[PInkGear]

I just purchased a Sony 65ZD9 Android TV.

My media is on a Synology DS418Play connected by Gigabit Ethernet to Synology RT2600ac, connected to the TV by 100Mbps Ethernet.

I use Kodi v18 Leia nightly, and access media from the NAS through NFS.

High bitrate 4K 10bit HDR plays great from the NAS when under 60Mbps, with occasional hiccups in higher bitrate scenes. Over that, I always crash against Sony’s very poor network hardware and optimisation. Higher bitrate media can be played fine from a directly mounted USB drive. I have tried with cat 5e, 6 and even cat 7 cables and differences are negligible if any. Cat 7 cable being used at the moment.

100Mbps Ethernet should be enough for 80-90 real Mbps, and the built-in Wifi ac ( 2x2 antenna 5Ghz band 80Mhz channel I believe), should play much higher bitrates flawlessly, but in reality also chokes from 60Mbps upwards. Both ethernet and wifi seem to be connected to the SOC through a USB  2.0 hub.

So, I want to try tweaking the Kodi caches as per https://kodi.wiki/view/HOW-TO%3AModify_the_video_cache

The default settings (no file) choked at around 58-60Mbps.

I then tried tweaking the caches:
<advancedsettings>
  <cache>
    <buffermode>1</buffermode>
    <memorysize>62914560</memorysize>
  </cache>
</advancedsettings>

This seems to work a tiny bit better but is still not good enough, and I am not really sure of what I am doing.

I understand that I will be always be limited by the poor throughput of the TV network hardware, but I ask for your help optimising the cache to mask Sony’s shitty hardware as much as possible.

Thanks,
P.s.: I have been also reading that uPnP might work a little better, but I don’t really know what it is and how to set it up.

[DaVu]

which protocol are you using for sharing your movies? SMB or NFS?

[PInkGear]

I use Kodi v18 Leia nightly, and access media from the NAS through NFS.

[HeresJohnny]

You'll always be restricted by internet speed and hardware. If those are really the limiting factors you can change the cache size as much as you want, it'll never fill up. Your best chance is to optimize your WiFi by finding best AP placement and channels. Wifi is always better in smart TV than ethernet.

Then you can try to set readfactor /readbufferfactor to 10 to fill your cache faster if possible.

[nickr]

You'll always be restricted by internet speed and hardware. If those are really the limiting factors you can change the cache size as much as you want, it'll never fill up. Your best chance is to optimize your WiFi by finding best AP placement and channels. Wifi is always better in smart TV than ethernet.

Then you can try to set readfactor /readbufferfactor to 10 to fill your cache faster if possible.

 What are you smoking?

This has nothing to do with internet speed, the internet is not involved.

Wifi better that wired ethernet? Pull the other one!

[PInkGear]

...the built-in Wifi ac ( 2x2 antenna 5Ghz band 80Mhz channel I believe), should play much higher bitrates flawlessly, but in reality also chokes from 60Mbps upwards. Both ethernet and wifi seem to be connected to the SOC through a USB  2.0 hub.

 Wifi does have a little bit more throughput than Ethernet in this TV , using ES File Explorer I can reach around 80Mbps more or less sustained, but is much less stable, so it ends choking from about the same 60Mbps as Ethernet.

I use a Synology RT2600ac, 50cm away from the TV. I have tried with no other wifi traffic with no discernable improvement. With wifi being somewhat faster in short bursts but less stable, I will keep on using Ethernet.

So, the throughput being what it is, outstanding job Sony, What different video cache settings would you suggest trying out?

Thanks,

[nickr]

Watching media is not "short bursts" - and anyway there is more to networking than raw short burst speed.

I suspect you might be running into other speed limitations, for example IO throughput on your NAS.

[DaVu]

@PInkGear sorry, overlooked that part.

What I noticed once I used my Sony Andrdoid TV and Kodi on it, that (for whatever reason) SMB was a bit better than NFS shares. My NAS shares both in that case. So I could switch that easily.

Maybe it´s worth a try.

Using mine on a wired network, btw.

[Ogglas]

I used Example 4 advancedsettings.xml:

xml:


<advancedsettings>

  <cache>

    <buffermode>1</buffermode>

    <memorysize>139460608</memorysize>

    <readfactor>20</readfactor>

  </cache>

</advancedsettings>

https://kodi.wiki/view/HOW-TO:Modify_the...#Example_4

Saved this file to a FAT32 USB drive and then inserted it into my Sony KD75XE8596 Android TV. Installed the app X-plore File Manager and enabled view hidden files. I could then copy the file to "Android/data/org.xbmc.kodi/files/.kodi/userdata/" and the new cache worked after restarting the app.