[Apple TV] Solution to my stuttering and constantly buffering 720p playback problems
#1
I have a Windows 7 Professional box with half-decent hardware specs (Phenom II X4, 8GB RAM) that I use as a file server for XBMC running on my ATV under ATV OS. I previously ran Vista on it and I have always had the same problem: 720p content would only play smoothly once in a blue moon. Every other time I would start playing it and it would jerk and stutter immediately, or start jerking and stuttering after 10 seconds of smooth playback. The only thing that would fix this would be to reboot the ATV and/or reboot the Win7 box, and/or stop and play stop and play stop and play and stop and play the file until it smoothed itself out.

On top of the stuttering and jerking, the videos would have to pause for 5 or 6 seconds and buffer at least every 2-3 minutes, if not more frequently.

I even tried installing Ubuntu on the ATV and got XBMC successfully up and running and *STILL* had major stuttering issues when playing any HD content over the network. If I copied the file locally to the ATV hard drive, there were less (no?) problems.

I have a Linksys WRT-610N wireless N gigabit router. The ATV and the Win7 box are both connected directly into it.

I troubleshooted the SH!T out of this problem for months and months and months and months... I tried replacing the router. I updated the router firmware. I tried a different NIC in my Win7 box. I ran a new ethernet cable. I assigned manual IP addresses and ran a cable directly from the ATV to the Win7 box eliminating the router from the equation.

Nothing worked.

Then I started messing with other Variables. I installed Win XP on my Win 7 box, and it served my media FANTASTIC! I set up a SMB share on my Macbook Pro and even connected wirelessly (the MBP), I could serve 720p content to ATV just fine. Maybe it would have to pause to buffer for a couple seconds every 15 or 20 minutes. No big deal.

So it dawned on me that something changed in regards to networking from XP to Vista/Win7.

I believe that something to be the implementation of Microsoft's SMB 2.0. SMB 2.0 enables other SMB 2.0 enabled Microsoft Operating Systems to see major performance gains in transfer speeds compared to the original SMB included in WinXP and prior OS's. In theory, it should be fully backward compatible for non SMB 2.0 devices.

So bottom line, I figured out how to turn off SMB 2.0 on my Win7 box and VOILA! Near seamless 720p in XBMC on my ATV under ATV OS.

Instructions:

Run Regedit.exe
Expand and locate the sub tree as follows.
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parameters
Add a new REG_DWORD key with the name of "Smb2" (without quotation mark)
Value name: Smb2
Value type: REG_DWORD
0 = disabled
1 = enabled

Feedback welcome.
Reply
#2
trevorcobb Wrote:So bottom line, I figured out how to turn off SMB 2.0 on my Win7 box and VOILA! Near seamless 720p in XBMC on my ATV under ATV OS.

Have you tried XBMC on other platform working with your "fixed" w7 file server?

I am going to try your solution and see if it affects anything in my setup. I have multiple XBMC machines, some of them are Windows and some ATV (2). All off them are on wired 1GB network. File share is on W7 as in your case. I've been having troubles with playing HD content on both ATVs ever regardless of having CrystlHD in both. I am very interested to see if network affects the ATV anyhow.
Reply
#3
i only run XBMC on my ATV.
Reply
#4
That's an interesting fix, I'm impressed that you were able to track it down to SMB 2.0, that's interesting, but I have to ask, why are you running a desktop os as your file server? Is this a desktop computer that you are just using to serve file, but is otherwise a workstation? Or is this a true server? If all you're doing is serving files, look into WHS.
Reply
#5
I've never been able to get any 720p content to play properly on my ATV - even if the file is stored directly on my apple TV. I have given up and am waiting patiently for the next range of LG blu-ray players with Plex built in.
--
XBMC HUB - THE NEW HOME FOR ADD-ONS and PLUGINS
Read how my ATV2 installation went
ATV2 one week on ... it's getting better all the time
XBMC/ATV2 - Feeling the love
--
XBMC:
Platform - Darwin iOS (11.0.0 AppleTV2,1, Version 4.3 (Build 8F305)).
11.0-RC2 - Built on Mar 1 2012 (Git:20120229-f38655f)
Platform - Darwin OSX (8.8.2 i386, Version 10.4.7 (Build 8N6014)).
11.0-RC2 - Built on Mar 1 2012 (Git:20120229-f38655f)
Reply
#6
I run windows 7 and share files to my appletv with no problems. 720p is fine and 1080p studders a little bit. What kind of hardware is in your server?

Also, as a response to Philimatic, I presonally don't like WHS. I use Windows 7 Ultimate (yea there's no point to using ultimate, but I had it laying around so why not) and use FlexRAID for parity. I prefer to manage my own drives.
Reply
#7
Philmatic Wrote:That's an interesting fix, I'm impressed that you were able to track it down to SMB 2.0, that's interesting, but I have to ask, why are you running a desktop os as your file server? Is this a desktop computer that you are just using to serve file, but is otherwise a workstation? Or is this a true server? If all you're doing is serving files, look into WHS.

Or Linux, if you don't have a hundred dollars to blow for no reason.
Reply
#8
Also, I had stuttering issues and it turned out that a bad CAT-6 cable was causing my server to connect at 10mb instead of 100mb. Something to keep in mind.
Reply
#9
i replaced my network cable and it didn't fix it.

i am running a Win 7 box, because i can't afford an iMac or Mac Mini, and i use it to serve all of my iTunes movie and tv content in addition to non-iTunes stuff.
Reply

Logout Mark Read Team Forum Stats Members Help
[Apple TV] Solution to my stuttering and constantly buffering 720p playback problems0