[websee]

Setup:

I have a Raspberry Pi running OPENELEC with a Gotham XBMC build.
Attached via Wifi to my Synology NAS, streaming media via NFS.

Since the Wifi connection is unstable (via LAN all is fine) and I have shuttering video I decided to turn on full buffering.

advancedsettings.xml:

Code:

<network>
    <cachemembuffersize>52428800</cachemembuffersize>
    <buffermode>1</buffermode>
    <readbufferfactor>20.0</readbufferfactor>
</network>

MKVs up to 1080p play mostly fine after this.
But when playing an MKV from within a RAR archive the buffering goes up to 5%, then "Buffer Cache full" error comes up, playback starts and pauses roughly every 5-10 minutes for a minute each time.

I have tried setting cachemembuffersize to 0, but this just freezes XBMC when trying to play back any video.

Any suggestions?

[SiliconKid]

In all seriousness:

1. You shouldn't be trying to play that kind of media over WiFi.

2. You shouldn't be trying to play that kind of media over WiFi from inside a RAR archive. On-the-fly extraction from the RAR is what's probably causing the delay.

3. You definitely shouldn't be trying to do either 1 and especially not 2 on a Pi.

WiFi is not reliable enough for proper reliable full HD 1080p streaming in most cases, but expecting a Pi to handle real time decompression on-the-fly as well as decoding the 1080p video etc. is just really asking too much.

Playing media directly out of a RAR archive is a pretty neat thing to be able to do, but you need a powerful machine to handle that overheard and a Raspberry Pi is definitely not an appropriate platform for that in my opinion.

[websee]

This is not very helpful. I am unable to get a cable into the bedroom where this Pi resides and I would prefer not to have to fork out £100 for powerline adapters.

[ironic_monkey]

extract the bugger, does it stream then? if so, you are out of ponies..

[fritsch]

...

[SiliconKid]

@websee:

I'm only telling you the reality of your situation.

You are trying to do something that simply is not going to work with the equipment you have.

Trying to get 1080p streaming working reliably over WiFi is hard enough. Trying to do it with a Raspberry Pi, with the additional overhead of extracting media from the RAR files on-the-fly is simply not viable.

Furthermore, there is no reason to keep your files in the RAR files. It's highly unlikely you are gaining any compression that way because any MKV video is already compressed in a way that is unlikely to compress much more, but even more importantly you are putting an additional layer between the media and the player that does not need to be there and that is causing nothing but trouble.

Extract the files from the RAR archives and play them natively, that will immediately resolve all kinds of issues.

[wsnipex]

*must resist urge to discuss the viability of keeping media files in rars*

[websee]

I managed to fix the problem by setting up rar2fs on my NAS and binding the video library to that.
Had to switch to SMB mounts though since NFS doesn't support FUSE filesystems.

[nickr]

Can't understand why people are so hung up on keeping stuff in rars.

[Kib]

It provides little to none use and several disadvantages