NAS plus Virgin Media?

[SGirl]

Hiya,

I've just bought a Synology 213j NAS which I'm trying to set up with my Virgin Media Superhub 2. And it's not working.

I've had a scout round the Internet, but I can't find a definitive set of rules for how to go about opening up the NAS to the world so that I can view files on my TV and other PCs. I can see the drive, I can see the three folders Music, Photos and Video (but no files in Video and Music, even though I know I've put loads in there), and so I can't stream anything.

I've tried using the EZ-Internet wizard, but it hangs on Port forwarding every time. So I added a port forwarding rule for port 5000 at the Superhub, which is what the various sites suggest - still doesn't work though.

I'm not all that up on how these things work, and I'm well out of my comfort zone with this now. Does anyone have any good ideas on how to proceed? Do I need to open more ports, change the DSM settings (whatever they are), wire the NAS to something else entirely?

The NAS is hardwired into the Superhub. I don't really want to use an external router at this point because everything is working as it should apart from this, and I don't want to break anything that I've already set up!

All I want is to be able to stream my music and videos on the telly, it can't be that hard! But it is. Any and all good ideas will be gratefully accepted!

[SGirl]

davepoth said:

Is it as simple as a file format issue? What files can your TV use?

I can access all the files if I connect a HDD containing exactly the same files to the USB port of both the TV and the Blu-Ray player. So I don't think it's that.

I just tried to access the NAS via its IP address on the Web, and I can't see it, even with a device not connected to the same network.

[SGirl]

gpo746 said:

This may sound really stupid and poatronising. It really politely isn't meant to. Only last week I checked out a NAS a WD Live Drive. I connected it to a Superhub and checked. It showed up in Network places but the 4 things dumped in its music/video folders couldn't be seen.
I simply rebooted the Nas then rebooted the router.

Everything was then there. You also will need to set up the media server that is bundled in with your NAS. In the case of the WD drive merely having a music/ dvd file in the relevant folders wasn't enough. For the Samsung TV to see those files they had to be in the media servers list.In the case of WD that meant setting up the my twonky bundled service.

It is on the same network, so there's no reason why the files shouldn't be appearing. I can see the device, but only the three default shared folders. The Music and Video folders appear to be empty (they aren't), but the Photos folder contains all the photo files and I can view them on the TV. I set up a couple of new shared folders, they're not being displayed either.

If a reboot doesn't work, I'll have a delve into Twonky. It might work - it's worth a go!

PF62 said:

If the NAS is on the same network as the TV then you don't need to open any ports on the router. You would only need to do that if you were trying to access it from outside your home network.

I've installed Media Server, and Video Server as well. Video Server seems to spend ages indexing the files but nothing appears in its lists of video files afterwards - or during, for that matter.

[SGirl]

Jinx said:

Ok not the same I know but when getting my Toshiba TV to view files on my PC through a super hub it couldn't see any folders except the default shared folders on the PC (even after setting the properties on the folders I wanted to share and rebooting).
To get around this I merely moved the folders I had the media files in into the shared folders - whilst not an elegant solution it worked (and I had the capacity to do it) .

I tried that. It still doesn't work.

[SGirl]

Du1point8 said:

What is the IP address on the NAS that you have?

SH subnet will more likely be on 192.168.0....

Make sure that the NAS is on the similar and not on 192.168.1...

The IP address is 192.168.0.20, which shouldn't be the same as anything else on the network.

I've just noticed the IP status is set to manual, not DHCP. That might be something to look at, but I can't work out how to change it.

[SGirl]

Jinx said:

Done a scout on the net and a lot of people have a problem with forwarding on a super hub.
Do you have a spare router? I'd put the Superhub in modem mode and use a separate router if you have one.

That thought has occurred to me, but the Superhub is working as well as it's ever done and I'm reluctant to fix it if it ain't broken. So to speak.

Do you think switching to a different NAS might work? I'm quite happy to try different hardware as long as it doesn't impact on my network as a whole.

[SGirl]

Du1point8 said:

Is that the IP address of the HS or the NAS?
Was just making sure they are both 192.168.0...

If they are different on different subnets, then they wont talk.

That's the NAS. I don't know what a subnet is.

Du1point8 said:

Also do change it to DHCP otherwise you will go through this again if you change it and then use a different router.

I don't know how to change it though. I've tried mapping a network drive so that I can access it that way, but that doesn't work either.

Edited by SGirl on Tuesday 15th April 11:39

[SGirl]

Yes, I've wired the NAS up to the SH.

Progress! I've managed to change the IP status to DHCP, and now I can view the content on the NAS using the DS File application via my iPad on the same network. Which is an improvement. I can access the NAS via my phone's network, but the mobile app doesn't allow me to view individual files. I'll check on another PC on the same network when I get a minute.

What I still can't do is view audio or video content on the Blu-Ray player or TV on the same network, and I can't view those files in the DS Video or DS Audio apps on the iPad either.

[SGirl]

Thanks for the info on indexing the files. I thought it'd done that last night, but it seems it never completed. I'll re-index everything and then come back to it.

[SGirl]

RizzoTheRat said:

Those are all streaming viewers so the problem is the with the media server not the router settings.

Great, thanks! I'll have a closer look at that then.

[SGirl]

Bollah said:

Another 213j user here

First off, have you updated the firmware to the latest version? Version 5. If you haven't I'd suggest you do that first, as this will make the quickconnect function to work properly. They have improved it a lot so you won't need to do any port forwarding etc..

As for the video issue, what format are the files that you have copied over to it?

Yep, I've got the latest firmware running. QuickConnect seems to work okay inside the network, not sure about outside it as yet because I have no way of testing it. Might nip into town on the bus later and use the Wifi there to see what happens!

The video files are all kinds of formats - mkv, mp4, avi are the most common ones.

[SGirl]

Du1point8 said:

Have you thought about quickly loading up VLC on a device and see if the streamed media will play through that.

Thanks, that was a good idea! I've managed to get videos to play on other PCs in the network, and I can view all the files and folders on the other PCs.

[SGirl]

Bollah said:

Inside the network (presumably connecting via Wifi) you can use the IP address, but if you're connecting via the quickconnect name, then it should work when you're not connected to the Wifi. You could try using the dsfile app on your mobile when connected to your mobile network.

Those video's should work through the DSvideo app on your tablet (mine does, but I'm using android for my tablet and phone), but as someone mentioned earlier, you will need to do a index first before it starts showing up and may take a while depending on how many videos you have.

I still can't view the new folders on the TV, Blu-Ray or iPad. The software reckons they've all been indexed, but I can't see them.

I'm tempted to just use the old USB HDD for viewing media on the telly. I can access all the files on all the PCs across the network, which is the important bit. So I can work on any PC, I just can't stream the videos to the TV!

[SGirl]

GlenMH said:

Can I ask a really stupid question: have you put the content directories where Twonky media expects to find them?

Yep.

essayer said:

What TV do you have?

Sony Bravia. Please don't say that has known issues as well.

[SGirl]

gpo746 said:

We simply have a drive connected to the TV itself - well 2 actually one is used fro recordings the other for playaback. Both being WD elements 9the basic type drives)

This was my previous solution, although I connected the drive to the Blu-Ray player rather than the TV because it's easier to get at the USB slot! Think I might go back to that, to be honest. Still no go this morning after re-indexing everything. All accesses are set to unrestricted, the devices can see the NAS, everything. They just can't see the files!

At least the NAS works okay with the PCs. That's the main reason for it being there in the first place - so that I can keep central copies of all my work. It would've been handy to have the TV/Blu-Ray working with it as well, but heyho. You can't have everything, I suppose.

Thanks everyone for all your help on this thread! I really appreciate it.

[SGirl]

Du1point8 said:

NPI said:

SGirl said:

At least the NAS works okay with the PCs. That's the main reason for it being there in the first place - so that I can keep central copies of all my work.

Bit O/T - I know you said copies but don't rely on the NAS as a backup for anything important!

Nope... I would have 2 NAS systems and all important stuff goes on the Cloud.

I'm ahead of you there. Everything lives on my central PC and is backed up to the NAS and two or three other HDDs, depending on how much I want to keep it. I'm just thinking of installing a second NAS, but I'm going to make a final decision during the break. I haven't really thought of cloud storage, I still don't trust it enough. Might buy some extra space from TSOhost and store vital stuff there though.

I like data storage.

[SGirl]

Update: I've sorted it!

It still won't stream video via the Blu-Ray, but it streams via the TV, the iPad, my phone... So that'll do for me. Thank you for all your help, I now know a lot more about how these things work!