[gato38]

Hi,

I have been using XBMC for years with the same hardware and same build.
One day I was unable to play any HD content due to buffering, xbmc freezing and corrupted playback.
I immediately blamed the network for this.
I replaced all the cat5e cable and upgraded everything to a gigabyte network.
The problem still continues.
I formatted both my pc's.
The PC holding the files and the HTPC playing the files.
same issue.
I tried dharma beta at the time and RC1, same issue.
I installed boxee which is based on xbmc and it did the same thing.
I will try rc2 but expect the same issue.
I am running windows7 , i can copy the hd content over my network in seconds yet I cant watch a 45 min tv show with the playback freezing and then stopping.
If I dont use xbmc and use media player classic that comes bundled with CCCP pack i can watch video flawlessly.
SD content has no issues.

I love xbmc and wish to use it again, any insight would be awesome.

Gato

[clipper99]

So on your freshly formatted PC, without any codec packs, using just the OS and XBMC it does this still?

[gato38]

Sadly, yes it does.
I even disabled the windows firewall on both PC's
Set the NIC speed to 1gigabit, and turned off all power saving.
and yes it still stutters, when it does it this xbmc pretty much freezes up until its done having its little fit.

Gato

[waltermalter]

How do you access the files? Do you have a mapped drive or do you use UNC paths?

I had this a couple of weeks ago and blamed the nightly build for it. Same as you, I did not have any problems with media player classic.
So I set media player classic as an external player in XBMC for all 1080/720 files and again I had buffering issues.

Those issues disappeared after I changes my UNC connections to mapped drives.

Maybe it helps ...

Walter

[gato38]

I've always used mapped drives for accessing my media on another pc.
When I played the files using MPC I was playing them through mapped drives as well without issues.

How do you set media player classic as an external player in xbmc?

[gato38]

Well I installed RC2 today and same issue with HD content.
I am at a total loss and will have to abandon XBMC now for something else

[gato38]

OK.
I had a spare pc lying around
core2duo E6750 2.66 ghz
4 gb memory
asus p5k SE mobo.

Exact same issue, any HD content and its buffering/stopping/stuttering within 5 mins.
I can transfer the file over my network in seconds.
It has a 1GB onboard nic as well
I've basically replaced all my networking gear reformatted all pc's involved and yet i'm still seeing the same issue.
This is with dharma RC2 btw.
Any help would be appreciated.

Gato

[clipper99]

What about local playback? I read your posts again and you didn't say you've tried that.

Video card? Going out on a limb and gonna say ATI? Perhaps you've upgraded drivers which is causing the issue? Anything similar to these symptoms with my clients is always caused by ATI. I own a HD4870 and have been ok with it though.

[rickardkk]

Same thing here. Never had any buffering problems before with any XBMC builds.
But since dharma I can't play HD mkvs without constant buffering.

No problem with other players (MPC-HC, WMP, VLC, MediaPortal, WMC).
Copy over network as fast as ever.

If I roll back to older versions of XBMC everything is fine again.

[gato38]

My problem exists with any build of XBMC and anything based on it IE Boxee.

What OS are you running?

I've always run 64 bit windows 7.
Starting to wonder if its a 32 bit app 64 bit os issue?

[gato38]

What about local playback? I read your posts again and you didn't say you've tried that.

Video card? Going out on a limb and gonna say ATI? Perhaps you've upgraded drivers which is causing the issue? Anything similar to these symptoms with my clients is always caused by ATI. I own a HD4870 and have been ok with it though.

Local playback is fine on all content.
but soon as I try to play anything HD over the gigabit network it stutters stops and freezes while playing.

I even went out on a limb and tried another PC with better specs and a Nvidia based vid card and same thing.

I even tried formatting my HTPC with a 32 bit win 7 pro, same thing.

[njumlin]

This problem has just started to appear for me. I haven't done any updates to XBMC except updating skins. However, the difference might be the Windows updates.
I will go through the windows updates that has been done and see if uninstalling any of those solves the issue.

I'm running Windows 7 Ultimate x64 with 4GB memory and builin Nvidia 8300. It has allways played HD smoothly before.