Can I use a Media Streamer to watch HD recordings from a USB stick?

Your mention of an 'old low performance NAS' and '2 different NAS drives' makes me wonder if this is a standard USB drive connected to a port on your router (rather than a 'proper' NAS)? Also, is the network connection wired or WiFi?

The older NAS I am using is a D-Link ShareCenter which is connected by network cable to a Vigor 2860 Router. I am accessing the NAS by WiFi from the Cyclone.

The other NAS is a Synology DS215j which is connected in the same way.
 
WiFi speed on that box is a possibility. I tried a broadband speedtest on that box followed immediately by the same test on a tablet in the same location. I know that includes internet speed variations but the results were odd.

Cyclone started at less than 1Mb/s download before eventually getting to 4Mb/s. Upload speed was 12Mb/s.

Tablet downloaded at 67Mb/s and upload 19Mb/s.

Repeated the test for the cyclone several times with similar results. First time I have ever seen a speedtest where download is less than upload speed!
 
I would expect buffering at the speeds you mention. I wonder if the tablet is connecting on the 5GHz band while the Cyclone is using 2.4GHz. That could explain the disparity in speeds if your 2.4GHz environment is congested.
 
Both on 2.4GHz. The router names the 5GHz differently so I am sure they are both on the same one.

I'll try a wired connection for the Cyclone tomorrow and see if that gives a different result.
 
Another update:

I tried the Cyclone connected to the network via a network cable and it streamed the file from the D-Link NAS without any problem using Kodi. (The file was a 2 hour film from Channel 4 HD.)

As this involved moving from the room where the household TV is to the study where the router is I then tried it on wireless to see if I could spend some time getting it to work. To my surprise it worked straight away with no buffering issues and it also allowed fast forwarding with an almost instant start when I reached the point I wanted.

The only suggestion I have is that it might be more sensitive than other kit I have to the WiFi signal strength.
 
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