[ATV2] Large HD videos stutter and drop frames over SMB
#46
ProphetVX Wrote:What does price point have to do with the quality of the product in relation to it's ability communicate with devices?

The AE is a run of the mill router, nothing special. The issues you describe certainly are installation or media based and not XBMC based, you don't need to take offence to the comments, you would be much better served taking them onboard.

Earlier you said 50% of your 720p videos are problematic. That certainly indicates a significant problem outside of XBMC, I'm not sure where you got your media from but if it's not network related I'd suggest you re-look at how you encode your media.

It isn't the media. None of my media fails anywhere else, on any other system. Including XBMC on my Xbox. It also seems to work perfectly fine for the other couple thousands of people on the private tracker I got it from. It's all perfectly done. Considering all of it works flawless everywhere, except one little hiccup on XBMC with my ATV2... it's XBMC on the ATV2 that has the issue.

That SAME media works perfectly fine on my ATV2 now running PLEX! That SAME media works perfectly fine everywhere, just not on XBMC. It's very obviously a bug in XBMC, that I really don't care about, as I've stated how trivial it is. Lets just leave it be, no one cares anymore.

I just find it very obnoxious that no one would think for a second that it could be a problem with XBMC (when it very obviously is). It absolutely must be a problem elsewhere! XBMC is flawless! Rabble rabble! Come on guys... nothing is flawless, and since I've ruled out the media/network by playing locally and with Plex. It's XBMC.

Now again, the whole setup is working fine. We don't need to talk in this post anymore. It isn't even relevant as I realized SMB wasn't the problem. SMB and NFS both work fine.
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#47
Now you have done it, gone and mentioned Plex.
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#48
davilla Wrote:Now you have done it, gone and mentioned Plex.

I figured that would raise the tensions. Just keep in mind, I only installed it to test the files/network so that I could rule them out. I don't like the way plex works and prefer XBMC over it any day!
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#49
stingray88 Wrote:It isn't the media. None of my media fails anywhere else, on any other system. Including XBMC on my Xbox. It also seems to work perfectly fine for the other couple thousands of people on the private tracker I got it from. It's all perfectly done. Considering all of it works flawless everywhere, except one little hiccup on XBMC with my ATV2... it's XBMC on the ATV2 that has the issue.

That SAME media works perfectly fine on my ATV2 now running PLEX! That SAME media works perfectly fine everywhere, just not on XBMC. It's very obviously a bug in XBMC, that I really don't care about, as I've stated how trivial it is. Lets just leave it be, no one cares anymore.

I just find it very obnoxious that no one would think for a second that it could be a problem with XBMC (when it very obviously is). It absolutely must be a problem elsewhere! XBMC is flawless! Rabble rabble! Come on guys... nothing is flawless, and since I've ruled out the media/network by playing locally and with Plex. It's XBMC.

Now again, the whole setup is working fine. We don't need to talk in this post anymore. It isn't even relevant as I realized SMB wasn't the problem. SMB and NFS both work fine.

You can't use Plex as a test because Plex reencodes all video sent to the ATV2 to an ATV2 optimal format, maxing out at 720.
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#50
The problem very well could be XBMC, but when it comes to the ATV2 it's really easy to clone someone else's setup, and see what they see. So when other people with the same ATV2 hardware, running the same XBMC build, can't reproduce the error, then it's only natural that they think the issue is on your end. I'm not saying it is, but understand that it's not just because they really like XBMC Wink
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#51
in the back of my mind I keep thinking about a network issue I had on my ipod touch a while ago (before the ATV2 was even released) and with a program called Air Video. The program didn't change, but an update for iOS came and suddenly the program would stop and buffer like mad. The developer on their website said that Apple had made some change to the iOS network stack that, in certain situations, just caused some wacky network behavior.

I'm guessing things like the network stack are one of the iOS things that are mostly unchanged between the ATV2 and other iOS devices, so maybe that has something to do with it. I bring this up because some people were like me and having lots of issues, then other people just looked at me like I was crazy and kept saying "it's your network!" or something else on my side. It was one of those weird things that only affected some people and not others even when just about everything was the same in both set ups.

It's probably a long shot and probably has nothing to do with this situation, but it might be worth looking into. In a bit here I'll see if I can find the support forum post for the Air Video app that was talking about the issue, and maybe get some more information to see if it applies here or not. Right now I got to get some sleep before I go to work tonight, but the thought popped back in my head and I thought I would mention it.
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#52
I finally found some time to test video playback with recent nighties, having buffering problems with some files a couple of months ago.

As long as audio was set to 16bit in Apple settings I was able to play Avatar 1080p without a problem over Airport Extreme (2009) 5GHz wifi.

File details are here

Edit: if audio is left on auto in Apple settings, video plays but with frequent buffering. Wired connection does not help if audio is not set to 16bit. So, in my case, buffering is clearly related to audio issues.

I'm using my TV's speakers (no receiver).
My skins:

Amber
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#53
Hi guys. My first post, wanted to throw in a little info.

First, my setup. I used to use my PS3 for all my movies. I would rip on my laptop, transfer by thumb drive and copy to, and play on the PS3. It worked great for over a year. Then I got the .mkv bug and was stuck. I tried just connecting my laptop to the tv via HDMI, but did not care for the 'unelegantness' of this solution.

I researched and decided to go with a network fileserver (Seagate BlackArmor 2GB box), a new router (ASUS RT-n56u) and the ATV2 (Jailbroken with Snowbreeze).

Got it all hooked up and using SMB, almost everything was fine. It is wired and only a laptop and an IPad use the WiFi. Installed NITO and XBMC and had a go. After sometime and experimentation I got it all working, but was crushed to discover that my 720p .mkv's stuttered dreadfully. This was frustrating. I only spent the cash to play HD stuff and it didnt work. I tweaked and played for a couple days with no success. Tried NFS and FTP and just couldnt get them to work. I am not a geek and just didn't have the ability.

Finally I was ready to give up. I removed the ASUS and put my old NetGear 802.11g router back in. Decided to try it just for grins, and guess what? Not a stutter. Not a lag. 6 gigs of Conan the Barbarian played without one single catch. Played another one without issue. All I can say is that when you think you have capable hardware, keep an open mind.

So, obviously, the router was setup wrong, but since the system works fine with the old router, I see no reason to go tweak the new one when I can return it and get some cash back.

Just my experience, YMMV.

Michael

TLDR - try a different router, you never know.
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#54
I found the posts where the Air Video devs described an iOS update having a strange buffering problem on some networks, but they don't seem to really be that useful

http://www.inmethod.com/forum/posts/list...page#15615

http://www.inmethod.com/forum/posts/list...page#15626

I still don't know if any of this is relevant to this situation, but you can see in that thread how the buffering seems to defy logic and will work just fine for the same people in a slightly different situation, and for some people will always work.
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#55
i thought i just throw in my experience.

at first i also thought it was some smb issue also, and turned to nfs. hell i even tried over sftp, ftp, upnp - and all that i got to work still stuttered... i first thought. hmmm nightly build might have something to fix this.. naaah. same stutter in movie... i then followed this post from page one, and then tried a clip copied over on apple tv.. stutter... hmm well.. guess im the unlucky dude like some other also . then i tried pause/play - and the stutter disapeared! hurrah... for 4 minuttes. then it started to load content. grrrr. i then found another post that said that it most likely was the sound, and not the image that was the problem there, so i changed apple tv settings > sounds to 16bit insted of auto... still load content.. not that much more thou... then i tried in the xbmc > settings > playback > to set it audio clock . and yay... it playes fine now after a pause/play in the start.

my setup: Qnap ts-212 > cat6 > d-link dir-655 > cat6 > apple tv2

hope this helps some - and hope devs can find that small issue there is for some...

i have an identical setup at my brothers house, (we bought exactly the same setup online from same stores) exept the router - he has some cheap china something something - ugly as hell - and he got no problem at all.. everything runs smooth... so understandable if devs cant find the hickup if they got a working system - im still glad i haven't tossed my old asrock htpc yet, thou it's a bit bulky vs. appletv2, it still runs a hell of a lot better. but i just had to test this and appletv2 didn't blow my budget Wink
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#56
explodedk Wrote:i thought i just throw in my experience.

at first i also thought it was some smb issue also, and turned to nfs. hell i even tried over sftp, ftp, upnp - and all that i got to work still stuttered... i first thought. hmmm nightly build might have something to fix this.. naaah. same stutter in movie... i then followed this post from page one, and then tried a clip copied over on apple tv.. stutter... hmm well.. guess im the unlucky dude like some other also . then i tried pause/play - and the stutter disapeared! hurrah... for 4 minuttes. then it started to load content. grrrr. i then found another post that said that it most likely was the sound, and not the image that was the problem there, so i changed apple tv settings > sounds to 16bit insted of auto... still load content.. not that much more thou... then i tried in the xbmc > settings > playback > to set it audio clock . and yay... it playes fine now after a pause/play in the start.

my setup: Qnap ts-212 > cat6 > d-link dir-655 > cat6 > apple tv2

hope this helps some - and hope devs can find that small issue there is for some...

i have an identical setup at my brothers house, (we bought exactly the same setup online from same stores) exept the router - he has some cheap china something something - ugly as hell - and he got no problem at all.. everything runs smooth... so understandable if devs cant find the hickup if they got a working system - im still glad i haven't tossed my old asrock htpc yet, thou it's a bit bulky vs. appletv2, it still runs a hell of a lot better. but i just had to test this and appletv2 didn't blow my budget Wink

xbmc > settings > playback > to set it audio clock

can you clarify this?
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#57
explodedk Wrote:i thought i just throw in my experience.

at first i also thought it was some smb issue also, and turned to nfs. hell i even tried over sftp, ftp, upnp - and all that i got to work still stuttered... i first thought. hmmm nightly build might have something to fix this.. naaah. same stutter in movie... i then followed this post from page one, and then tried a clip copied over on apple tv.. stutter... hmm well.. guess im the unlucky dude like some other also . then i tried pause/play - and the stutter disapeared! hurrah... for 4 minuttes. then it started to load content. grrrr. i then found another post that said that it most likely was the sound, and not the image that was the problem there, so i changed apple tv settings > sounds to 16bit insted of auto... still load content.. not that much more thou... then i tried in the xbmc > settings > playback > to set it audio clock . and yay... it playes fine now after a pause/play in the start.

my setup: Qnap ts-212 > cat6 > d-link dir-655 > cat6 > apple tv2

hope this helps some - and hope devs can find that small issue there is for some...

i have an identical setup at my brothers house, (we bought exactly the same setup online from same stores) exept the router - he has some cheap china something something - ugly as hell - and he got no problem at all.. everything runs smooth... so understandable if devs cant find the hickup if they got a working system - im still glad i haven't tossed my old asrock htpc yet, thou it's a bit bulky vs. appletv2, it still runs a hell of a lot better. but i just had to test this and appletv2 didn't blow my budget Wink

This is the same thing the Air Video people were talking about. Some routers, regardless of quality, seem to have something different about them that sets off the iOS networking stuff. Routers that should be just fine, and are fine on other platforms, are doing -something- different. However, if it is the same situation that happened with Air Video then it means the fix has to come from within iOS and not on the application side (or plug-in for an application, for ATV2).
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#58
CinemaPat Wrote:xbmc > settings > playback > to set it audio clock

can you clarify this?

go to system > Playback > Sync playback to display > a/v sync method : Audio clock

also in settings of ios i set the audio to 16bit insted of auto...
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[ATV2] Large HD videos stutter and drop frames over SMB0