Buffering HD content over wired connection. XBMC on ATV2. How to troubleshoot?

RoyMi6

RoyMi6

RoyMi6

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My current setup is as follows:

HP Proliant Microserver (1Gb Ethernet) -> Virgin Media Superhub (1Gb Ethernet) -> 1Gb Switch -> Apple TV 2 (10/100Mb )

I can stream most content fine but some larger HD files are buffering.

I've got CAT6 cables on every connection.

Where do I start? Even CAT5 bottlenecked with the 10/100Mb ethernet on the ATV2 should be able to handle the ~54Mb required for HD content surely...

Should I be picking up network cable testers to see if connectors haven't been crimped correctly? Will those kind of testers even be able to tell me what kind of throughput I should be expecting or just identify faults that would be obvious due to the cable not working at all?

Cheers,
Roy
 
Could you not set the ATV2 to transfer something and record network traffic on the server?

Could it be the ATV2 can't handle the full 1080P files you may be using?
 
Good point, a good stress test of the network should do the job.

Downloading 2GB file from net at 6Mb/s on server, transferring 5GB file over network at 70Mb/s to laptop from server, watching 1080p video on Desktop via file share from server and watching same 1080p video on ATV2.

Laptop plays fine, ATV2 has the odd stutter / buffer.

Baaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhharrrrrrghhhhhhhhh - quite annoying... this mean my ATV2 setup with XBMC won't cut the mustard? RAR!

On a side note, XBMC Commander for the iPad is sweet :)

Will need to lookup transferring a file to the ATV2. Not sure how i'll do that.

Cheers,
Roy
 
Yep the GPU on the ATV2 seems to be the problem, hopefully fairly soon we shall see a true all in one box that can handle everything on xbmc.
 
blairw said:
Yep the GPU on the ATV2 seems to be the problem, hopefully fairly soon we shall see a true all in one box that can handle everything on xbmc.
Click to expand...

Am I missing something, I thought the Acer Revo and similar boxes were considered the true all-in-one solutions?
 
I would check the encoding settings on the files you have a problem with and see if they properly conform to L4.1. If someone has encoded the file with >5 or 6 reference frames (1080p) then hardware designed to decode standard profiles will struggle. Just a thought... might not be bandwidth related at all.
 
As other have said I would think the ATV2 is struggling with the 1080p file, that's the only thing putting me off an ATV2 with XBMC.

HEADRAT
 
Seems like there's some interest in this so I'll try and test this over the weekend and report back.

For completeness sake (codecs ain't my thing) if someone was willing to link to to some 720p and 1080p sample content that they think covered all the bases (i.e. some "properly" encoded and some not) I'd be grateful.

Otherwise I'll just have a Google around and try out some random stuff.
 
Hum... I was under the impression that it should handle 1080p video but it only outputs it at 720p.

If it just pain old can't handle a 1080p rip of one of my blurays then that's fine. At least I'll know the limitations.

EDIT: Ah, there's specific information in the FAQ (http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?t=91581) that states the playback of some 1080p content at the moment isn't smooth (but it is possible even on wireless http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-f20ResjTY). Looks like I'm just hitting that barrier. Think I'll just be waiting on speed improvements via updates rather than targeting anything specifically on my network. A quick re-crimp of all my cables seems to have ironed out the buffering and I'm now just seeing frames getting dropped ever couple of minutes.

Makes them unwatchable for myself (I need perfection) but suppose that's what the PS3 is for :)

Will have to make do for now.
 
Last edited:
RoyMi6 said:
I was under the impression that it should handle 1080p video but it only outputs it at 720p.
Click to expand...

That's what I thought as well, as all of my content is 1080p this means the ATV2 is out of the equation for me, please post your findings.

HEADRAT
 
z0mbi3 said:
Am I missing something, I thought the Acer Revo and similar boxes were considered the true all-in-one solutions?
Click to expand...

I have an acer revo and its far from a true all-in-one solution. It performs brilliantly at playing my content due to it being GPU driven, but the atom processor can't really handle the large amounts of high res fan art or thumbnails a big collection can have. Mine is fine as i almost exclusively use my ipad and xbmc commander for control, so i never have to navigate the menus :)
 
HEADRAT said:
That's what I thought as well, as all of my content is 1080p this means the ATV2 is out of the equation for me, please post your findings.

HEADRAT
Click to expand...

Just for you Headrat I've got a mate bringing over a 45GB BluRay copy (only just started buying BluRays so I only have one to test. Not sure if I ripped it right) and I've queued up a 1080p (11GB) and 720p (7GB) test file.

I'll let you know how I get on this evening.

(Who's got two thumbs and likes to test video playback performance on a Friday night? This guy! *double thumb pointing at myself*)
 
OK, just spent the last 2 hours testing some of this out.

Short story is it that XBMC on an ATV2 managed to play anything sensible I chucked at it. This includes the file I was originally having problems with.

*sigh*

God know's what was going wrong before. I couldn't even get past the credits without a stutter but I've just watch 4 or 5 videos of varying quality up to a full 1080p, 11GB download and had no problems.

I then returned to my original "problem" file and managed to watch a good 15 minutes without issue.

The ONLY thing I'm having trouble playing is a straight BluRay rip. My friends brought along his external HDD with a 45GB BluRay copy (like all the folders etc) and I couldn't get XBMC to recognise it. I'm not sure if this is normal but I'm under the impression this wont work and if we were to correctly rip his BluRay we would end up with something similar to our 1080p 11GB test file which works great.

So, in conclusion, it works great and I was fussing over nothing! Quite annoying really. Perhaps the antivirus was running on my server and I was being a tool :)
 
RoyMi6 said:
OK, just spent the last 2 hours testing some of this out.

Short story is it that XBMC on an ATV2 managed to play anything sensible I chucked at it. This includes the file I was originally having problems with.

*sigh*

God know's what was going wrong before. I couldn't even get past the credits without a stutter but I've just watch 4 or 5 videos of varying quality up to a full 1080p, 11GB download and had no problems.

I then returned to my original "problem" file and managed to watch a good 15 minutes without issue.

The ONLY thing I'm having trouble playing is a straight BluRay rip. My friends brought along his external HDD with a 45GB BluRay copy (like all the folders etc) and I couldn't get XBMC to recognise it. I'm not sure if this is normal but I'm under the impression this wont work and if we were to correctly rip his BluRay we would end up with something similar to our 1080p 11GB test file which works great.

So, in conclusion, it works great and I was fussing over nothing! Quite annoying really. Perhaps the antivirus was running on my server and I was being a tool :)
Click to expand...

I get that sometimes to be honest, XBMC just acting straight up weird on the ATV. A tethered reboot usually does the trick. I use a HP ProLiant server as well!
 
blairw said:
I have an acer revo and its far from a true all-in-one solution. It performs brilliantly at playing my content due to it being GPU driven, but the atom processor can't really handle the large amounts of high res fan art or thumbnails a big collection can have. Mine is fine as i almost exclusively use my ipad and xbmc commander for control, so i never have to navigate the menus :)
Click to expand...

You sure? I have a pretty sizable library and it handles it ok.

I did upgrade the memory though.
 
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