Arch Linux

student975

Member

From: Russian Federation

Registered: 2011-03-05

Posts: 613

[SOLVED] streaming for VLC

There is a NAS (running Arch) and a workstation (also running Linux - not Arch). The WS accesses NAS via WiFi. Currently NAS shares resources with Samba. File transfer (with cp or, say, worker file manager)  works fine (6-8 MByte/sec, and up to 10-12 MByte/sec with iperf). But when VLC (or Kaffeine) plays HD video (opened from cifs mount point), a speed is just up to 2-3 MByte/sec resulting in broken playing back. Probably the way video engines explore a filesystem is not in harmony with cifs

So, the question. Can anybody point me to another - not filesystem based - way of multimedia content steaming suitable to be consumed by VLC? NAS resources are limited by hardware: Arch is running on USB stick (and RAID1 for data), 2GB RAM, Celeron E320.

Last edited by student975 (2011-06-30 01:02:23)

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"I exist" is the best myth I know..

student975

Member

From: Russian Federation

Registered: 2011-03-05

Posts: 613

Re: [SOLVED] streaming for VLC

OK, I have tried minidlna and mediatomb, but also have got stumbling playing back (for HD video). Can not understand why TCP/IP directly (iperf) and file transfer (cifs mount point) do work excellent, while video playing back (both with cifs and streaming) via the same WiFi connection doesn't

Any suggestions?

Last edited by student975 (2011-06-29 20:40:37)

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"I exist" is the best myth I know..

student975

Member

From: Russian Federation

Registered: 2011-03-05

Posts: 613

Re: [SOLVED] streaming for VLC

Resolved:

Select Tools/Preferences in VLC menu
"Show settings" radio - to All

In prefs tree:
  Input / Codecs
    Access module
      File - Increase cache length (for cifs access)
      Anything else for other sources (say, HTTP, FTP, ...)

Have tried full HD with parallel large file copying via the same WiFi connection without any stumbling.

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"I exist" is the best myth I know..

toad

Member

From: if only I knew

Registered: 2008-12-22

Posts: 1,775

Website

Re: [SOLVED] streaming for VLC

Nice find!

Which values did you select?

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student975

Member

From: Russian Federation

Registered: 2011-03-05

Posts: 613

Re: [SOLVED] streaming for VLC

Nice find!

Which values did you select?

4000 and 5000 ms. And I still havn't tried to find a meaning of "extra network caching". At any case too long caching isn't handy also - it will force you to wait for playing back too long. I think everybody can find own values suitable for WiFi (or other in hand) connection in use.

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"I exist" is the best myth I know..