Streaming is a big deal nowadays, with so many services having different offerings for every single customer. But one thing that these services can’t offer is a private multimedia hub of your own videos, files, and photos.
People these days have so much personal multimedia such as photos and videos on their devices such as laptops and smartphones. The ironic part about this is that we rarely consume these videos collectively or with other people or we just store them on our devices and forget them altogether. A good idea to have at home is a multimedia hub, this is where you can store all these files and access them via your computer, TV, or any device that is connected to your network.
This is such a great solution for people who want to share their cherished photos and videos, as well as your own collection of movies, songs, etc that you’ve accumulated throughout the years. What should you consider when building a multimedia hub? Here’s our suggestions for you.
Storage Size
Storage is a very important factor when deciding to build a multimedia hub at home. This single decision will dictate how much you can keep for now, and for the future. How do you determine how much you need though? Scan through your files and this will give you an idea.
For example, a hundred high resolution images can go as high as 25GB already, an HD movie is at 5-8GB, while a Blu-Ray movie can be as big as 25GB. So take a look at what you plan to store in your multimedia hub then decide from there. There are a variety of different NAS drive sizes to choose from and you won’t have a lack of options when it comes to this. Just make sure you get the right size so you won’t regret it in the future.
Built-in Organization Tools
Having a multimedia drive full of files, videos, and photos can be daunting to organize. Imagine having to sift through all these files one at a time trying to find a certain file. Or if you want to share a file to someone, imaging taking forever just to find that specific file just because you have a hard time organizing these files.
A tip here is that before buying a multimedia drive or hub, make sure you check the brand. Check the website of the brand and the application that it uses to organize these multimedia files. You have to make sure that the application allows you to easily organize and manage multimedia files.
Take Synology’s Multimedia Site for example, they have multiple specific applications such as Synology Photos, Video Station, and Audio Station so that your files are always organized. They have easy to use UIs or User-Interfaces so that users can easily find, organize and manage their files in your NAS or multimedia hub.
Multi-Platform and Multi-Device Support
It wouldn’t be much of a multimedia hub if the only device that can access it is a single computer. Your multimedia hub should be just like any streaming service out there. It should be able to be accessed by tablets, phones, TVs, and the like. And not just one at a time, the hub should be accessible by multiple devices at the same time.
So before building or buying a multimedia hub or NAS drive, make sure that it has support for all these platforms. Make sure that your TV can access the hub, or even your phone. It’s such a convenience if any device in your network can access and enjoy all the files you’ve placed in your multimedia hub.
Conclusion
NAS vendors like Synology have developed built-in applications for users to build and enjoy a multimedia hub at home. Users want something that isn’t complicated, they’re looking for something simple to set-up and easy to use. So make sure that before you buy or build a multimedia hub, check out what Synology has to offer and compare it to the things we’ve mentioned above.
I’m sure that you’ll have a hard time looking for a different brand that offers all of the things above without any fuss or difficulty. As I said, having a multimedia hub at home should be as easy as accessing any of the popular streaming sites such as Netflix, you should just be able to open the app, find the file you want and stream it wherever you are in your network.
