[wyild1]

So, you're using FTP to the RAR archive of multiple episodes, and that gives you the "Buffering...." message - but navigating to an unrar-ed version and playing the AVI (over SMB/NFS or FTP?) works okay?

If that's the case, I'd immediately point a finger at having to FTP the whole RAR locally so it can be unrar-ed and then the file played... even if FTP allows some progressive playing (e.g. start playing while it's still downloading) for a normal file, I can't see that this would work on an archive, which may well need to be complete before it can be opened.

Ya, and if your NAS is in the same location as your HTPC, why are you using FTP and not NFS or SMB??

Cheers!