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So it remains the best choice for streaming personal content to any TV platform.Īlong with the Plex Smart TV app, you’ll also need to download the Plex Media Server (PMS) and run it on your NAS drive. Plex app is available on most smart TVs including Roku, Android TV, Fire TV, Tizen, Web OS. But it still allows you to organize and stream your personal collection of movies, music, photos to any device including Smart TV. Plex in particular has been changing over the years to lean more towards a stand-alone streaming Ad-sponsored service akin to the likes of Tubi, Pluto, IMDB TV etc. The most popular options are Kodi and Plex media servers. But if you’re looking at streaming content from a NAS drive to a Smart TV, you basically need a DNLA/UPnP-compliant sofware or server. Using the Plex Media ServerĪt the time of writing this post, I was using a Seagate NAS drive which I no longer have which made updating the article even more difficult. I wanted to give an overview of what to do without delving into the details otherwise I would have made the post longer than I wanted it to. Most people say this article doesn’t have all the details for connecting a NAS drive to a smart TV and I agree. Update: I have taken feedback from the comments. It’s much faster option since you don’t have to deal with WiFi signal issues. So it’s possible to connect the smart TV to the router via an Ethernet cable. Read more: Stream your own home media: A complete guide to DLNA and UPnP
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They support a media streaming protocol called DNLA or UPnP that basically make your NAS drive visible to the Smart TV.
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This only works with Smart TVs since most of them have WiFi built-in.įor a better user experience, make sure you NAS drive supports media server such as Plex or Kodi.
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Then the TV connects to the router wirelessly via WiFi. So you can connect the NAS drive to the WiFi router via an RJ45 Ethernet cable. Instead they come with one or two Giga Ethernet ports.
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Both the NAS drive and Smart TV must be connected to the same wireless network usually created by a WiFi router. The most common way to stream content from NAS drive to a Smart TV is wirelessly.
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