The ST Ultra HD video processor enhances the 4K video streaming experience of Qunhui Technology's latest network storage server

     ST and Synology, a global leader in NAS (Network Attached Storage) servers, announced that St's high-definition (HD) and UltraHD multimedia server set-top box platform (STiH412) has been adopted by UnV Technology for the DS216play high-end network storage (NAS) server for home and enterprise users.

     According to GIA (Global Industry Analysts), the global NAS server market is expected to reach $7 billion in 2017, and the main drivers of market growth include the significant increase in the number of home networks and small business networks, the continuous data explosion, and the increasing demand for data backup and archiving.

     "Delivering multimedia content has always been one of our many technical strengths, and Synology NAS supports the transmission of a wide variety of data to a wide variety of end devices such as mobile phones, tablets, digital players and smart TVS," said CAI Minghong, Associate Director of hardware design at Unhui Technology. However, the arrival of the 4K image era does bring a lot of challenges to some terminal devices, because the playback and transcoding of ultra-high-definition content require high processing power. "Now, ST's high-performance, cost-effective 4K transcoding solution enables us to deliver the ideal home server for the future of 4K imaging."

     Darong Wang, Director of Digital Products at ST Greater China and South Asia, said: "Our collaboration with Qunhui Technology proves that ST has successfully taken the first step in its strategy to enter the NAS server market. NAS server is a market with strong growth potential, and our STiH412 system chip solution will help us create a smoother and high-quality streaming media experience, thereby driving the adoption and market penetration of NAS server technology."

     DiskStation DS216play is a high-end NAS server optimized for multimedia. It supports 4K H.265 and 1080p H.264 / H265 instant video transcoding, allowing users to watch 4K digital TV movies on NAS servers on devices such as digital media players, mobile devices, computers and Smart TVS without worrying about video format compatibility. The DS216play is equipped with a dual-core 1.5GHz processor and 1 GB of RAM memory, achieving average read/write speeds of 107 MB/s and 91 MB/s, respectively, when using RAID 1 configuration in a Windows environment. The built-in floating point computing unit further improves the user's multimedia entertainment experience and the speed of preview image generation. The DS216play consumes only 15W of power during read and write operations and 6.8W in sleep mode, making it a more energy efficient alternative to the HTPC (home-theater PC).

     STiH412 is ST's ARM® based "Monaco" family of products, a full-featured multi-HD and ultra HD IP set-top box and server set-top box solution. Combined with the latest set-top box middleware and broadband software solutions, the system-on-chip (SoC) supports integrated broadcast and broadband dual-mode services. The ST Faroudja transcoding engine is the best-in-class transcoder that enables multi-screen audiovisual experiences on consumer electronics and handheld devices, enabling users to optimize network bandwidth while enjoying high quality service at home.