This is the kind of thing I've been watching unfold with some home "NAS" boxes over the past couple of years. It started much earlier but it's started to become more of a differentiating factor in some of the lines lately because the NAS side of things is basically entirely a solved problem for 99% of people, so the manufacturers (Synology, QNAP, Terramaster, U-Green, etc.) have been adding support for doing what looks a lot like turn-key installation of things like NextCloud, Plex, and a bunch of other services that the self-hosting community has been talking about for years.
I think one of the big drivers of it has been the serious increase in performance and capability of the low power embedded processors from Intel and AMD (and in the last year or so some ARM based ones), like supporting more than 2GB of ram and having multiple cores that can meaningfully do work even with a 15W TDP.
I am of the impression that Synology is pivoting away.
>Starting from this version, the processing of media files using HEVC (H.265), AVC (H.264), and VC-1 codecs will be transitioned from the server to end devices to reduce unnecessary resource usage on the system and enhance system efficiency.
They say it's to "reduce unnecessary resource usage" and "enhance efficiency", I say it's the start of a race to the bottom of the barrel now that the market is saturated and BOMs start weighing heavier.
If my device supports the native format of the content, I definitely want it decoded there rather than transcoding on the server. Assuming said format isn't significantly more power hungry than the transcoded codec.
Sure. But they’re not giving the user a choice in the matter. Also, it’s transcoded on the device as it’s backing up, which is the last thing I want to spend battery power on. My NAS is on and plugged into the wall 24/7 for a reason
I think one of the big drivers of it has been the serious increase in performance and capability of the low power embedded processors from Intel and AMD (and in the last year or so some ARM based ones), like supporting more than 2GB of ram and having multiple cores that can meaningfully do work even with a 15W TDP.