Jordan O'BrienNow a Control4 (Nasdaq CTRL) home automation system can become a full-fledged media management system with nothing more than a QNAP NAS storage device.
At ISE 2014, Extra Vegetables is showing a driver that exploits QNAP’s built-in XBMC interface and HDMI output to create a low-cost Control4 movie server.
Simply rip DVDs to the drive and manage the collection via the TV’s on-screen display.
QNAP NAS devices running QTS 4.1.0 include Control4’s SDDP capabilities. They will automatically be discovered inside Composer and the certified driver will be added to a project when you double click on the device.
The Control4 system is able to regularly monitor the NAS for changes in its media content. If new images, video or audio files are added to the NAS, the new content will be reported to the driver.
The software already is compatible with the Control4 My Movies driver, so no additional license is required.
EV launched the My Movies Collection Management driver at CEDIA Expo 2012, for the first time allowing a cheap NAS to become a movie server for a Control4 ecosystem.
That solution, however, still requires a separate media player such as Popbox.
With the new QNAP driver, “you don’t need an additional media player,” says EV’s Jane Scotland.