2013-11-03, 11:03
I have an ATV2 (os 5.2.1) connected to a XBMC PC (vista basic 32-bit) via gigabit ethernet. XBMC is the only app on the ATV2 (other than the standard ones) and I haven't got any other services at all. XBMC on the ATV2 is version 12.2, running the Confluence skin (with all its defaults).
Most of the videos I have have rebuffering issues. Usually this happens about 5 seconds into anything I play (any source resolution), and then at around 40 seconds, and then "frequently" throughout the videos, depending on their resolution. Mostly they are unwatchable.
Many of my videos also experience severe audio lagging, of about 5 seconds difference, rendering everything like that also unwatchable.
I've verified that the media experiencing the audio lag is playing properly on both the host PC, as well as through other types of clients. For instance, I can serve the files to my iPad2 through Air Video (over wifi) without any issues (no audio lag, etc); I can play them on my XBMC clients on XP (via lan), Android (via wifi) and Mac (via wifi) clients, which use SMB to connect to the host PC.
I consulted the wiki to find out possible avenues for making this work on the ATV2 and have done the simple stuff like mentioned here which references here which in turn references here (which is for Win7, so I haven't tried it on Vista yet). Some people tend to blame SMB on windows, and I *would* happily switch to something else, if available. I've looked at FreeNFS for windows, which various people love just does not work for me. The app is broken and doesn't run properly on my Vista. I have no idea how to set up a uPnP server on Vista, or even a FTP server. Would these be viable options instead of SMB? Is that even likely to be my problem?
Most of the videos I have have rebuffering issues. Usually this happens about 5 seconds into anything I play (any source resolution), and then at around 40 seconds, and then "frequently" throughout the videos, depending on their resolution. Mostly they are unwatchable.
Many of my videos also experience severe audio lagging, of about 5 seconds difference, rendering everything like that also unwatchable.
I've verified that the media experiencing the audio lag is playing properly on both the host PC, as well as through other types of clients. For instance, I can serve the files to my iPad2 through Air Video (over wifi) without any issues (no audio lag, etc); I can play them on my XBMC clients on XP (via lan), Android (via wifi) and Mac (via wifi) clients, which use SMB to connect to the host PC.
I consulted the wiki to find out possible avenues for making this work on the ATV2 and have done the simple stuff like mentioned here which references here which in turn references here (which is for Win7, so I haven't tried it on Vista yet). Some people tend to blame SMB on windows, and I *would* happily switch to something else, if available. I've looked at FreeNFS for windows, which various people love just does not work for me. The app is broken and doesn't run properly on my Vista. I have no idea how to set up a uPnP server on Vista, or even a FTP server. Would these be viable options instead of SMB? Is that even likely to be my problem?