Play videos from a QNAP NAS on Android TV

Yonto Player on Android TV plays the videos in your QNAP NAS’s shared folder straight from the share, with no media server and nothing to install on the NAS, and shows them as a library of films and series with posters and descriptions. It reads the folder over SMB or WebDAV, which QTS and QuTS hero both turn on in Control Panel. You need a NAS user that can read the shared folder, the NAS’s IP address, and a few minutes with the remote or your phone.

It works the same on an Android phone or tablet, where you type the address into the form yourself (In Yonto Player).

Which to choose

SMB is the simpler choice on Android TV and on Android phones and tablets. Yonto Player speaks SMB 2 and 3, not the older SMB 1, so there is no need to allow SMB 1 on the NAS.
WebDAV is the one to choose on a Mac, since only the Android apps have SMB.
Folder in Files is for an iPhone or iPad: connect to the NAS in the Files app (tap ⋯, then Connect to Server), then choose Add source, Folder in Files and the share’s folder.

Each shows the shared folder the same way in Yonto Player: its videos grouped into films and series from their names, with its folders beside them, and the posters you keep beside the files or that Yonto Player looks up online.

On the NAS

The steps below are from QNAP’s own help for QTS 5.2 and QuTS hero h5.2, which use the same menus. Log on as an administrator.

Find the NAS’s IP address

If you open QTS in a browser at an address like 192.168.1.20:8080, the part before the colon is the IP address. If you do not know it, QNAP’s help says to use Qfinder Pro on a computer on the same network, or to look for the NAS in your router’s list of connected devices.

Use the IP address in Yonto Player rather than the NAS’s name, which an Android TV may not be able to look up.

Let a user read the shared folder

Pick the NAS user Yonto Player will sign in as, or create one for it. Go to Control Panel > Privilege > Shared Folders > Shared Folder, find the folder with your videos and choose the edit permissions icon under Action. Under Users and groups permission, give that user Read Only or Read/Write, and choose Apply: Yonto Player only reads, so Read Only is enough.

Turn on SMB

Go to Control Panel > Network & File Services > Win/Mac/NFS/WebDAV > Microsoft Networking, tick Enable file service for Microsoft networking and choose Apply. Under Advanced Options, the lowest SMB version can stay at SMB 2 or above.

Or turn on WebDAV

Go to Control Panel > Network & File Services > Win/Mac/NFS/WebDAV > WebDAV and tick Enable WebDAV. Choose Shared folder permission, so the permission you gave the user above is the one that counts; with WebDAV permission, each folder needs a WebDAV permission of its own. Choose Dedicated port number, note the HTTP port number and HTTPS port number, and choose Apply. QNAP’s list of the ports its services use gives 5000 for WebDAV over HTTP and 5001 over HTTPS; use the ones on your NAS’s page if they differ.

In Yonto Player

On your Android TV, open Yonto Player and choose Settings, Sources, Add source. Choose Source type, then SMB or WebDAV.
Choose Set up from your phone and scan the QR code with your phone’s camera.
On the page that opens, enter the Server address, then Username, if it needs one and Password, which are the NAS user’s, and choose Send to the TV.
- For SMB, the address is smb://, the NAS’s IP address and the shared folder’s name, like smb://192.168.1.20/video. Add a folder inside it to open there, like smb://192.168.1.20/video/Movies.
- For WebDAV, the address is http://, the IP address, the port and the shared folder’s name, like http://192.168.1.20:5000/video. An http:// address is not encrypted, and the form says “This address isn’t encrypted, so the password crosses your network in the clear.” An https:// address, on the HTTPS port, works only when the television trusts the NAS’s certificate.
The television’s form fills in. Choose Test connection, which reads that folder: “Connected successfully” means it worked. Choose Save.

Prefer the remote? Leave out step 2 and type in the form: pressing OK on a field opens an on-screen keyboard. Nothing is saved until you choose Save with the remote.

On an Android phone or tablet, tap Settings, Sources, Add source, tap Add SMB or Add WebDAV, type the same address, username and password, then tap Test connection and Save.

Play video files from a NAS or USB drive on Android TV goes through the same form with a video of each type.

Watching

Pick the source from the source chip at the top left of Home, then open Browse. It groups the videos into Films and Series from their names; Folders lists the folders and then the videos, by name with each video’s size, and OK on a video plays it. A title shows the poster and description kept beside it (how they are named), and Yonto Player looks up online what the files leave out.

A video you play goes into History, and into Continue playing on Home, under its file name. Choosing it there plays on from where you stopped.
Subtitles inside the file, and subtitle files beside it with the video’s name (Movie.srt or Movie.en.srt beside Movie.mkv), are offered under Subtitles in the player (Audio and subtitles on a phone or tablet).
What plays depends on the television’s own decoders: H.264 and H.265 in MP4 or MKV are the safe choice. On Android, Yonto Player decodes AC3, E-AC-3, DTS and TrueHD sound itself when the television cannot (DTS, TrueHD and Dolby audio on Android TV).

Free or Pro

The NAS’s shared folder is one source, and your first source is free. A second source, such as another shared folder or a Jellyfin server, needs Pro. On our website it is US$7.47 instead of US$14.95 while the offer runs, until December 31, 2026, one payment, not a subscription, and one licence works on up to 5 devices at a time. In the app on Android TV and Android phones and tablets, you can try Pro free for 7 days, once per device, with no payment details, and it ends on its own. Yonto Pro says how to buy it and turn it on.

If it does not connect

These show in Browse, with Retry.

“Couldn’t reach the server. Check that it’s on and on the same network.” Check that the NAS is on, that the television is on the same network, and that the IP address in the Server address is the NAS’s. For SMB, check that Enable file service for Microsoft networking is ticked; for WebDAV, that Enable WebDAV is ticked and the port in the address is its port. An https:// address also shows this when the television does not trust the NAS’s certificate: use http:// and the HTTP port on your home network, or give the NAS a certificate the television trusts.

“The server didn’t accept the username or password. Check them in this source’s settings.” Go to Settings, Sources, choose the source, then Edit, and correct them. They are the NAS user’s.

“This folder is no longer there.” The shared folder’s name in the address does not match one on the NAS, or the folder was moved or renamed. Check the name under Control Panel > Privilege > Shared Folders > Shared Folder.

“This account can’t open this folder. Check the username in this source’s settings, or the account’s permissions on the server.” The NAS user has no permission on the shared folder, or Deny on it. If the NAS lets guests in, a wrong password can also end here, as a guest, so check the password too. Under Control Panel > Privilege > Shared Folders > Shared Folder, edit the folder’s permissions and give the user Read Only or Read/Write.

Troubleshooting lists every message the app shows.

Yonto Player provides no content. QNAP, QTS and QuTS hero are trademarks of QNAP Systems, Inc., and Yonto Player is not affiliated with or endorsed by it.