2010-12-14, 14:34
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.
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.