BeatificaBytes

It’s IMO the best soundbar in that range of price

• It employs 16 array speakers and 2 woofers to create a well dispersed soundstage at the front.
• It comes with a Wireless Active Subwoofer to deliver the low end.
• It also includes the Yamaha’s 5 BeamPlus2 feature for a more immersive audio experience.
• It has 4 HDMI input and 1 HDMI output.
• IT comes with a Wireless Transmitter (YIT-W12TX) which is designed to wirelessly stream music from iPod/iPhone/iPad or Mac/PC to the soundbar.

I found the best price on www.amazon.de

The new version of DSM, 4.3, is not supporting anymore my old Synology DS209+ II, bought in mid-2009. But this is not really an issue as packages will continue to be updated on DSM 4.2.

I am mainly looking for an new NAS to increase access speed.

The DS713+ has 2 Gigabit Ethernet ports with support for nic teaming, Dual Core 2.13GHz, 1 GB DDR3,  1x USB 2.0, 2x USB 3.0, 1x eSata, Sata III, 88.6MB/s write and 55.7MB/s read speeds (Those are mean values as it depends a lot on the RAID config, disk type, size of the transferred files, link aggregation, …).

My old DS209+II had only 1 Gigabit Ethernet  port, 1.06Ghz CPU, 512MB DDR2, 3x USB 2.0, 1x eSATA port X1, Sata II, 50 MB/s write, 60 MB/s read speeds.

Look here for DS713+ performances.

But the DS714 is coming soon… It will not be as fast as the DS713+, but using an Intel Atom CE5300 SoC , it will come with hardware HD-video transcoding capabilities, which is interesting if I want to run a media server similar to Plex. It will be a Dual Core 1,6GHz, 1GB DDR3, 3x USB 3.0, 1x HDMI,  2x Gigabit Ethernet ports.

I will wait until the DST174 is out to read the first reviews comparing that new model and the DS713+.

I considered to buy Seagate ST2000VN000 (HDD Seagate NAS 2TB SATA 6GB 5900rpm) HDD’s as they are 40€ cheaper than the WD SE WD2000F9YZ (7200rpm) HDD’s. But I finally took the WD as the warranty is 5 years (instead of 3 for Seagate).

It’s not yet officially supported by Synology and won’t be available on the EU market before 1st of November. But it will be supported for sure IMO, as most other Foscam IP Cam are. So, I will wait until it’s available to check that Synology does indeed support it. If they don’t, I will take my second or third choice as I expect their price to decrease.

I prefer the FI9826W than the very similar FI9831W because it has an optic zoom x 3. However, if FI9826W appears to not be supported by Synology, the FI9831W won’t be either IMO.

My second choice would a FI9821W (v2!). I did test the connection of my NAS with the demo cam available on the FOSCAM website. The connection works fine but after 2 seconds of playing, the video preview becomes blank. Foscam told me that it’s possibly because I am not connected as an administrator… No answer from Synology yet on that issue.

My third choice would be a FI8910W. This one is not HD but reported by many users as working very well with Synology. I prefer however the FI9821W as it has a much better Web Management interface.

FI8921W and FI8910W are similar from the design point of view:

Remarks:

• All those camera have IR Cut which is highly improving the quality of the image 🙂
• They all have a CMOS censor, which is not as good as a CCD sensor 🙁
• FI8918W is not reported to be as good as the FI8910W, especially because of the lack of IR Cut (the image looks grey compare to FI8910W). So I won’t go for that one. However the FI8918W is confirmed to have settings to prevent the camera to go back to its “center” location after a power reset. Without such a feature, most IP cameras point at the ceiling after a reset. This must be checked regarding FI9821W and FI9826W 🙁
• MJPEG is reported to be a preferable format as far as movement detection as to be made by the Synology. But H.264 (which is a compressed video format) is for sure preferred to reduce bandwidth with such HD camera. Mandatory to access the camera from a mobile device!
• FI9826W has 2 streams, while FI9821W has 3 and FI8910W as only one. Each stream can be configured with a distinct format ! 🙂

I found the best prices on www.redcoon.nl,fr and de.

As the FI9826W is currently too expensive for my purpose, I bought two FI8910W.

• Very easy to setup if you know that the passwords and the usernames may not be longer than 12 characters.
• If you set an admin’s password longer than 12 characters, you have to reset the cam. Press with a round pin in the reset hole at the bottom of the cam for more than 15 sec.
• I did immediately upgrade both the firmware and only next the Web UI while connected via RJ45 (Never do it via WiFi, and never the Web Ui first !!!). Worked like a charm.
• One of the two cams was providing images with a really poor quality!!! But I simply had to turn the ring around the lens to adequately set the focus. The focus changes as one screws/unscrews the ring.
• After a reboot, the cams are always pointing up at the ceiling. This can be disable via the “Device Management” page > PT Settings, “Disable preset” = checked, “Go to center on boot” = unchecked.
• In that pane, I also set the “PT Speed” on 7 to get a more precise traveling.
• When I enable the audio, the image is freezing in “Server Push mode” and the sound is delayed a lot . It’s ok in “ActiveX Mode”.
• The sound is horribly crackling ?! The crackly seems to be due to interference between the device and the speaker. If I remove the WiFi antenna, the crackling is nearly gone. Moving the network cable or the power cable also impact the crackling ?!
• There is no support to change the Fps in “Server Push mode”. It’s however available in “ActiveX Mode”
• The colors of the image appeared a bit better on one camera than on the other one ?! The colors are improved when the IR-Cut filter is on and this filter does not seems to be enabled/disabled when clicking on the related button in the web UI.
• IE 10 has been crashing several times when I was using the “ActiveX mode”, trying to change various settings. This instability is a common issue compared to the “Server Push mode”…

The cheapest licenses to add one camera into Synology Surveillance Station are sold by “IooMobile” on eBay. They sent me the license key immediately by email (on my explicit request) and I got the licence card a few weeks later (from Honk-Kong to Belgium).