Wrapper_VideoStation: DTS, EAC3 and TrueHD playback on a Synology NAS

Why Video Station drops your DTS and TrueHD tracks

Synology Video Station and the Media Server package play video, but they will not transcode the lossless and surround audio formats that movie and concert rips tend to carry. DTS, EAC3, TrueHD and multichannel AAC simply do not come out of the shipped ffmpeg. That is the problem Wrapper_VideoStation exists to solve, and the README states it in the first line of the description: a wrapper for VideoStation and DLNA MediaServer that adds DTS, EAC3 and TrueHD support with 5.1. The audience is therefore Synology owners who have already filled a share with media and found that a large part of it will not play. It is not a media server replacement and not a streaming client. It is a shim that sits between the Synology packages and their media, and everything about the design follows from that, including the dependency list and the way the wrapper defers to other people's binaries.

The wrapper replaces the ffmpeg binary, not the media server

The mechanism is a binary swap. The installer replaces the ffmpeg files that Video Station and Media Server call with wrapper scripts that inspect the requested command and decide who should actually handle it. For video, the wrapper keeps the hardware transcoding path of Synology's own ffmpeg, so an HEVC stream can be decoded on a GPU-equipped NAS without the CPU cost of software decoding. For the audio formats Video Station cannot handle, the wrapper hands the job to the ffmpeg built by the SynoCommunity project, and only when it is actually necessary, which is the phrase the README uses. The result the project advertises is an AAC 5.1 track at 512kbps plus an additional MP3 2.0 track at 256kbps, so that clients which refuse 5.1 AAC, such as Chromecast or GoogleTV targets, still get sound. The repository ships separate wrapper builds for different DSM generations, with Advanced and Simplest variants for DSM 7_0 and DSM 7_X.

Two wrapper builds, and the hardware that separates them

The installer offers a choice, and the README is direct about who should take which. The Advanced Wrapper is a fork of BenjaminPoncet revision 12 with changes, fixes and improvements, and the Simplest Wrapper is a fork of Alex Presso version 1 with the same treatment, including a fix for the new arguments of FFMPEG 7.0. The Advanced build is the one that does real audio transcoding to 5.1 or 7.1, and the README recommends it for normal hardware or for a machine with a GPU available for FFmpeg HEVC decoding. The Simplest build is recommended for DS-XXX play appliances and low powered devices, where the stated outcome is that you get a remux of the audio or can play it without transcoding at all. The trade-off is explicit and sensible: full codec handling costs CPU that small NAS models do not have, so the project ships the reduced path rather than pretending the limitation is not there.

One installer covers the wrapper, the codec order and the media server patch

Everything runs through installer.sh, which the README presents as a menu driven tool with the option of an automatic mode. The flags table gives the vocabulary: start opens the main menu, install installs the Advanced Wrapper, autoinstall installs either build without prompts, uninstall removes the patch, config changes the behaviour of the audio codecs for the Advanced Wrapper, and info shows general information about the installer. On top of that the installer changes the order in which audio codecs are tried, so a user can decide whether DTS or EAC3 or AAC is attempted first, and it can patch both DLNA MediaServer and Video Station in the same run. The Installer has multi language support in English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German and Italian. There is also a separate offline installer, installer_OffLine.sh, and the repository includes an aux_GStreamer.tar file for the GStreamer based path.

Running the installer over SSH, and the update treadmill it creates

The documented flow is deliberately minimal. Check the dependencies, install the SynoCli Video Driver, install SynoCommunity ffmpeg, connect to the NAS over SSH as the admin user, switch to root with sudo -i, and then run the patch command, which the README gives as a single curl piped into bash:

`bash -c "$(curl "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/darknebular/Wrapper_VideoStation/main/installer.sh")"`

The same script accepts flags after a double dash, for example:

`bash -c "$(curl "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/darknebular/Wrapper_VideoStation/main/installer.sh")" -- -s <Flags>`

The cost of this approach is stated just as plainly as the benefit: you have to re-run the patch every time you update Video Station, Advanced Media Extensions or DSM. That is a maintenance tax, not a one time setup, and it applies to a shell script fetched over the network with root privileges, which is worth weighing before running it on a NAS holding more than media.

DSM 7 is the floor, and DSM 6.2 is explicitly out of scope

The dependency list is specific enough to filter candidates before you install anything. DSM 7.0-41890 or above is required, Video Station 2.4.6-1594 or above, SynoCommunity ffmpeg 7.0.2 or above, and Advanced Media Extensions 1.0.0-50001 or above with its licence loaded and activated. The SynoCli Video Driver is only needed if the machine has an Intel GPU. Media Server 1.1.0-0201 or above is optional, since it is the DLNA side of the package. DSM 6.2 is marked unsupported and the installer refuses it outright. The repository also carries Release_Notes and a texts directory, so the behaviour changes between builds are tracked in the tree rather than only in the README.

Licence terms are unclear, and the AME component deserves a separate look

The licence field for the repository is unknown, and the README does not state a licence for the wrapper code, which is unusual and worth noting for anyone planning to redistribute or adapt it. The two upstream forks it is based on, BenjaminPoncet and Alex Presso, are credited in the README, which is the clearest statement about provenance available. More delicate is the Advanced Media Extensions component. The README describes an AME licence patch in the installer that enables the AAC and HEVC codecs and their licence in the AME package up to DSM 7.2, and it notes that the wrapper must be uninstalled and reinstalled when that patch is applied. It is described as optional and not required to install the wrapper. Anyone running that part of the installer should read that section of the README and decide for themselves whether their own AME entitlement covers what they are enabling, because the project itself frames it with a use at your own risk warning.

GStreamer support widens the scope beyond Video Station

The most recent structural change in the project is GStreamer support, and it matters because it means the wrapper is not only about the Synology media packages. The description mentions FFmpeg and GStreamer wrappers, and the repository ships the aux_GStreamer.tar payload used by the installer for that path. Alongside it, the README states that offline transcoding and streaming of common container formats such as MKV, MP4 and AVI work, and that thumbnails in Video Station also work through the wrapper. That last point is the one most people miss. A wrapper that only handled playback would still leave the Video Station interface full of broken previews, so thumbnail generation was part of the problem being addressed.

Editorial conclusion

Wrapper_VideoStation fits a Synology owner running DSM 7 whose Video Station refuses to play DTS, EAC3 or TrueHD tracks and who already accepts installing SynoCommunity packages, since the wrapper delegates to that ffmpeg rather than replacing it. It does not fit a DSM 6.2 box, a low powered appliance without a GPU where only remux is possible, or anyone unwilling to re-run the patch after every DSM, Video Station or Advanced Media Extensions update. Before running installer.sh, confirm the DSM and Video Station versions meet the listed minimums, decide between the advanced and simplest wrappers, and read the licensing position of the Advanced Media Extensions component in the README for yourself.

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

1. darknebular/Wrapper_VideoStation on GitHub
2. Issues
3. README
4. Releases