Article
Synology announces DiskStation DS415play, shipping August | CNet
From the horse’s mouth
Synology
DiskStation DS415play NAS
My Comments
I have previously covered Synology’s direction with including hardware media transcoding in consuner-grade network-attached-storage units on this Website when they were mooting this feature as part of their product lineup for this device class. This will take the pressure off the device’s CPU when it comes to optimising multimedia content for the destination device’s capabilities, thus opening up the reality of enjoying high-resolution video files or high-grade audio files in a “best-case” manner on your home network.
This feature has come forth in the form of the DiskStation DS415Play 4-bay multimedia NAS which also has Intel Atom dual-core horsepower and 1Gb RAM. The hardware transcoding can, for example work “best case” to 1080p on-the-fly, while the NAS can work as a network DVR for TV broadcasts once you use a USB digital-TV tuner module with it. Even the DLNA-certified media server software supports the ability to use the hardware transcoding for use with high-grade video and audio files. The only question about this is how well does the DLNA media server handle already-created playlists or the metadata associated with the audio, photo or video files.
The 4-bay design supports up to the RAID-5 disk arrangement and includes the ability to upsize these RAID-5 disk arrangements whether through adding extra hard disks to the unit or upsizing already-installed hard disks. This may be a chance for this unit to attain a long usage life by allowing you to increase its capacity to suit new needs.
Synology is laying down the gauntlet for what can be part of a high-end multimedia storage device for your home network, and who knows who will answer them when it comes to the same feature set for these devices.
