2012-02-08, 02:53
TheFonz Wrote:Is there a way to increase the buffer time? Why does this happen then? Surely most people have some of their content on a shared network drive?
All of my content is on a network drive, but a bigger buffer just masks the problem. The core of the problem is that you have insufficient bandwidth between your NAS and your XBMC box (with one possible exception). This normally is because of wireless (which you should never use with a media server) , slow network (10Mbps) or congested network. A better network card (wired) and gigabit switch or router is cheap compared to any other solution. You can often get a cheap gigabit switch for around $40.
In a few cases, the problem is contention for the disk on which the media is stored. There is no free lunch, people. You cannot use a computer at 100% capacity while it serves up media. If you are thrashing the disk (especially due to excessive paging), it will make a lousy server for media.
If the bandwidth you need to keep XBMC displaying a show is greater than the smallest part of the pipe between it and the media, it will always fail. The idea of extra buffer will only cover very short-term drops in bandwidth. Even if you set aside a huge buffer, it would delay the start of the content and consumer the much more expensive memory on the XBMC box. Cost of faster switch < cost of massive memory for XBMC.
Sorry to get on the soapbox, but people often throw out buffering as a solution. It is, but only when you are willing to wait for 50% the duration of your content. For a trailer on youtube, buffering works because some people will wait a minute for a two-minute trailer to start. PseudoTV runs playlists that are, in essence, infinitely long. Who is willing to wait half of infinity to make sure it doesn't run out of buffer?