The inclusion of HDMI ports with these new NAS servers virtually transforms them into fully capable multimedia players. However, you need the appropriate software to fully exploit their multimedia capabilities, and QNAP provides users with HD Station to do so. HD Station makes watching any multimedia stored on the NAS or browsing the net possible.

In general and according to QNAP, HD Station is a platform whereupon the famous XBMC application and Chrome, along with some other tools, can be installed, which would allow users to browse the web or playback all NAS multimedia content on their TV, through the HDMI interface. Home users will probably find this feature incredibly interesting since it makes multimedia players and HTPCs redundant. That said, HD Station can still be very useful in business environments since it makes locally accessing the NAS's administration interface without a client possible.


Before you install HD Station, you should connect the NAS to a TV with an HDMI port. QNAP states there to be three different ways to control HD Station:

1. Through the provided IR control
2. Through a USB keyboard and/or mouse
3. Through Qremote: A QNAP remote app exclusively designed for HD Station. This is probably the best option if you have an Android or iOS device.

Click on "Applications", "Hybrid Desk Station", and the "Get Started Now" button to install HD Station. Your NAS will now automatically install HD Station. You should also pick which applications you want to install as Kodi, Chrome, YouTube, CodexPack, and MyNAS are available, along with several others. We installed all of them.

HD Station Portal

Before you pick Chrome or the MyNAS application, connect a USB mouse to the NAS or use the Qremote app. MyNAS allows you to enter the local NAS administration webpage for a look at all NAS functions and settings.


These options allow you to configure HD Station's settings. You can enable or disable applications, and the Display group of options allows you to change the screen's resolution and set the screen to turn itself off after a certain amount of time in idle. Options under Preferences also allow you to change the language or type of remote control you will use.

Multimedia Performance

In the following tests we will, at first, play several high bitrate video clips off an external USB 3.0 compatible disk before playing them off the TS-451+ internal storage (four HDDs configured in RAID 6). All tests include playbacks of videos with a bitrate of 20-90 Mbps, including M2TS files. The test results can be found in the table below.


The TS-451+ easily reproduced every video we tried, including the very high bitrate ones.





We also tried to stream 1080p content wirelessly through an Asus DSL-AC68U router that was around 5 meters away from the tablet we used, a Samsung Tab S 8.4, with two walls between the tablet and its access point. With Plex Media Server installed on the NAS and the Plex client app installed on the tablet, the results were really bad as we couldn't stream any HD content.


With Plex failing because it probably doesn't fully utilize the NAS's or tablet's hardware, we decided to give QNAP's QVideo app a try, which is available for both iOS and Android devices. QVideo streamed even high bitrate multimedia files through WiFi properly, which was a very pleasant surprise since we initially thought the app would perform as poorly as Plex. The TS-451+'s hardware transcoding engine can also convert videos to lower resolutions on the fly, which worked like a charm.

Based on these results and given QNAP included an IR remote control, we can easily conclude that the TS-451+ is a very strong multimedia player, aside from being a fully capable NAS server. NAS servers like the TS-451+ are the main reason behind multimedia players growing extinct.