I'm not in any ecosystem. My media is free range.

Onkyo has an interesting system to play music off a iOS/Android device via WiFi to a receiver. That would mean replacing our 15 year old Technics receiver, but the Boston Acoustics speakers would still be in use.

I'll have to look at Sonus.

Hmmm.... Looks like you can install the Plex media server on a Synology NAS and that will work with Roku or LG Smart TVs. Wonder if that's true for LG Blu-Ray players. I could try it for free at least.

The thing I don't like about AppleTV is, in order to stream files from your NAS, you have to have iTunes running on a computer.

You can install an iTunes server on a Synology NAS.

The plex media client on Roku is pretty good, but it is not the nicest interface in the world. Certainly not as nice as the Plex interface on an actual computer.

It disappoints me that the original X box I had running XBMC 9 years ago did a better job with streaming video and audio from a network. It wasn't HD but it had a rocking interface that was just so dang functional for audio and video, and it could play DVDs just as well. Why haven't we quite mastered that?

If you don't mind actually storing audio on your Android device, rather than streaming from the network, Roku's remote app actually let's you do that quite nicely. Unfortunately not compatible with streaming audio (I am using Google Music All Access on my phone lately) but works great with standard music files.

Is you LG Bluray player Dlna compatible? And if so, does streaming music through that rather than directly from network shares help? I have only used the Dlna feature of mine briefly and never for music, as my NAS is really basic.

I suppose you could mount a samba share on your Android tablet, do a media scan for the files so the android recognizes them as music files, then stream using the Roku app. Still need the tablet middleman but getting there.

Some people really like the Western Digital boxes - middle of the road interface with better network features, apparently.

The LG Bluray can play music and video but the interface is terrible and music is played one song at a time.

I'm thinking now of adding a bluetooth audio adapter that ties into the Technics receiver and use an iOS/Android device to stream music from the NAS using the Synology App for that. I need to see if that supports playlists. That would be a good solution, low cost and it still streams from the NAS even if there is a middle man.

It's crazy something as simple as streaming from a NAS doesn't have many smooth solutions.

Dumb question(s):

If you are running an iTunes server on a NAS, how do you access it? Do you need to open iTunes on your client computer and connect to it as a shared library? Or is there a more direct way? How do you add music to it?

It sounds like each NAS is a little different, as the one I got, the AppleTV will not see it as a host, but my iTunes application sees it as a shared library. In iTunes, turn on Home Sharing, And then I believe it shows up in the shared section (at work, and can't verify). As for adding things to the library on the NAS, I put my whole library on the NAS, and set that up as the location iTunes looks for when opening up, and where it rips to when copying/creating files.

As for adding things to the library on the NAS, I put my whole library on the NAS, and set that up as the location iTunes looks for when opening up, and where it rips to when copying/creating files.

This is my setup as well. It can be a little hinky - every now and then iTunes will hiccup and forget about the library on the NAS, create a new one, and I lose all my playlists.

iPhoto over the NAS is *crap*, however. What I've been able to learn from the internet is that the files are just too big to play nicely over wireless.

Yeah, I try to keep everything I can on my network's gigabit wired backbone. I even ran a cable from the basement to the main floor and stuck in another hub.