drive in a couple months so will see how that works. For now, great purchase
2038243
I am wondering the same, I'm planning to have this device for a freeNAS (freenas.org) with the PLEX media server, but don't know if is powerful enough
383182
Hi,Bot With This box, I Have Only Been Able To Play Media From My drives.Sorry
1497740
Haven't watched any movies yet, but lots of HD YouTube videos. I have fast Internet so everything loads fast. Videos stream flawlessly if originating server is fast or there isn't a clog in the pipe elsewhere. Buy plenty of RAM; 8GB minimum in my opinion. More is better.
452562
I used to have this device and it's very good for the price, I played 1080p movies without issues, netflix and such. I have also used VLC to play video and music files from a shared drive on a PC, I understand it's not the same as streaming movies from a NAS, however I do think VLC has that capability, so I don't see why it would not work.
1738857
I don't have an optical drive in at the moment, but I bought this model for the aesthetics. I watch most of my content digitally. I am planning on adding a drive in the future for the moments when I do need the use for it. If you are looking for access frequently I would try the previous model :ML03B
2225389
Yes it does run latest codecs and container formats but I have seen my (completely stock) freeze and had to be power cycled after and oddly encoded avi which I never found out what The actual video format was. Anyways I use it daily to play videos from all over and it runs great. Works exceptionally well with a plex server and Vimu or just the plex app. Vimu is better for local content in my opinion while plex app is great for ice films and 1 channel like xbmc which I don't believe runs on this box yet.
1982744
what format are the movies in? MKV, MP4, etc... I am not aware of a method for the receiver to play back video files, however there are great products on the market like Fire TV with capabilities todo so. Buy FIRE TV and load XBMC. Problem solved for 100 dollar investment.
389713
Of cource you can. I usually use it to store and montage 4k video :) Its bloody fast!
724794
alienlady, did you use this for video? This is exactly what I want it for. How much weight is needed to get this started? Some of the products I review are kind of light.
2249774
Exactly the same hardware. Better behaved firmware. Not the excellent build quality of the old Plextor but those were $300 and you will not see that again. All of mine are still running perfectly.
1213856
You are welcome. Do me (us) a favor and let me know which one you decide to keep and why. If the next firmware revision or two does not fix the video streaming, then I will probably add one of those two just for Hulu. You could save me the hassle of buying both, comparing, and returning one :)
2221811
it plays everything more formats than any player i have ever had. AVI XVID DIVx these files play seamlessly from the USB drive cant wait to try my MASS USB drive (I have a 300 GB)... pictures are slow it doesnt do jpeg's imo. it is so slow i wouldnt use it for that. but every other feature works great. only upscales if you are able to use the HDMI
51538
In my opinion USB video on Roku is pretty much non existant. I have a cinema tube and it can play anything even from an external drive. I wish Roku could do that for sure but for what you get its awesome for live streaming.
1729562
This link describes how Plex performs on various NAS platforms. Given this is still an ARM-based unit, it seems like it might struggle with higher resolution transcoding: https://docs.google.com/a/plexapp.com/spreadsheets/d/1MfYoJkiwSqCXg8cm5-Ac4oOLPRtCkgUxU0jdj3tmMPc/