I am preparing to install and set-up a Z20 pro but I have a few questions. I have been building pc's for decades and am fairly tech savvy but "networking / server dumb". My primary goal is to set this up for my Home theater. Currently that is a 4k projector and screen / 7.3.4 Dolby Atmos sound system all going through Onkyo TX-RZ50 AVR. There is also an HTPC with HDMI out into the AVR (and ethernet to a switch on the router), and a 2 bay Buffalo Linkstation NAS also which currently has a 2tb and 8 tb drive in it but I am moving the data off the 2tb drive and am debating on wether to run the 8tb JOBD or get another and Raid 1. The NAS is also plugged into the switch on the router. THere are other Pc's and laptops in the house as welll and they are all on a wirelss mesh network. The z20 pro will also be getting plugged into the switch on the router as well via ethernet cat 6 cable. 1) I recently have formatted an additional 8 tb drive and am moving all my media (movies) to it. It is on a windows system so it is a simple 8tb volume formatted NTFS. It is attached to my HTPC via usb in an enclosure. CAn I just pull that drive from the enclosure and put it in the z20 Pro? Have whatever issues that I heard initially existed with the z20 and NTFS been resolved. If not, can I just connect it via usb to the z20? 2) I am new to SMB, can the zidoo access my other windows pc's drives (ssd/nvme) on the network and is this hard to do? Will it be able to see and read my NAS? In order to use my NAS I set up a share folder using the Buffalo NAS navigator and then mapped that as a drive on my pc's. It does run SMB 2 (and also has a toggle to allow switching from SMB2 to SMB1 as needed - but I do not believe that is needed). I don't have high hopes for my NAS because it can play lower quality (reduced file size) smaller mbps rips but I tried both jellyfin and Plex and they both would stutter and essentially freeze on full 1:1 4kUHD or Blu-ray rips. I have my HTPC hosting/running jellyfin and Plex and both can play the 1:1 rips just fine if I place them on a SSD on the HTPC but trying to run them off the hdd on the nas is an awful experience. I don't know if Zidoo can access my NAS dorectly using SMB and share but I would be willing to give it a try. MOving all my media onto a hdd that can be placed in the Z20 seems the most foolproof and supplementing that with external drives seems to be a better way to go.
yes the Zidoo will access a SMB share. I'm using a TS-451 NAS with SMB V3 and plays every file i have with no problems.
It should work in either way. I don't know why you have such a performance issues. Copy files to and from NAS. What speed do you get? You should be at least 50 Mb/s. Check your PC status when it idles. You should be ideally 0 to 3% CPU usage, 3 to 7% OK, but over 10% is a waring sign. Kill all the process that use your CPU like updates or virus scanners. You don't need SSD to play HUD 1:1 rips. My Jellyfin server is on Raspberry Pi 4 mini board Linux based computer. It can read UHD 1:1 rips from Zidoo local USB attached Hard Drives and stream it back to the same Zidoo on Jellyfin client. No issue, no stutter and I can move back and forward on the movie time line. Check those threads regarding custom Jellyfin clients for Zidoo. It has ability to use direct path to the NAS rather than relaying on server streaming. http://forum.zidoo.tv/index.php?tags/jellyfintv/ Zidoo players are very flexible in setup. You can use local drives, share those drives as NAS and read other NAS stations on your network. Home Theater is pretty good, Kodi works as well as Jellyfin and Plex clients.
Copying files to from NAS I get around 12 MB/s (not sure if this is same as Mb/s). I don't think it is my pc- Ryzen 5 3800x. 16 gb ram, rtx 2070 super gpu. I really dislike the Kodi interface. I like the zidoo GUI and also being able to run from a remote is highly desirable and simple enough for friends and family as well. Pick a movie from the poster wall and off you go.
You need to work on that. This is 100Mbps network throughput. You need Gigabit connection everywhere. If your router / switch is gigabit check all wiring. Bad single pin on the RJ45 connectors will force the switch to drop down the speed from 1 Gbps to 100Mbps. Typically you will see different colour LED Green/Yellow for different speed on the switch front plate. Check and test until you get Gigabit connections everywhere and NAS speeds in 50 or above. You don't need expensive patch cables, just make sure everything has a good connection.
I was a Kodi guy for years but recently I'm drifting to Jellyfin setup. With multiple devices and hard drive locations it gives me one place to fix and maintain for all, even my iPhone works well with Jellyfin.
I'll look at it tonight. The switch is brand new as are most of the cables new Cat 6. One older one is the pc I'll check/replace it and see if it matters. I just transferred around 273 gb and it took around 7 hours
Step 1 fixed. I went home and looked at the gear. New switch all ports green indicating 1gb connectivity. New Cat 6 cables on the router switch and everything but the pc. Under the network properties it showed ethernet as 100mbps. I went out and bought a new 10' cat 6 cable and plugged it to the switch when I pulled the computer out at the other end on it the port was blinking orange. New cable in and light went to green and networking now shows 1.o Gbps. Went back and transferred some files from the NAS to pc. Now getting 28MB/s . So that is much better. Still get stuttering with jellyfin player when trying to play my 1:1 rip over the network with jellyfin but VLC and Plex seems to play it fine. A significant step in the right direction.
easy test also is on Zidoo ,go to browser ,then search for a dsl speed test site and run it ie my 300m down fibre i will see 35-40M b/s downloads ie my max 300M connextion When things are slowing down for me ,its usually cos my PC lan port had changed from 1gig to 100M ,usually cos its been weeks not restarting pc or win 10 has been sitting on an update for a week and seems to slow pc down till im forced to run the update
Keep checking and testing. My typical speed to transfer files to Zidoo Z9X SATA or USB drives are 70 to 80 MBps. Some people reported speeds of 110MBps as full Gigabit bandwidth. 28MBps is probably a border line. My oldest WDLive NAS can push files at 70MBps and receive at 40. WDMyCloud first edition maintains 50MBps up and down on USB drives and 70 down on internal drive. Raspberry Pi 4 with USB drives is 70MBps top and 30 on occasion.
I will keep it up. For now I have moved everything to a 8tb hdd connected via USB in external enclosure. That is working well. If I put an 8 tb hdd in Zidoo and have another 8tb for external connection network access may not be necc. Alternative is to get a cheap 2nd hand Synology NAS from ebay.
There are pages and pages of forum threads related to Synology issues. Some people can't solve it and it works for others. Nobody complained about Western Digital NAS but stay away from new generation of My Cloud drives.
Thank you. I'll look for a wd NAS if necc. I had a mycloud drive before, nothing but headaches will never touch another.
Yeah, you probably run into WD My Cloud Home edition, square white box. Login to Western Digital network first before you can access your own files . No, that's no good for home media library.
I have a Synology NAS and now have zero issue. I did have one issue with speed a few months ago. However I swapped out a patch cable between the NAS and my switch and that went away.
Got notice my Z20 pro will be delivered tomorrow between 4 and 8 am. That will give me the weekend to figure things out. So I watched a tutorial about identifying and matching Metadata but I was curious as to how good zidoo does at recognizing and finding media if it has been handbrake or reduced. I have a media folder I have been using as my 'test run' It has various formats and different names. Plex and Kodi would identify all 30 films/shows but jelly fin only recognized 16 and one series (TLOU) I had 5 episodes in there. Jellyfin recognized them and that they were s1 E1 etc but not what series so I couldn't get them tagged with proper Metadata but I could group them as an unnamed collection. 14 movies though .mp4 I think we're not recognized in the library search- everything is in the same folder. It isn't a huge deal as I can reacquire them or re-rip them but it would be nice if they were recognized.
HT4 is pretty good as long as you name files correctly See attached doc that @Markswift2003 created that should help
As long as it recognizes them as media files I can edit names or manually match but jellyfin doesn't even recognize a bunch of files as legit media files. Whil kodi and Plex both recognize and match/identify them
Good News- my Z20 Pro arrived today . I plugged it in ran the wizard and 5 min later I was up and rnning. I have the 8tb NTFS drive I am going to put in the Z20's hdd bay currently in a "toaster" hooked up to my main pc where I am ripping my colledction but for fun I ran the samba server it found my NAS mapped the share drive and seems to be streaming all the titles that were lagging or freezing on me. I still plan on putting the majority of my movies in the Z20 itself but the NAS working well was great.
