2013-04-17, 07:04
Hi all,
I've just tried out the Amazon plugin from the Bluecop repository, and it generally works well. I really appreciate this as I've bemoaned the lack of serious Amazon Prime players on Linux. The only major issue I'm having is a lack of buffering. It seems to only buffer about 1MB before saying "buffer 100%".
I assumed that I could adjust this by setting cachemembuffersize to something like 16777216(16MB) in advancedsettings.xml, but it doesn't seem to have any effect.
I am running on Ubuntu 12.04 and have tested with both XBMC v11 and XBMC v12.
Note that I am observing buffering both by network utilization and by the overlay that comes up with the 'o' key.
I tinkered for a few hours with this and saw no success at all. I've confirmed in the log file that advancedsettings.xml is being read. For comparison, the YouTube add-on works with expected behavior (pausing causes buffering to occur for an extended period of time and "cache:" field increases into the MB's). With Amazon add-on, I have tested with both cachemembuffersize=0 (unlimited file based buffering) and various positive values to no effect.
Extensive Googling suggests that most people's problems like this occur because cachemembuffersize is ignored for "local" connections (i.e. NFS,SMB,etc.) and only used for "stream" connections (like http,rtp,webdav). But I would assume that Amazon streaming falls into the latter category, so this shouldn't apply here.
Note that in YouTube, the buffer readout gets to 100% before the "cache:" number gets above zero. But in Amazon, the network usage drops to zero immediately after buffer gets to 100% (which seems to be about 1MB based on time), so Amazon add-on seems to be behaving as if the "cache:" buffer size is actually zero (no caching?).
With the small buffering that it is doing (~1MB) I am still able to play videos with reasonably good quality (I am using the 600Kbit setting), but it pauses to buffer every 15-20 minutes or so, disrupting playback. This appears to be due to minor temporary fluctuations in available bandwidth (someone checking their email on same network?) that would likely be eliminated if Amazon add-on would support a larger stream buffer (16MB should be a few minutes worth of a 600Kbit datastream).
Has anyone seen this issue before? Do other people see anything other than "cache:0 B" in the 'o' overlay while streamin an Amazon video?
I've just tried out the Amazon plugin from the Bluecop repository, and it generally works well. I really appreciate this as I've bemoaned the lack of serious Amazon Prime players on Linux. The only major issue I'm having is a lack of buffering. It seems to only buffer about 1MB before saying "buffer 100%".
I assumed that I could adjust this by setting cachemembuffersize to something like 16777216(16MB) in advancedsettings.xml, but it doesn't seem to have any effect.
I am running on Ubuntu 12.04 and have tested with both XBMC v11 and XBMC v12.
Note that I am observing buffering both by network utilization and by the overlay that comes up with the 'o' key.
I tinkered for a few hours with this and saw no success at all. I've confirmed in the log file that advancedsettings.xml is being read. For comparison, the YouTube add-on works with expected behavior (pausing causes buffering to occur for an extended period of time and "cache:" field increases into the MB's). With Amazon add-on, I have tested with both cachemembuffersize=0 (unlimited file based buffering) and various positive values to no effect.
Extensive Googling suggests that most people's problems like this occur because cachemembuffersize is ignored for "local" connections (i.e. NFS,SMB,etc.) and only used for "stream" connections (like http,rtp,webdav). But I would assume that Amazon streaming falls into the latter category, so this shouldn't apply here.
Note that in YouTube, the buffer readout gets to 100% before the "cache:" number gets above zero. But in Amazon, the network usage drops to zero immediately after buffer gets to 100% (which seems to be about 1MB based on time), so Amazon add-on seems to be behaving as if the "cache:" buffer size is actually zero (no caching?).
With the small buffering that it is doing (~1MB) I am still able to play videos with reasonably good quality (I am using the 600Kbit setting), but it pauses to buffer every 15-20 minutes or so, disrupting playback. This appears to be due to minor temporary fluctuations in available bandwidth (someone checking their email on same network?) that would likely be eliminated if Amazon add-on would support a larger stream buffer (16MB should be a few minutes worth of a 600Kbit datastream).
Has anyone seen this issue before? Do other people see anything other than "cache:0 B" in the 'o' overlay while streamin an Amazon video?
