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I'm using:
Dharma nightly (not sure offhand which one)
Alaksa Revistied
Acer Revo 1600
Connecting to a NAS directly with RJ45
Experiencing intermittent buffering every 30-45mins or so on 1080p and 720p MKVs. I stream the same movies just fine using MPC, so it has something to do with either XBMC or the skin.
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I should mention I too am connected using Samba share.
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Hey guys...Just wondering if you think an upgrade will help my buffering situation. I made a few changes at once, so its hard to pinpoint the problem. (my change was forced)
My original setup:
HP 5150 AMD Athlon 64
3-4 GB RAM (don't remember)
40 GB Intel SSD
1 TB WD Caviar Green Local HD
Camelot
New Setup:
Revo 3610
Win7 HomePremium
2 GB RAM
Dharma Beta 3
Remote Media Server
Win 7 Pro x64
HP 5150 AMD Athlon 64
80 GB SATA HD
1 TB WD Caviar Green Local HD
Due to inability to run wires, I am using the following networking setup:
WRT54G running Tomato (100 mb)
Netgear powerline networking
My transfer rate is capped at about 4.7 MB/s, roughly 37.6 mbps.
Randomly while watching, I'll have normal shows (not full 720 or 1080) which are 350 MB/1hr or 175MB/30 min that need to buffer. Sometimes 2 times in 2 minutes, sometimes 2 times over 30 minutes, sometimes 1 time every 45 minutes or not at all.
So..would a gigabit router help out? Or could the problem be related to Dharma Beta 3?
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elupus
Team-XBMC Developer
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gbit network is not required.. they could even be the culprit. if the cables are not good enough, you will have dropouts on the cables. an old fashined 100mb switch might work way better on the sames lines.
also i've got no clue how good poweline networking equipment is. it could easily cause dropouts too.
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prae5
Team-XBMC Forum Moderator
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As above gigabit is not required 100mb is more than enough. Likewise, badly set up gigabit can cause issues with auto detecting linkspeed and duplex.
I've used powerline in the past too and had mixed success. Peek transfer was fine, however sustained throughput could be a bit flakey at times. In one house it worked fine, however in another it was a non starter for media streaming.
Stick a 100mb switch in place and connect your xbmc box to it and the other pc. If it works, then your powerline is at fault, if not then there is something else causing the problem.
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Yeah the powerline stuff is junk. Too easy to get interference. I currently use DirecTVs DECA setup, which is essentially MOCA (ethernet over coax). It works great and it can easily sustain two blu-ray streams. It claims to be faster than 100mbit, but since the ethernet ports are only 100mbit, that's the max.
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elupus
Team-XBMC Developer
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We have 8 seconds of buffer. If your network goes out for more than 8 seconds, we will pause and rebuffer.
I don't expect increasing buffer to larger than 8 seconds would help anybody. (can't be done with current buffer logic anyhow).
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2010-11-27, 16:00
The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that this is a bug and not a network issue. Several others confirm that it didn't happen under their same configuration with Camelot, and that it only happens in XBMC. Plus, I just noticed last night that it doesn't have to rebuffer when I skip ahead or back 10 minutes. The buffering process takes about 6 to 8 seconds when it happens, but if I skip ahead it picks up instantly. Why wouldn't it have to rebuffer when I skip?
Should I post a debug log ?
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This Is an Issue I have noticed more and more running Dharma1 with aslaka I thought it might be the revo causing the problem.
But after reading more it does seem more XBMC/Skin releated I am going to test it more however mine is very intermident
As with others I dont have any issues running through WMP i even get buffering on TV shows that are only 350 mb....