biped wrote:I could be wrong but I think you'll find all manufacturers advertise some of their NAS products being suitable for Home use which attracts a clientele looking to perhaps implement a media centre set up
They point out graphically in advertising that their NAS has HDMI AT 4K etc etc etc but do nothing other than provide a basic platform to implement third party APPs not one of their own
Instead you find out to your considrable cost that streaming is a piece of cake, it always was, but to implement HDMI unless you are tech savvy is impossible
You'll see a myriad of helps from very good people, experts, it's easy all you have to is install a few support apps then jump into the command line and..... at which point the user who THOUGHT
they had bought a simple user friendly NAS, that was attracted by the advertising of NAS + HDMI supporting 4k etc = I can see 4K video on my TV by using an Asustor APP... ends up very disappointed
For me IF you advertise what appears to be a simple approach for the home user YOU The Manufacturer must supply a BASIC APP that if nothing else achieves the simplest much advertised benefit of HDMI at 4K !!
To be able to Play through HDMI Video stored on your NAS - NOT ROCKET SCIENCE for ASUSTOR SURELY ?
SO A FAIL FOR ASUSTOR
But in saying that, all NAS manufacturers to differing degrees dupe the purchaser re HDMI, advertising in a way that implies ease of use, when that ease is really only for those with a higher than the averge tech expertise
I might be wrong but I've not seen any NAS manufacture, even those very well known ones, that provides a full pledged 4K players with proprietary codecs that supports directly from the HDMI output. Implementing this will increase the product cost much higher (development and proprietary procurement wise) also not to mention any possible law suits just from the app itself.
To the OP, if you're not keen with command lines and such stuffs, install Linux Center from the app store. Launch it, then install Debian Desktop 10, config it to display HDMI and mount shared folder (so you can access your NAS files within) then launch it let it appear on your HDMI output to TV. Avoid using the remote desktop as you'll run into few problems very tedious to fix like missing sound and no admin access. From there head to the menu->applications->system->software and look for any media player i.e. VLC. I've made some changes to mine running Ubuntu Desktop 20.04 instead.
The HDMI is one of its best feature of the NAS. I've managed to boot purely into the latest Ubuntu Desktop 20.04 from another partition (yes no ADM) with few things to work on e.g. controlling the fan and leds. Recently tried booting into Windows 10 but stuck just before the login screen so I'll need some free time to figure out why. Later I'll probably run Ubuntu/Windows/ADM in a multi boot config. Without HDMI, these are not possible...