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Synology Video Station and Media Serving

· synology, media, video-station

For a long time my NAS was just a pile of video files that I opened by hand over SMB. That gets old. You want something that indexes them, fetches artwork, and streams to TVs and phones in a format they can play. On DSM 6 Synology's answer is Video Station plus the DS video apps, with Media Server for DLNA devices. Plex is the popular alternative, but I like that Video Station follows the DSM permission model, so I set it up properly.

This is my layout on a DS918+, which has hardware transcoding. Install Video Station (and Media Server if you need DLNA) from Package Center; it creates the video share.

Folder layout comes first

Video Station identifies content by folder type, and mixing them confuses the metadata fetcher. I use:

/volume1/video/Movies/<Title (Year)>/<Title (Year)>.mkv
/volume1/video/TV Shows/<Show>/Season 01/<Show> - S01E01.mkv
/volume1/video/Home Videos/<yyyy>/<event>/

The S01E01 pattern is what the built-in TV parser expects. Movie folders with the year in parentheses avoid mismatches on remakes.

Add the libraries

Video Station → Settings → Library → Add. Create one library per type and point it at the folder:

Movie library      → video/Movies
TV Show library    → video/TV Shows
Home Video library → video/Home Videos

Indexing starts immediately. Progress shows in the top-right notification area; a few thousand files take an hour on the first run because every file is probed for codec information.

Metadata sources

Settings → Video Info Plugin. The default plugins query The Movie Database and TheTVDB. If matching is poor, edit an item, click the metadata search icon, and correct the title; Video Station stores the corrected match. Posters and fanart are cached under /volume1/video/@eaDir, which is why you should exclude @eaDir when copying the share elsewhere.

Transcoding

On models with an Intel CPU (the plus-series since the DS216+), Settings → Transcoding → tick Enable hardware transcoding. Without it, playback of H.264 on a device that cannot handle the container or the audio codec means software transcoding, which a Celeron manages for one stream at best. Note that hardware transcoding needs the synocodectool to be activated with a Synology Account:

sudo synocodectool --check_activation

Output should say activated. If not, log into a DSM session with a Synology Account under Control Panel → Info Center → Synology Account; the activation is automatic afterwards.

Clients

  • Browser: Video Station itself, which plays in HTML5 and transcodes if needed.
  • Phones and tablets: DS video (iOS/Android); it also downloads for offline viewing.
  • Smart TVs: DS video exists for Samsung Tizen, LG webOS, Android TV and Apple TV; where there is no app, use Media Server with DLNA.
  • Kodi and other players: point them at the SMB share directly and let them do their own scraping.

For DLNA, install Media Server, open it, tick Enable DMA menu customization and set the indexed folder list to the same three folders. Media Server relies on Media Indexing (Control Panel → Indexing Service) and works with every DLNA renderer on the LAN without configuration.

Per-user access

Video Station honors DSM groups. Under Video Station → Settings → Privileges you can restrict each library per user, and under Parental Control set a rating limit for accounts used by children. Libraries also support Personal libraries, mapped to homes/<user>/video, so family members can keep their own recordings separate.

Quick health check

sudo synoservice --status pkgctl-VideoStation
ls /volume1/video/Movies/@eaDir | head

The service should report is running, and the @eaDir listing shows a folder per movie with SYNOVIDEO_* metadata files after indexing. Open DS video on a phone over Wi-Fi and play a 1080p file; Resource Monitor on the NAS should show low CPU if direct play is happening, and a jump in CPU or "Hardware transcoding" in the Video Station playback info if it is transcoding.

Odd behavior

  • A film shows the wrong poster or title: rename the folder to Title (Year) and use Edit → Search for video info, choosing the correct match manually.
  • "This video format is not supported" on a TV: usually the audio (DTS or TrueHD). Enable transcoding, or remux the file to AC3 with ffmpeg on a PC.
  • Video Station shows "Transcoding failed" for every file: synocodectool is not activated, or the model has no hardware transcoding and the CPU is overloaded. Check the activation status above.
  • DLNA devices see Media Server but no files: Media Indexing has not covered the folder. Control Panel → Indexing Service → Indexed Folder → add the video subfolders and wait for indexing to finish.

Video Station isn't as polished as Plex on the client side. I'm fine with that, because everything stays under DSM's own access rules.