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ATV2 and XBMC bufferring - Printable Version

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- g-off - 2011-09-21

XBMC can't pull the data quickly enough.
Are you using wireless? If so the signal might be getting interference or is weak where the ATV is.


- Memphiz - 2011-09-22

The problem is. ATV2 is not able to hardware decode xvide mpeg4 (only h.264 is hardware decoded). Your file is something like 720p (with cut off black bars). The ATV2 CPU has not enough power for decoding this in software.

Xvid works on SD resolutions. Thats your problem. Use H.264 encoded videos if they are bigger then SD...


- Jupiter - 2011-10-04

Like many others, I'm having difficulty and am wondering if there's some solution I haven't tried. Most seem to be focused on the Windows 7 aspect of it, but I can stream without difficulty to my macbook pro, just not the ATV2.

The files are H.264 and I'm connected with gigabit ethernet, yet on the apple TV my videos are buffering every 10-15 seconds. I've also tried editing the registry in windows to no success to optimize settings for file sharing. Running out of ideas here and was hoping someone could steer me towards a working solution.


- jd2157 - 2011-10-04

Jupiter Wrote:Like many others, I'm having difficulty and am wondering if there's some solution I haven't tried. Most seem to be focused on the Windows 7 aspect of it, but I can stream without difficulty to my macbook pro, just not the ATV2.

The files are H.264 and I'm connected with gigabit ethernet, yet on the apple TV my videos are buffering every 10-15 seconds. I've also tried editing the registry in windows to no success to optimize settings for file sharing. Running out of ideas here and was hoping someone could steer me towards a working solution.

Without details on what build of XBMC and iOS you're running there's not much anyone can do to help.

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=92480


- papampi - 2011-10-04

I have weird experience last month so i'm going to share it with you may be it helps some one !
my setup is atv2 xbmc HDMI > Pioneer LX83 HDMI > speaker + screen
so in my xbmc audio settings
Dolby Digital (AC3) capable receiver : yes
DTS Capable Receiver : yes
last month my AV Receiver had a problem so i sent it for repair and i changed my setup to :
atv2 xbmc HDMI > Samsung lcd HDMI
and as my samsung did not support dts i changed my audio settings to :
Dolby Digital (AC3) capable receiver : no
DTS Capable Receiver : no
for 2 weeks i did not watch any mkv 720p movies so i had no problem !
when i get my AV Receiver back I connected it as it was before then the mkv 720p files start to buffer !
i checked every thing and could not find the problem !then suddenly when i was going through all the settings in xbmc i saw the audio and i return them to my default config
and voila every thing goes smooth again with no buffer problem !!!!


- Memphiz - 2011-10-04

and a mediainfo dump of the used movie ...


- Memphiz - 2011-10-04

papampi Wrote:I have weird experience last month so i'm going to share it with you may be it helps some one !
my setup is atv2 xbmc HDMI > Pioneer LX83 HDMI > speaker + screen
so in my xbmc audio settings
Dolby Digital (AC3) capable receiver : yes
DTS Capable Receiver : yes
last month my AV Receiver had a problem so i sent it for repair and i changed my setup to :
atv2 xbmc HDMI > Samsung lcd HDMI
and as my samsung did not support dts i changed my audio settings to :
Dolby Digital (AC3) capable receiver : no
DTS Capable Receiver : no
for 2 weeks i did not watch any mkv 720p movies so i had no problem !
when i get my AV Receiver back I connected it as it was before then the mkv 720p files start to buffer !
i checked every thing and could not find the problem !then suddenly when i was going through all the settings in xbmc i saw the audio and i return them to my default config
and voila every thing goes smooth again with no buffer problem !!!!

What exactly is your problem then? When deactivating ac3/dts all 5.1 movies have to be mixed down to stereo. Depending on the movie resolution the atv2 cpu has not enough power in reserve for doing this without stuttering. So this is normal behaviour on that small plattform imho. (any other devs feel free to correct me)


- papampi - 2011-10-04

Memphiz Wrote:What exactly is your problem then? When deactivating ac3/dts all 5.1 movies have to be mixed down to stereo. Depending on the movie resolution the atv2 cpu has not enough power in reserve for doing this without stuttering. So this is normal behaviour on that small plattform imho. (any other devs feel free to correct me)

I dont have any problem !
I know atv2 cant handle that much !
and that was what i'm telling so some people with buffer problem check in to the audio settings too !!!


- Memphiz - 2011-10-04

papampi Wrote:I dont have any problem !
I know atv2 cant handle that much !
and that was what i'm telling so some people with buffer problem check in to the audio settings too !!!

ahhh ... got you know ...


- kitus_san - 2011-10-16

Hi,

When I got my ATV2 and jailbroke it, I got soo happy when I finally got XBMC running... I tested mkv files (12GB max) and worked flawlessly, I also tested ISO DVDs and bam, it worked as well!!! I got soo excited!!!

Today I've tested a Full BluRay, and the AppleTV kept buffering the whole time and it rebooted after a couple of minutes of choppy playback.

Memphiz Wrote:The problem is. ATV2 is not able to hardware decode xvide mpeg4 (only h.264 is hardware decoded). Your file is something like 720p (with cut off black bars). The ATV2 CPU has not enough power for decoding this in software.

It could ver well be that I can't quite understand the DLNA standard... why has the device to decode anything? isn't that suppose to happen on the DLNA/UPnP server?

What is otherwise the difference between SMB mounting one share and receiving the content encapsulated in DLNA messages?


- g-off - 2011-10-16

kitus_san Wrote:Hi,

When I got my ATV2 and jailbroke it, I got soo happy when I finally got XBMC running... I tested mkv files (12GB max) and worked flawlessly, I also tested ISO DVDs and bam, it worked as well!!! I got soo excited!!!

Today I've tested a Full BluRay, and the AppleTV kept buffering the whole time and it rebooted after a couple of minutes of choppy playback.



It could ver well be that I can't quite understand the DLNA standard... why has the device to decode anything? isn't that suppose to happen on the DLNA/UPnP server?

What is otherwise the difference between SMB mounting one share and receiving the content encapsulated in DLNA messages?

Do you want an explanation on what DNLA is or do you want to know why your video is not playing properly?

DNLA servers stream media using http which is a very lightweight (fast) protocol compared to smb. Sometimes they will transcode the data from one format to another if the renderer(player) is incapable of doing so itself.

If it is the later, you will need to provide some information like a logfile and a mediainfo dump.


- kitus_san - 2011-10-16

g-off Wrote:If it is the later, you will need to provide some information like a logfile and a mediainfo dump.

Hi,

thanks for your response.

I have a AppleTV2 running 4.3 (2557)

This is the tutorial that I've followed when installing XBMC http://www.fansdeapple.com/showthread.php?t=17297

Since it is in Spanish, I just basically added http://apt.awkwardtv.org to my sources.list and then installed nitoTV, and XBMC from there on.

My XBMC built is 20110623-62171b3 (Compiled: Jun 23 2011)

I've left the logs here:

Crashlog http://pastebin.com/E5E25dH9
Syslog http://pastebin.com/E5E25dH9
xbmclog http://pastebin.com/eyd87YKh

here is the mediainfo dump

Code:
General
ID                                       : 0 (0x0)
Complete name                            : 00002.m2ts
Format                                   : BDAV
Format/Info                              : Blu-ray Video
File size                                : 27.7 GiB
Duration                                 : 1h 48mn
Overall bit rate mode                    : Variable
Overall bit rate                         : 36.4 Mbps
Maximum Overall bit rate                 : 48.0 Mbps

Video
ID                                       : 4113 (0x1011)
Menu ID                                  : 1 (0x1)
Format                                   : AVC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                           : [email protected]
Format settings, CABAC                   : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames                : 4 frames
Codec ID                                 : 27
Duration                                 : 1h 48mn
Bit rate mode                            : Variable
Bit rate                                 : 29.8 Mbps
Maximum bit rate                         : 35.0 Mbps
Width                                    : 1 920 pixels
Height                                   : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9
Frame rate                               : 23.976 fps
Standard                                 : NTSC
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.599
Stream size                              : 22.6 GiB (82%)
Color primaries                          : BT.709-5, BT.1361, IEC 61966-2-4, SMPTE RP177
Transfer characteristics                 : BT.709-5, BT.1361
Matrix coefficients                      : BT.709-5, BT.1361, IEC 61966-2-4 709, SMPTE RP177

Audio #1
ID                                       : 4352 (0x1100)
Menu ID                                  : 1 (0x1)
Format                                   : DTS
Format/Info                              : Digital Theater Systems
Format profile                           : MA / Core
Muxing mode                              : Stream extension
Codec ID                                 : 134
Duration                                 : 1h 48mn
Bit rate mode                            : Variable
Bit rate                                 : 2 017 Kbps / 1 510 Kbps
Channel(s)                               : 6 channels
Channel positions                        : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth                                : 16 bits
Compression mode                         : Lossless / Lossy

Audio #2
ID                                       : 4353 (0x1101)
Menu ID                                  : 1 (0x1)
Format                                   : DTS
Format/Info                              : Digital Theater Systems
Format profile                           : MA / Core
Muxing mode                              : Stream extension
Codec ID                                 : 134
Duration                                 : 1h 48mn
Bit rate mode                            : Variable
Bit rate                                 : 1 561 Kbps / 1 510 Kbps
Channel(s)                               : 6 channels
Channel positions                        : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth                                : 16 bits
Compression mode                         : Lossless / Lossy

Audio #3
ID                                       : 4354 (0x1102)
Menu ID                                  : 1 (0x1)
Format                                   : DTS
Format/Info                              : Digital Theater Systems
Format profile                           : MA / Core
Muxing mode                              : Stream extension
Codec ID                                 : 134
Duration                                 : 1h 48mn
Bit rate mode                            : Variable
Bit rate                                 : 1 558 Kbps / 1 510 Kbps
Channel(s)                               : 2 channels
Channel positions                        : Front: L R
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth                                : 16 bits
Compression mode                         : Lossless / Lossy

I hope I've provided the information you guys may need (checked this guide http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=92480).

So far I seem to have understood that AppleTV is capable of hardware decoding h264 files but the rest of filetypes need to be software decoded... that's why asked about remote transcoding when working with a DLNA server...

Looking forward to your responses.

Thanks a million,

Marc


- Ned Scott - 2011-10-17

You need to upgrade to the latest nightlies: http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=HOW-TO:Install_XBMC_on_Apple_TV_2#Installing_the_latest_nightly_build


- xanadum - 2011-10-17

Hi,

I hadn't used my atv2 for a while as I got a new TV recently which can play 1080p/DTS MKV from USB, however I decided to see how xbmc was getting on.

I was previously using I think (June) stable release and had for me this version worked really well, all very smooth no problems.
I updated to the current stable build and have had nothing but buffering problems and a large percentage of my movies no longer play at all.

Ideally I would like to revert to a historical stable build just to see however I could not find it so installed a nightly build (15 Oct 2011). It is slightly better however not watchable.

All movies are streamed from my QNAP using smb on a 100Mb wired LAN.

Could be a issue with connection although other devices on network have no issues however firmware of QNAP has been updated since xbmc last used so is a possibility, would like to rule it out regardless.

I have noticed in the xbmc.log quite a few 'unix' errors relating to permissions denied while the movies plugin is running however other devices can access fine while using a guest account. I have disabled this plugin to cut out log noise for now.


- Juan_Garcia - 2011-10-17

I don´t understand why I can to play 1080p (12 GB) from TimeCapsule withouth bufferring and a divx 720 file (500 MB) it´s bufferring constantly. This can´t be a SMB o network unique problem....

Memphiz Wrote:The problem is. ATV2 is not able to hardware decode xvide mpeg4 (only h.264 is hardware decoded). Your file is something like 720p (with cut off black bars). The ATV2 CPU has not enough power for decoding this in software.

Xvid works on SD resolutions. Thats your problem. Use H.264 encoded videos if they are bigger then SD...

are you really sure ATV2 can´t decode mpeg4 with hardware decoder? I tested to encode a movie in MPEG4 with Handbrake and mp4 container, I could run with hardware acceleration in iPhone 4 (AVPlayer).