I want to build a NAS, should it be the same as a media PC?

[sthomas1989]

I want to build a NAS that I can primarily use for backing up most of my videos, photos, etc.

 

If I wanted to also build a media PC to connect to my TV so that I can watch 4K video (looking to have HDR in the future too) is there any difference between streaming from the NAS to the media PC to watch it, or if the file was on the storage of the media PC itself?

 

I'm wondering if I should build a NAS that is also the media PC, or whether there would be no difference if I had the NAS somewhere and then had a smaller media PC that I could "hide" near the TV?

[jaslion]

Why not. Just overbuild the nas a little and done. Might wanna do some vming so you dont use the nas os as a user os

[sthomas1989]

3 hours ago, jaslion said:

Why not. Just overbuild the nas a little and done. Might wanna do some vming so you dont use the nas os as a user os

Sorry I don't fully understand your reply.

 

Primarily I want to build a NAS, and a media PC is a nice to have that I may not end up building. However, if there is significance degredation of quality streaming from a NAS compared to playing the file from a local machine, then I would reconsider and make it as an all-in-one machine and find somewhere near the TV to keep it.

[LIGISTX]

1 hour ago, sthomas1989 said:

Sorry I don't fully understand your reply.

 

Primarily I want to build a NAS, and a media PC is a nice to have that I may not end up building. However, if there is significance degredation of quality streaming from a NAS compared to playing the file from a local machine, then I would reconsider and make it as an all-in-one machine and find somewhere near the TV to keep it.

There is 0 degradation in streaming. I store all of my media on my NAS, and stream using Plex via direct play (no compression, no transcoding) to my nvidia shield pro. I typically watch in full 4k Dolby vision/atmos. 
 

That said, you could just use the NAS as the media PC. It would potentially be easier to do this since you wouldn’t need to also have a nvidia shield or similar (chrome cast, Roku, etc). Nvidia shield is currently the best option as it supports the most amount of codex if you go the streaming route. 

[sthomas1989]

Hi @LIGISTX

23 hours ago, LIGISTX said:

There is 0 degradation in streaming. I store all of my media on my NAS, and stream using Plex via direct play (no compression, no transcoding) to my nvidia shield pro. I typically watch in full 4k Dolby vision/atmos. 

That's good to know! Thank you  

23 hours ago, LIGISTX said:

That said, you could just use the NAS as the media PC. It would potentially be easier to do this since you wouldn’t need to also have a nvidia shield or similar (chrome cast, Roku, etc). Nvidia shield is currently the best option as it supports the most amount of codex if you go the streaming route. 

I will now look into what sort of hardware I would require with each. I've heard a bit about the Nvidia shield, so maybe I'll look into that. Currently my TV (an LG 50NANO806PA) is able to connect to my computer and stream from there, however I'm uncertain of the type of streaming it uses, the specifics of the quality, codecs, etc. I think I'll look into that and see what it uses and can handle to see if a media PC is even necessary for me.

 

If you have any recommendations for either the NAS or the media PC, or links to good threads here in the forums, then please let me know

 

Cheers again!