2014-11-15, 21:33
Have tried many combinations over many months in order to play video from a remote site with XBMC and Kodi. Have not found any but two solutions to be able to play my test AVI movies 100%. One solution at the server end was using an ASUS router set up with USB drives and WebDavS - but this creates many other problems eventually making this not acceptable for me - and the second was to set up my Windows 7 server for the bundled WebDAV - but this was very difficult indeed and I don't recommend it.
For the other solutions that did not work the basic issues are:
Using FTP several of my AVI movies can't play over the internet (but can over a LAN) no matter which server software is set up on my Windows 7 PC. Using WebDavS, XBMC can play tested movies 100% but, servers that I have tested with have problems with XBMC non-conformance to standards. XBMC ignores the cookie, which I believe is against the RFC for a HTTP client. So every connection appears to be a new client, and a new cookie is assigned on each. Further, the XBMC client is making unnecessary connections - it makes a new connection to check if a file is there, then makes another connection to get the file, ignoring the fact the only reason it knew about the file was that it had just done a dir listing to learn of the file, etc.
So, bottom line is that a decent solution to play all movies that include .AVI files has eluded me. This is due to a combination of the FTP protocol bugs that cause timeouts when creating the DeMuxer, or processing the movie setup in less than 30 seconds in general - so can't play enough movies, and the WebDAV protocol that is too difficult to get to work with the bundled WebDAV server in Windows 7 and 8 and is non-conforming so does not work over time with other WebDAV server software. I have XBMC logs as .doc or .pdf files (just the lines relevant to playing the test movies) from clients playing 3 movies using both FTP and WebDavS on the LAN and across the internet. On the LAN using both WebDavS and FTP all succeed. Over the Internet with WebDav HTTPS all succeed - but only if using an unlimited connections type server, otherwise all eventually fail - and with using FTP, 2 out of 3 fail.
Importantly, if I convert the two .AVI files that fail over the internet using FTP to .MKV - using MKVMERGE - XBMC using FTP opens them quickly and plays them fine. File size and characteristics are exactly the same, just the wrapper is changed.
For the testing I have Kodi beta 2 and XBMC 13.2 running on an Ethernet connected Windows 64 bit PC at the remote (client) site - which has an ISP connection with 10mb down and 1.5mb up, ping 65ms and jitter 7ms - and at the server site a Windows 7 64 bit PC - with an ISP connection 25mb down and 10mb up, ping 8ms and jitter 1ms.
The links to a summary chart and then XBMC log file info for the testing of the 3 video files played over a LAN and internet using FTP and WebDavS protocols, is below:
.PDF: https://www.dropbox.com/s/onctzo4k60mb7y...S.pdf?dl=0
.DOC: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ii75bimxiub67f...S.doc?dl=0
The links to Mediainfo text files for the 3 .AVI test files is below:
.TXT: https://www.dropbox.com/s/cpy8pd43ep663x...o.txt?dl=0
.TXT: https://www.dropbox.com/s/4lp0am95vep1e1...o.txt?dl=0
.TXT: https://www.dropbox.com/s/j4nho0y6ra1ext...o.txt?dl=0
The link to the Mediainfo text file for one of the .AVI files that was converted to .MKV which then worked over the internet with FTP is below:
.TXT: https://www.dropbox.com/s/8m8bh45km80bzx...o.txt?dl=0
My favorite server software by far is CrushFTP. The name is a bit deceptive, as it also handles other protocols than FTP, including WebDAV and SFTP. The support to me from the founder Ben Spink, is best described as "above and beyond" and he would be willing to work at debugging the issues with the XBMC code development team, if requested. It was CrushFTP that I used for the tests to generate the logs today.
Any ideas if I should post this elsewhere or any ideas to get problems solved?
For the other solutions that did not work the basic issues are:
Using FTP several of my AVI movies can't play over the internet (but can over a LAN) no matter which server software is set up on my Windows 7 PC. Using WebDavS, XBMC can play tested movies 100% but, servers that I have tested with have problems with XBMC non-conformance to standards. XBMC ignores the cookie, which I believe is against the RFC for a HTTP client. So every connection appears to be a new client, and a new cookie is assigned on each. Further, the XBMC client is making unnecessary connections - it makes a new connection to check if a file is there, then makes another connection to get the file, ignoring the fact the only reason it knew about the file was that it had just done a dir listing to learn of the file, etc.
So, bottom line is that a decent solution to play all movies that include .AVI files has eluded me. This is due to a combination of the FTP protocol bugs that cause timeouts when creating the DeMuxer, or processing the movie setup in less than 30 seconds in general - so can't play enough movies, and the WebDAV protocol that is too difficult to get to work with the bundled WebDAV server in Windows 7 and 8 and is non-conforming so does not work over time with other WebDAV server software. I have XBMC logs as .doc or .pdf files (just the lines relevant to playing the test movies) from clients playing 3 movies using both FTP and WebDavS on the LAN and across the internet. On the LAN using both WebDavS and FTP all succeed. Over the Internet with WebDav HTTPS all succeed - but only if using an unlimited connections type server, otherwise all eventually fail - and with using FTP, 2 out of 3 fail.
Importantly, if I convert the two .AVI files that fail over the internet using FTP to .MKV - using MKVMERGE - XBMC using FTP opens them quickly and plays them fine. File size and characteristics are exactly the same, just the wrapper is changed.
For the testing I have Kodi beta 2 and XBMC 13.2 running on an Ethernet connected Windows 64 bit PC at the remote (client) site - which has an ISP connection with 10mb down and 1.5mb up, ping 65ms and jitter 7ms - and at the server site a Windows 7 64 bit PC - with an ISP connection 25mb down and 10mb up, ping 8ms and jitter 1ms.
The links to a summary chart and then XBMC log file info for the testing of the 3 video files played over a LAN and internet using FTP and WebDavS protocols, is below:
.PDF: https://www.dropbox.com/s/onctzo4k60mb7y...S.pdf?dl=0
.DOC: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ii75bimxiub67f...S.doc?dl=0
The links to Mediainfo text files for the 3 .AVI test files is below:
.TXT: https://www.dropbox.com/s/cpy8pd43ep663x...o.txt?dl=0
.TXT: https://www.dropbox.com/s/4lp0am95vep1e1...o.txt?dl=0
.TXT: https://www.dropbox.com/s/j4nho0y6ra1ext...o.txt?dl=0
The link to the Mediainfo text file for one of the .AVI files that was converted to .MKV which then worked over the internet with FTP is below:
.TXT: https://www.dropbox.com/s/8m8bh45km80bzx...o.txt?dl=0
My favorite server software by far is CrushFTP. The name is a bit deceptive, as it also handles other protocols than FTP, including WebDAV and SFTP. The support to me from the founder Ben Spink, is best described as "above and beyond" and he would be willing to work at debugging the issues with the XBMC code development team, if requested. It was CrushFTP that I used for the tests to generate the logs today.
Any ideas if I should post this elsewhere or any ideas to get problems solved?
