2014-12-13, 00:54
My VidOn box showed no OTA update, so I did the latest VMC and XBMC Gotham betas both manually. This update is very encouraging...
XBMC will now play (over wired SMB) my bitrate test clips (Birds and Jellyfish) up to 80Mbps smoothly. Before it was up to 60Mbps. It can almost handle 90Mbps. For NFS, as with my Fire TV, I cannot drill down to my shared folders on my NAS. FTV and VidOn can see the NFS share volumes, but not the actual movie/TV folders under them. So, to test via NFS, I used VidOn's file manager (which can browse NFS shares just fine) to get to the bitrate test clips and 3D movie files, and chose XBMC as the playback app. Via NFS, I can get up to 90Mbps to play (fairly smoothly), so a small, but noticeable improvement over SMB.
So, I went back to my 'Sin City: A Dame to Kill For' BD 3D ISO, which I had buffering issues with in the previous VidOn XBMC beta after the 30-40 minute mark. I skipped ahead to about 40 mins, then let it play. When chapter-skipping ahead, I was getting buffering, so I was already ready for disappointment, but actual playback was fairly solid after that. I didn't watch the whole rest of the movie, but about 15 minutes. No buffering! Great. But, what I did get were a few frame skips here and there. So, I think VidOn is on to something encouraging here, and they need to continue optimizing. Also, if we could (or maybe it's just me) get XBMC to drill down into NFS share folders, that would be better to use instead for that extra headroom it seems to provide over SMB. A small issue is also occasional XBMC lock-ups and box rebooting itself; rare, but there.
I need to watch a 3D ISO from start to finish this weekend and make sure buffering is really gone.
XBMC will now play (over wired SMB) my bitrate test clips (Birds and Jellyfish) up to 80Mbps smoothly. Before it was up to 60Mbps. It can almost handle 90Mbps. For NFS, as with my Fire TV, I cannot drill down to my shared folders on my NAS. FTV and VidOn can see the NFS share volumes, but not the actual movie/TV folders under them. So, to test via NFS, I used VidOn's file manager (which can browse NFS shares just fine) to get to the bitrate test clips and 3D movie files, and chose XBMC as the playback app. Via NFS, I can get up to 90Mbps to play (fairly smoothly), so a small, but noticeable improvement over SMB.
So, I went back to my 'Sin City: A Dame to Kill For' BD 3D ISO, which I had buffering issues with in the previous VidOn XBMC beta after the 30-40 minute mark. I skipped ahead to about 40 mins, then let it play. When chapter-skipping ahead, I was getting buffering, so I was already ready for disappointment, but actual playback was fairly solid after that. I didn't watch the whole rest of the movie, but about 15 minutes. No buffering! Great. But, what I did get were a few frame skips here and there. So, I think VidOn is on to something encouraging here, and they need to continue optimizing. Also, if we could (or maybe it's just me) get XBMC to drill down into NFS share folders, that would be better to use instead for that extra headroom it seems to provide over SMB. A small issue is also occasional XBMC lock-ups and box rebooting itself; rare, but there.
I need to watch a 3D ISO from start to finish this weekend and make sure buffering is really gone.
