2011-02-23, 22:52
Hi - I have a general question or two about XBMC's capabilities with regard to playing local content - specifically JPEG slideshows and videos. I am thinking about building myself a new HTPC and instalilng XBMC on it.
Before buying all the hardware, I figured I'd give XBMC a spin on an old HTPC PC I built 5 years ago. All of my media is on a NAS with gigabit connection and I conncted the HTPC via wired, 100mbs.
Everything installed fine, but when I added the NAS source for my photos folder, loading up the file thumbnails, navigating the folders, etc was extermely slow, and the slideshow was painfully slow as well (when manually advancing there was a large delay before the next photo displayed).
My question is - is this most likely a limitation of the hardware and network specs of the PC I was testing with, or should I expect to see these kinds of speeds even on a new PC with updated specs? I was hoping that when I have gigabit HTPC connection and faster CPU/graphics card everything would be more speedy. Does XBMC have any kind of built-in caching so that it doesn't have to download all the directory info each time? How to most people set this up?
Also, one more question - I have videos that I take with my point and shoot camera mixed in my photos folder. Is there any way to play these videos when looking at photos as well, or do I have to navigate separately to the videos menu?
Thanks!
Before buying all the hardware, I figured I'd give XBMC a spin on an old HTPC PC I built 5 years ago. All of my media is on a NAS with gigabit connection and I conncted the HTPC via wired, 100mbs.
Everything installed fine, but when I added the NAS source for my photos folder, loading up the file thumbnails, navigating the folders, etc was extermely slow, and the slideshow was painfully slow as well (when manually advancing there was a large delay before the next photo displayed).
My question is - is this most likely a limitation of the hardware and network specs of the PC I was testing with, or should I expect to see these kinds of speeds even on a new PC with updated specs? I was hoping that when I have gigabit HTPC connection and faster CPU/graphics card everything would be more speedy. Does XBMC have any kind of built-in caching so that it doesn't have to download all the directory info each time? How to most people set this up?
Also, one more question - I have videos that I take with my point and shoot camera mixed in my photos folder. Is there any way to play these videos when looking at photos as well, or do I have to navigate separately to the videos menu?
Thanks!