I have a Z10 pro, and an Asustor AS5304T 4 bay NAS, with 4x16tb HDDs. I have it set up as a raid 0, for maximum capacity. I have it plugged into the Zidoo with usb AND cat 5, but when I try to play 4k ISO files from the NAS, the zidoo can't handle it. Most movies don't play for more than 5 seconds before the audio cuts out or the video gets jittery and starts to buffer. I think I have it set up to see the files through the wi-fi, so that's why it's going so slowly. But how can I set it up so that it reads straight from the usb or cat 5 instead? Or is that not possible?
Firstly unplug the USB cable - that just confuses the issue. Then disable wifi on the Z10 (Settings/Network) so that it uses ethernet. Now locate the NAS on the network and you'll be good to go. It's never a good idea to stream high bitrate files over Wifi - always use ethernet. If the network is robust it's theoretically not a problem, but most networks aren't that robust, particularly if there is a lot of local radio traffic - too many variables.
I agree with Markswift2003, Wifi is not the best solution to play 4K movies, Ethernet is more robust, no interference, but there's also another point that drew my attention. You mentioned in your post you're using Cat5 cable, the Cat 5 (not Cat 5e) speed is capable of 10/100 Mbps and frequencies up to 100MHz all at a length up to 100m, if it was me, I'd go with Cat 6 or Cat 6a cables to get full 1Gb speed. Also you can go overkill with Cat 7 or Cat 8 cables. All my wiring in my house is Cat 6 cables and I can play 80gb files in 4K HDR Dolby Vision on my Zidoo or any other devices without any issue from my NASes.
I flooded my house with Cat 5e (not 5) before Cat 6 came into being and I have huge runs with 11 switches (mostly managed) and 5 WAPs - it's quite a complicated network - and I have no issue with 1000 Base-T and can stream 400Mbps files on the Zidoo (Jellyfish demos). I agree though, if I was doing it now I'd go at least Cat 6 and probably Cat 7 if I could be bothered faffing with shielding... And yeah, I wouldn't dream of using Wifi for anything other than transitory mobile devices.
