How do I let the Extend do the transcoding only? I don’t want to tax my Synology more than I have to and thats why I went with the Extend over Connect. What settings do I have to change in what apps?
Also, do I still get ComSkip if I let the Extend do the transcoding only?
Thanks!
Channels does not transcode unless you’re trying to watch remotely.
You can tell the DVR to record transcoded streams if you want, and you can also tell the apps to stream transcoded from your Extend.
Note that the Extend mobile setting doesn’t look very great. Heavy is much better, but does not deinterlace so remote viewing still requires deinterlace+transcode depending on the device.
So just have this setting:
Where it says Transcoder: heavy is all I need to do?
Also, does ComSkip still work if Extend is transcoding before placing in DVR folder?
Yes that’s all you need. Everything will work the same, though comskip may be a bit slower on h264 compared to mpeg2.
Will it be slower during processing or during playback? If the former than thats not a problem. Does comskip use NAS resources? Do you think that would negate using the Extend to transcode to put less stress on my NAS?
Also, does comskip mean I dont have to watch commercials at all or do I have to still use my remote to skip over them? Plex completely removes them so I was wondering if you guys do that as well(they also use comskip).
Commercials can be skipped via the remote. Comskip will run on your NAS (or whenever the DVR is installed).
It’s hard to recommend settings without knowing how you expect to use the app. If you’re only watching at home and have plenty of space, recording to mpeg2 without transcoding is just fine. If you want to use less space, transcode to heavy. If you don’t care about commercial skipping, you can turn detection off too. All depends on what features you care about.
For remote streaming of live tv, you can use the transcoder internetXXX setting on the extend by picking it in the app.
For remote streaming of recorded tv, it depends on what setting was used to record and what quality you want to stream at (which depends on bandwidth available). Usually bandwidth is limited so you need to transcode the recording either way, to save on data costs or deal with slow Wi-Fi.
Thank you for all your help. I want to use this at home only, no remote viewing currently planned. Only reason I want to transcode is to save space, but more importantly I thought so that I also don’t write to my external drive as much. The way I see it, with twice the file size without transcoding, thats twice the writes to my external drive that could wear it out sooner.
I do want to use commercial skipping and having to use the remote seems fine now that I thought about it, because I would rather you guys not get in hot waters for removing. Frankly that has me worried about Plex and if they get sued and go bankrupt 
I just hope it works with my harmony remote as I don’t like the apple remote.
Makes sense, I think you’ll be fine with the heavy setting. If you find yourself watching recordings and noticing that the commercials markers haven’t loaded yet, you can try switching to none.
If you install the Apple TV 4 profile on your harmony, you can use the dedicated skip buttons to jump past commercials.
Switch to none for transcoding in DVR settings on NAS or on Apple TV? Because if I set it to none than that would mean larger files and no transcoding which I dont want to do if I dont have to. Is this just a bug that your letting me know about that will be resolved?
I meant because comskip is slower on h264, so if you start watching a recording soon after it finishes you might have to wait longer for processing to complete.
You will notice there are no commercials shown when you start watching, and sometime while you’re watching they will appear automatically once comskip is done.
Ah ok sounds good. Thank you so much. This question/thread is now resolved!
“No commercials shown” ???
He means no voids in the timeline for the show you are watching that indicate where the commercials are so you can skip them. Commercials are not removed in any way, they are just detected in the recording and marked so you know when to skip forward. Works reasonably accurately.