Setting Up NAS as Media Streamer

[q8buckeye]

Hello,
I'm looking into buying a Synology NAS. What I'd like to accomplish is to have all my media files on my NAS and stream them to a streamer with xbmc installed on it. My question is how convenient is it to stream HD movies from my NAS drive to xbmc? Will it lag? Also, what would determine streaming quality?

Thanks

 

[chesteracorgi]

Streaming media via XBMC from a NAS unit is not overly difficult. But the questions you ask about streaming quality & lag time are dependent on the network setup and router, and whether your are using wired or wireless streaming. Streaming via hardwire is relatively faster and more reliable than wireless, and there is less of a lag in streaming HD signals over a hardwire as well. However this is dependent on the number of users and the quality of the hardwiring. The same problems are true of wireless, where multiple signals will quickly saturate the available bandwidth.

Another factor effecting this answer is the quality and speed of the HDDs in the NAS, and whether there will be multiple media streams running simultaneously.

It is relatively easy to setup (and there are many internet resources for step-by-step instructions), but, the the answer to your question is complicated by other factors.