Setting Up Synology 214play

Install Media Server.  Audio Station is not the right app.

Hi Bart

Thanks for letting me know.  With Media Server installed and Audio Station removed, the streamer is now playing music.  As expected, on n-Stream I now have DiscStation and MinimServer.  Whilst DiscStation is transcoding to WAV, it won't play high resolution files at all.

MinimServer, on the other hand, is playing all files but they are not being transcoded to WAV as I can't figure out how to install MinimStreamer!

Any advice would be appreciated.

I can't help much because you are a few weeks in front of me. With Audio Station running do you see the NDS as an available device?

Please raise a support case with Synology about Media Server not transcoding hi-res. The more of us that do this, the more likely it is to get fixed.

I uninstalled Audio Station and installed Media Server.

I'll raise the support case with Synology.  However, even with Media Server not transcoding hi-res, I thought it would be able to play hi-res as FLAC files. Is this not the case?

Do you have the latest minimserver release from 3 days ago?

Go to package management ---- Packages in Properties

The streamer should be available from there.

I downloaded MinimWatch last night and within Installed Packages, I have minimwatch-0.8-update-16 and minimwatch-0.8.1

The streamer is not shown under 'Available Packages'.

It's fiddly but once it's working it's pain-free. Seems like you're on the right track. From what you say, you have the NAS working, which means you have Java and Minim on the NAS. It also sounds like you have Minimwatch on your PC. All good.

You need to start Minimwatch on your PC. It doesn't present like a regular program, it operates in the background. So you need to go to the system tray on your PC (bottom right) and find the J in a green square. 

Right click on the J (note it's a right click with the mouse)

Go to Properties.

Go to the System tab.

Go to stream:transcode (at the bottom)

Type in the following: flac:wav

(Note there should be no spaces, just the word flac, then a colon, and then the word wav)

Click ok

Right click again on the J and then click on Restart (which restarts Minim)

Then you should be good to go!

Once it's all working, and you've listened to it for a while, try changing from flac:wav to flac:wav24 and see whether you prefer it. I think it's a little nicer, but it's personal taste.

Alex

Hi Alex

Thank you for your advice.  MinimServer is now transcoding from FLAC to WAV which is great! However, it isn't transcoding hi-res FLAC to WAV.  Is there another setting which needs to be changed?

Regards

David

I deleted the test music files on the NAS and then copied all the music from my computer.  After carrying out a library rescan, all the FLAC files are being transcoded to WAV, including high-res files!

I would guess it's the re-scan that made the difference. I think Synology / Minim is really a great NAS solution. Fiddly to set up but then it just seems to work.

I agree, the Synology / Minim is working extremely well now it's set up properly.  It was well worth the effort.

One last question - I have set the NAS to power down during the day whilst I'm not at home and then turn itself back on again in the evenings.  Whilst it turns off at the right time, it won't turn itself back on again. Has anyone else experienced this?

Both of mine stop and start at the correct times without incident.

Are you certain that the startup is enabled?

Yes, I think so.  In the Task Scheduler the power on and power off settings are both enabled.

Figured it out - for some reason the NAS was set to the wrong time zone so the next start-up was scheduled for several hours in the past!

Sorry to cut into this thread, but I also have Synology 214play and here's the question: I was advised on this forum to install MinimServer o transcode my FLACs to WAVs before sending them to ND5XS. However, I just saw that the Synology native Multimedia Server has a transcoding feature - in its control panel, third tab, the first option from the top is "turn on transcoding". Unfortunately it doesn't say what it is transcoding TO. I assume it's WAV, but is it?

And if it is, then I don't need to install MinimServer, right...?

I havent tried it, but my understanding is that DSM won't transcode higher res files, which Minimserver will. 

The Synology Server will transcode to either WAV or MP3.

Apparently it won't do hi-res so please raise a ticket with Synology. They currently have a beta running and just maybe they might fix it.

This issue with Synology not transcoding hi res has been going on for I think around 2 years now.  The more they hear from customers the better I suppose, but it is an old issue

I can't see where I could chose between transcoding to WAV vs MP3 - there's only a checkbox to turn on transcoding and a few checkboxes to choose what types of files will be transcoded. No option to set what they will be transcoded TO.

However, nStream tells me that it's playing WAVs, so I know it's transcoding to WAV...

I think that the choice between WAV and MP3 is in the player software. I am currently playing to work using Audio Station and it is there in settings. If nStream is getting WAV then it must be good.

I received the following from a Synology Technical Support representative,

"Just to let you know, I have forwarded your request for this added feature to our development team for consideration as a future enhancement. Unfortunately it isn't possible to provide a timescale as to when this may be included."

No high-resolution transcoding from Synology software any time soon then. Just as well MinimServer can be used instead.

Since this thread is about setting up Synology 214play I wanted to share this recent finding: if you plan to use Media Server for streaming audio, go to the 2nd tab in Media Server screen and check the 2nd checkbox from the top if you want the album art to display properly in nStream. Took me much grief until I found that setting