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[BillyBoyBlue]

I just purchased a Panasonic TC-P65ST50 TV that is DLNA certified. I've downloaded and tried Media Center 17 on my PC and really like its many features but I'm a bit confused on selecting and implementing a NAS server which is going to be my next purchase to store my multimedia files. Just playing with the tv's bulit-in features I can through my Netgear wireless router see, and access some media files, others I get a can't read or open error or things work for awhile, then it hangs for no apparent reason.

I was considering three NAS products: Western Digital's My Book Live Duo, Qnap's  TS219Pll or one of the smaller Synology offerings.
Where I'm getting confused is both Qnap and Synology have their own software for processing videos, audios and on the video side both seem to be very limited as to what file types they support and also process and/or recode the videos for either storage on the NAS or for steaming.

So what I'm asking IS THAT NECESSARY?  While I like the idea of the more advanced features Qnap and Synology offer, I basically for now just want to use the NAS as a huge home network storage device and stream the content to my TV, cellphones, tablet using Media Center 17 as the primary access and control device

Can I do that, if so I'm confused as to what if anything beyond formatting the drives that go in the NAS is necessary.

Thanks.

[bob]

This does get confusing because some NAS servers also do DLNA serving and some TV's also can simply browse a NAS using Samba. There are a lot of options and overlap. In the case of a TV that can browse a NAS directly using samba they may actually be able to play more formats than with DLNA since the logic is simple for the TV to try and play a file based on what it can find out by parsing it's filename and metainfo whereas DLNA passes the container and codec types to the TV renderer and the firmware doing the renderering in the TV decides what to do with that content before passing it along to the underlying player.

If you use MC with a NAS for media storage using windows networking and serve it to a DLNA device the required bandwidth will double since the file will actually be served from the PC. You may need to take that into account if you are using wireless.

[BillyBoyBlue]

Thanks for the info.

Here's a couple more odd things. Using just the DLNA ability of the new PanasonicTV alone it can access MP3 files, play them through my A/V receiver, also can see and play JPEG files seperately or as a slide show and and just as a test I moved a dozen MPEG-2 files and a few MPEG-4 files to a folder and they played on the tv just fine WITHOUT using MC.

Now I can open the the same files in MC from my PC and the JPEG's play fine, as di the same MPEG-2 and MPEG 4 videos. Guess what, accessing the same video files linked to MC, using the TV it shows the thumbnails, but refuses to open and play any of them. There's a ! on top of folder icon, but only when accessed off the TV. What explains their weird behavior?

It for sure isn't the TV, because I hooked up WD's WD TV and the same files play fine, as they do accessing them using a Asus Transformer tablet, using it file access utility and also multiple apps. Why can't MC play everyday MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 files off the TV?

[bob]

...
It for sure isn't the TV, because I hooked up WD's WD TV and the same files play fine, as they do accessing them using a Asus Transformer tablet, using it file access utility and also multiple apps. Why can't MC play everyday MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 files off the TV?

I assume you really mean why can't the TV play MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 files from MC??