Use my cloud with tv

What i want to do is have a storage device for all my films, music, pictures ect that i will be able to access from my mac book, windows pc and two smart tvs in seperate rooms and i have a couple questions.

  1. Would it be possible to record live tv from the tvs on to the hard drive and watch it back later? if not is there somwthing i could add to make this possible.

  2. Would there be any issues with the fact windows and mac dont run on the same file system? 

Also im not set on my cloud if some other product would do the job better.

Thanks for looking :smileyvery-happy:

To record LiveTV to the NAS you need a software application running somewhere and maybe some hardware interface to connect the antenna of plug in a cablecard if you use cable.

It will be hard to install any of these on this NAS.

You might be able to use another device to host the app and the hardware (like a PC) that can see the NAS as storage, but you will probably have to use the same device to read back. For example, I download recordings from my Tivo, decode them and reencode them on my PC and store them back to my NAS.

If you go with NAS from other brands you can connect the hardware to some USB port, and you can install software packages to record live TV directly to the NAS. Check out Synology for example.

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If i understand you correctly to connect it via usb i would have to keep moving it around my different devices thats bassically what i do now with a portable drive and thats what i want to avoid. Or have a pc thats turned on when ever i want to use any of the other devices with the drive plugged into it also something id rather avoid is this my only options? 

thanks a lot for your reply :smiley:

Not quite. You wouldn’t have to move it around, because the USB port at the back of the NAS is only to connect a USB disk to the NAS, but no other hardware (and not a DTV adapter in particular).

You can still store content on the NAS and your devices, if they are network aware can see the content shared on the NAS of course, and devices that are DLNA capable can play the media stored there, if it is in specific formats like avi/mp3 and mp4/AAC.

With WD apps, smartphones and tables can play the content.

Note that the iTunes server featured on this NAS doesn’t play video, and plays audio only on PCbased iTunes.

The question is how you get the TV streaming content in the right format to the NAS. You can’t use the NAS itself to download live TV, store it and convert it for other devices.

You would need your PC or a dedicated device to do so.

Once the content is in the right format on the NAS, you can play it without having to move it physically around.

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Thanks for your help i understand now and its not a problem to decode it because things recorded on the tv will mostly be watched on tv and if i want to watch it on a laptop i can just decode it there as i need it and all the films i already have on disk are compatible with the tv thanks again

I have a similar question to craig1234 in that I am thinking of buying a My Book Desktop Storage 2 TB and along with backing up files, I would like to use it for recording from Tv and watching this recording, on the Tv.  My son tells me that any external hard drive should do this but I would appreciate any help from your community.

Thanks.  Liam.

craig1234 wrote:

Thanks for your help i understand now and its not a problem to decode it because things recorded on the tv will mostly be watched on tv and if i want to watch it on a laptop i can just decode it there as i need it and all the films i already have on disk are compatible with the tv thanks again