QNAP Systems Ts 253 User Guide

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Music Station 
 
Music Station (5.0) helps you create a personal music center on the cloud. This web-based 
application is designed for users to play music files on the NAS, listen to thousands of radio stations 
on the Internet, and share your music with your friends and family. Your music collection stored on 
the NAS is automatically organized into categories for easy access. 
 
 
This chapter covers the following topics: 
Starting Music Station 
Familiarizing yourself with Music Station    
Using Music Station 
Media Library and Privacy Settings 
 
Starting Music Station 
 
Depending on your NAS model, Music Station may be enabled by default and can be launched from 
the Desktop or the Main Menu. If not, install and enable it in the App Center (for QTS 4.1 or newer 
versions only) and follow these steps:    
1. Upload music files to a shared folder on the NAS. There are three ways to upload music files to 
the NAS: 1) Install Qfinder Pro on your PC or Mac, set up a network drive and upload files to your 
preferred shared folders. For details on setting up a network drive, please check the Connecting to 
NAS Shared Folders chapter; 2) In Manage Mode, click “Import Music” (up arrow) on the menu 
bar or drag & drop files to the Music Station window. In the “Upload” window, select the 
destination folder and then either click “Select the music file to upload” or drag & drop files to the 
dotted rectangle to upload files. 3) Click “Folder” on the left panel, open the folder where you 
want to upload files, and drag & and drop music files here.  
						

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Note:  
The admin login credentials of Music Station are the same as that of the NAS 
administrator. 
If you use Music Station for the first time, it is recommended to upload or copy music 
files to media folders and scan them using the Multimedia Management. For more 
information about media folders, please refer to the Multimedia Management chapter. 
   
2. Launch Music Station from the Main Menu/Desktop shortcut, or directly log into Music Station by 
going to: http://NAS_Name_or_IP/musicstation/ 
 
Familiarizing yourself with Music Station  
 
Menu Bar 
 
No Name Description 
1 Spotlight Mode Provide an intuitive interface for you to view and play songs in default 
categories and your own playlists. 
2 Manage Mode Provides a detailed interface for you to manage and share your music 
files. 
3 Advanced Search Search songs by their title, artist, rating, and other information. 
4 Refresh Refresh the current page. 
5 Background Task Shows tasks running in the background, such as uploading. 
6 Music Alarm Set music alarms. 
7 Settings Provides more setting options and shows Help, Quick Start, and About. 
8 Multi-zone 
Control and 
Streaming 
Streams music to the devices on your network and manage 
Now-playing lists on each device. 
9 Show/Hide Menu Show or hide the lower part of the menu.  
						

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Bar 
10 Items Viewing  Show items in List Mode or Thumbnail Mode 
11 Sort Sort items by various attributes in ascending or descending order. 
12 Add Playlist Create a playlist or a smart playlist. 
13 Import Music Upload music files from your local device. 
14 Download Download music files to your local device. 
15 Share Music Share link via email: Please ensure that your email settings are 
correctly configured. Click your profile icon in the top-right corner of 
the desktop and go to “E-mail Account” to set up your account. You 
can also specify the subject and add a message to the mail. 
Share link on social networking websites: Choose your preferred 
website and add a message to supplement your link. 
Create link code: Select a domain name and format for the link of 
your music files or playlists 
For all three methods, you can decide whether to protect files with a 
password, allow users to download files, and you can also choose an 
expiration date for your sharing. After you share music files, you 
can view and re-share them in “Shared Center”. 
16 Multi-Select Select multiple items. 
17 Select/Deselect 
All 
Select or deselect all the items. 
18 Information View and modify the information of the selected item. 
 
Player  
 
No Name Description 
1 Progress Bar Control the playback progress. 
2 Mini Player Minimize the player (not available if you choose “Tab Mode” in  
						

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“Desktop Preferences”). 
3 Previous Play the previous song. 
4 Play/Pause Play or pause the current song. 
5 Next Play the next song. 
6 Volume Adjust the volume. 
7 Repeat Repeat the current song or repeat all the songs in the playlist. 
8 Shuffle Randomly play songs in the playlist. 
9 Lyrics Show the lyrics of the current song. 
10 Now Playing Show the Now-playing panel. Drag & drop songs to the panel to add 
them to the now-playing list. 
 
Note:  
To stream media files to HDMI or Chromecast using the Network Media Player, Media 
Streaming Add-On must first be installed in the App Center. 
Bonjour must be enabled when using multi-zone streaming. You can enable Bonjour in 
Control Panel > Network Service > Service Discovery > Bonjour. 
 
Left Panel  
Songs, Artist, Album, and Genre: All authorized music files are listed and grouped into these four 
categories. 
Private Collection: Personal music files in the /home folder are listed here. These music files 
belong to the user that is currently logged in. 
Qsync: Music files synchronized with the Qsync service are listed here. 
Folder: You can view and manage the music files in media folders here. 
Playlist: You can create, manage, and delete playlists here. Each playlist can include up to 600 
items, and Music Station can contain up to 200 playlists. 
Smart Playlist: You can create smart playlists that only include songs meeting your own criteria. 
Shared Center: Your shared music files are listed here. You can view their sharing history and 
share them again. 
My Favorite Radio: Enter the radio URL or search TuneIn Radio to add your favorite radio stations 
on the Internet (up to 1024 stations). Please note that only the URLs with the MP3 format are 
supported. 
TuneIn: Users can browse and play on-line radio stations streamed by TuneIn. 
Trash Can: All deleted music files can be found here. You can either restore or permanently delete 
them. 
  
						

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Note:  
Playlist names should not include: /    |   \  :    ?        *         $. 
Music Station only supports these file formats: MP3, FLAC, OGG, WAV, AIF, and AIFF. 
 
Using Music Station 
 
Import music files 
Please refer to the Starting Music Station section.  
 
Creating and managing playlists 
To create a playlist, click “Add Playlist” on the menu bar and select “Create a Playlist,” or drag & drop 
music files onto “Playlist” on the left panel. You can also create a Smart Playlist that only contains 
songs meeting your criteria. To share a playlist, select a playlist and click “Create a new share” on 
the menu bar to email it to other people, publish it to social networking sites, or create a link for it. 
After you share playlists, you can view the detailed information about your shared lists in “Shared 
Center”. You can also right click a playlist and add it to the “Now Playing” list or select “Information” 
to change its name or modify its settings. 
 
Sharing playlists 
When you create a playlist, you have to decide how to share it with other NAS users. You can choose 
to make it open to all the NAS users or just the creator and administrator (and allow them to edit it), 
or you can choose not to share it at all by leaving both options unchecked. 
 
You can also share a list of songs as you do with playlists. To do so, click “Songs” on the right panel, 
select songs from the list, and click “Create a new share” to choose the way you want to share the 
list. Please note that the difference between a playlist and a list of songs is that the former falls into 
the “Playlist” category on the left panel, while the latter is a temporary list of songs selected from 
different albums. 
 
Multi-zone control and streaming 
Music Station works with your NAS Audio output (USB speaker, Soundcard, HDMI), Bluetooth, SONOS 
devices, and Network Media Players (DLNA, Chromecast, AirPlay), making it easy for you to stream 
music to many types of devices. It can stream different music to all the supported devices in your 
home or play the same music at the same time. You can change the output devices by clicking the 
purple button in the top-right corner, drag and drop songs to the Now Playing list on your desired 
devices, and then double click a song to play it. 
 
Note:  
To stream media files to HDMI or Chromecast, Media Streaming Add-on must be  
						

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installed in the App Center. 
Bonjour must be enabled when using multi-zone streaming. You can enable Bonjour in 
Control Panel > Network Service > Service Discovery > Bonjour. 
Please check the QNAP website for supported USB speakers. 
Some models with 3.5mm audio output may not support USB audio output. 
Radio stations only support playing under streaming mode and Bluetooth. 
 
Changing album covers or artist photos 
Music Station automatically searches for an image for your albums and artists. If an appropriate 
cover cannot be found, you can also import your own images. To change album covers or artist 
photos, follow these steps: 
1. Select "Album" or “Artist” on the left panel. 
2. Right click an album or an artist and select Information. In the information window, click the 
album cover or artist photo to upload your own images. You can also click “Search” to search for 
images on the Internet. 
 
Finding your music files quickly 
To quickly locate your music files, you can rate or classify them: 
You can either select a file and click “Information” on the menu bar or right click a file and select 
“Information”. You can then give it a rating or modify its data in the information window.  
To rate or modify music multiple files, click the multi-select button on the Main Menu (or hold the 
Ctrl key) and select your desired files to rate and modify them all at once.  
 
After music files are rated or classified, they can be searched by their rating, artist, genre, or other 
attributes in Advanced Search. 
 
Media Library and Privacy Settings 
 
Music files in Music Station are listed and displayed according to shared folder privileges (media 
folders) and settings in Media Library. For shared folder privileges, only users (including domain users) 
with the permission to access a shared folder can view its contents in Music Station. For example, if a 
user does not have read/write or read-only permissions to access a shared folder, that user cannot 
see the music files in the shared folder. The administrator can give or deny other users permissions 
to access various functions in Music Station. To configure privilege settings, click “More settings” in 
the top-right corner and go to “Access Permissions”. 
 
Note:  
Besides shared folder privileges, you can also import your private music files to your 
/home shared folder to hide them from other NAS users (except the NAS  
						

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administrator.) Your /home folder contents can be found under Private Collection. 
To create a shared folder, go to Control Panel > Privilege Settings > Shared 
Folders. 
 
Music files stored in the shared folders are only visible after they are detected and scanned by Media 
Library. To set Media Library to scan for music files manually or by a schedule, go to Control Panel 
> Multimedia Management > Media Library. For more information about media folder settings, 
please refer to the chapter on Multimedia Management. 
 
Note: Because the media folders in Media Library are shared by Photo Station, Music 
Station, Video Station and DLNA Media Server as their content source, content will be 
affected in those applications if new media folders are added or existing media folders are 
removed from Media Library.