I love my Archos 70 IT, and I'm really impressed by the great multimedia players Archos included. I've been using the video function to browse my local network for SMB shares - I have a 1.5TB NAS storage appliance loaded with TV shows, music and movies. I open the NAS over SMB and can stream videos great. However, a lot of my library is in 720p quality. These files play fine for about 1 minute, then get very choppy.
I haven't yet attempted to copy a 720p video to the Archos locally to see if it will play smoothly. I suspect it will, since it plays just fine for a minute or more in most cases. I think the network buffer is running low. If I pause the video for 5 seconds then resume, it plays smoothly for a few more seconds before getting choppy again. But pausing it for longer doesn't seem to help any more.
I don't see any options in the app to change the buffer length or anything like that. Does anyone have a suggestion on how I can improve hi-res network video playback?
Note: I'm using an 802.11g wireless network with the Archos about 5 feet from the WAP. No signal strength issues.
Even with a regular PC or laptop, it's kind of iffy for me to stream 720P consistently. While in theory, a WiFi G connection is supposed to be 54 Mbps, in reality, it's often a lot lower due to interference from other WiFi radios. Where I live there are a dozen WiFi radios that show up when I do a scan. What's amazing is that one or two of them are stronger than my wireless router a few feet away. Who are these people?!
Bye.
Ha, thanks for the response. I can definitely stream 720p to my laptop successfully. The radio in the Archos might not be able to keep up though. Dunno. In any case, some sort of buffer options would help!
sprocket87 said:
I love my Archos 70 IT, and I'm really impressed by the great multimedia players Archos included. I've been using the video function to browse my local network for SMB shares - I have a 1.5TB NAS storage appliance loaded with TV shows, music and movies. I open the NAS over SMB and can stream videos great. However, a lot of my library is in 720p quality. These files play fine for about 1 minute, then get very choppy.
I haven't yet attempted to copy a 720p video to the Archos locally to see if it will play smoothly. I suspect it will, since it plays just fine for a minute or more in most cases. I think the network buffer is running low. If I pause the video for 5 seconds then resume, it plays smoothly for a few more seconds before getting choppy again. But pausing it for longer doesn't seem to help any more.
I don't see any options in the app to change the buffer length or anything like that. Does anyone have a suggestion on how I can improve hi-res network video playback?
Note: I'm using an 802.11g wireless network with the Archos about 5 feet from the WAP. No signal strength issues.
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Click to collapse
The fact that it plays ok at first, then gets choppy indicates that you're playing through the contents of the buffer faster than it can be replenished by the network stream. A bigger buffer would make it play longer, but it would still run out. Picture a bucket with a hole in it. If you don't fill it faster than it drains out the hole, it will eventually be empty, no matter how big the bucket. Pausing is like putting your finger in the hole. It lets it refill, but it can only get so full. Pull out you finger and it starts draining again. The only solution is a bigger hose or a smaller hole
I too get the choppiness when streaming via smb. But I have put a 6gb 720p movie on my A70S, and it too gets choppy. This was with 2.1.4. AND with the newer 2.1.8. so then I fully restored the device to increase the swap file, and it's not any better. Now im rooted using archangel, and used setcpu to keep the cpu maxed, but not any better than it was.
btw, i used the archos video splitter app to get such a big file on there.
Even 1.5gb 720p cartoons act up, i get the video falling behind when there is alot of motion. I'm hopeful it will get better!
creationblur said:
I too get the choppiness when streaming via smb. But I have put a 6gb 720p movie on my A70S, and it too gets choppy. This was with 2.1.4. AND with the newer 2.1.8. so then I fully restored the device to increase the swap file, and it's not any better. Now im rooted using archangel, and used setcpu to keep the cpu maxed, but not any better than it was.
btw, i used the archos video splitter app to get such a big file on there.
Even 1.5gb 720p cartoons act up, i get the video falling behind when there is alot of motion. I'm hopeful it will get better!
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Click to collapse
Did you put the movie on your SD card? How fast is your SD card? Try moving it to internal memory and playing it from there.
Yes, i forgot to mention that. I tried it first on the SD card, still crap. Put it on the internal memory, still just as bad. I did think that doing so would fix it, but, no dice. unfortunately.
Of course you should be able to play a 720P video from inside your Archos cleanly. By any chance is the video encoded at a high bit rate, like maybe 10 Mbps? I have a bunch of videos I can play fine on mine, however, I encoded them at maybe 2 - 4 Mbps. The specs for your Archos says:
Video Playback1 • MPEG-42 HD (up to 720p, 30 [email protected])
• MPEG-42 ([email protected] AVI, up to DVD resolution, 30 [email protected])
• H.264 HD ([email protected] up to 720p, 30 [email protected])
• WMV9/VC1 (AP up to 720p 30 [email protected])
• M-JPEG (Motion JPEG Video) in VGA resolution
With optional plug-in (downloadable on www.archos.com):
• Cinema: MPEG-2 (up to DVD resolution MP/D1, 30 [email protected] Mbps)
With the above codecs, the device can play video files with the following extensions: AVI, MP4, MKV, MOV, WMV, MPG, PS, TS, VOB, FLV, RM, RMVB, ASF, 3GP
Are you well within these requirements? A PC or laptop can usually go way past this.
Bye.
One of the files is 720p avc1 dts at 6425 Mbps, and 4.38 gb. I'll have to check the other files when I get home. But that's not too high quality is it?
No, but if these are Animes the chance is high that they are encoded with "to many" b-frames.
The Archos allows [email protected] most new HD Animes are encoded as [email protected] which has way to many B-Frames for the small buffer on the DSP.
I think you are pushing it on the bit rate. I have tried encoding at various bit rates and quite frankly, encoding at 2 Mbps is good enough visually on an A101. I suggest Handbrake to re-encode down to 2 - 4 Mbps.
Bye.
creationblur said:
One of the files is 720p avc1 dts at 6425 Mbps, and 4.38 gb. I'll have to check the other files when I get home. But that's not too high quality is it?
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Click to collapse
I agree, but we shouldn't have to, ya know!?!
You read my answer?
And if grandma had wheels she'd be a streetcar.
Handbrake is my friend.
Bye.
creationblur said:
I agree, but we shouldn't have to, ya know!?!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes yes, I did. BUT...
And wasn't the new firmware supposed to make these higher profile files play better??
wish in one hand....
No.
The decoding of highbitrate files within the specs is better now.
"One of the files is 720p avc1 dts at 6425 Mbps, and 4.38 gb."
avc1 == H.264 and if you look into the specs, there it says -> H.264 HD ([email protected] up to 720p, 30 [email protected])
So you are allready above what the DSP ( the VideoCoProcessor in the Chip ) can handle.
And then normally these type of files have variable bitrate and can go up to 20MBit.
And if then these files have more then the allowed 5 B-Frames the dsp just pukes.
So did anything ever come of this?
I'm having the same issue with the latest firmware (2.3.20).
Being able to increase the buffer and waiting a few minutes before watching something would be a whole lot better than copying the entire thing or just sticking to SD.
Is there a way to stream/play videos to my Nexus 7 from my phone(HTC Thunderbolt). Due to the storage limitation on the Nexus 7, I figured this might be a good solution to get around it. I want to be able to stream the media without connecting to a network/router because I spend a lot of time commuting.
I've successfully connected to my phone by FTPing using 3G/4G by tethering my phone to the tablet. I can stably transfer files at 2-2.5 MB/s which sure as hell beats Bluetooth and should be adequate to stream videos. Using ES File Explorer, I've connected to my phone using the same method and it lets me play files directly off my phone using the MX Player. Great.
Of course it's not that easy or else I wouldn't have my this thread. When I try to seek it gives me an error, "Sorry, video cannot be played". The message is persistent once it shows up and the only way to fix it is to reconnect to the network.
Any ideas on how I can get around this limitation? I can't imagine I'm the only one who's attempted to do something like this. Thanks.
I installed samba filesharing (in play store) onto my Galaxy S (CM9). This allows you to access your phone's storage while tethered by wifi to it. No router is required. For playing the video I use BS Player. Seeking works well and even 720p mkv runs without a problem.
Great! I'll give that a try and report back with the results. Thanks!
edit:
It works! I simply installed Samba Filesharing on my phone then with my tablet tethered scanned using the LAN settings on ES File Explorer. Works like a charm. Thank you so much!
Hello,
I have imito mx2 with fineless 2.0 rom,
I use es explorer and to stream videos from my computer to my stick that connected to tv.
When i open a movie (that is located on my pc), the video player (vlc, mx ,mobo,dice , i've tried all of them) stop working after approx. 15 minutes with no error, just stop the movie and i have to reload it again.
When i copy the movie to the stick everything is working fine, so its not a problem with the video player.
the wifi connection is strong signal and the the internet should be enough for a movie (download of 10mbps, so it can't be the problem.)
I just thought that maybe the wifi stop for few seconds and return, but because it happens all the time in almost specific time (after 13-15 minutes) its not reasonable.
I'll glad to hear your suggestion how to solve it.
Thanks
h1990h said:
Hello,
I have imito mx2 with fineless 2.0 rom,
I use es explorer and to stream videos from my computer to my stick that connected to tv.
When i open a movie (that is located on my pc), the video player (vlc, mx ,mobo,dice , i've tried all of them) stop working after approx. 15 minutes with no error, just stop the movie and i have to reload it again.
When i copy the movie to the stick everything is working fine, so its not a problem with the video player.
the wifi connection is strong signal and the the internet should be enough for a movie (download of 10mbps, so it can't be the problem.)
I just thought that maybe the wifi stop for few seconds and return, but because it happens all the time in almost specific time (after 13-15 minutes) its not reasonable.
I'll glad to hear your suggestion how to solve it.
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you tried using XBMC? If not, recommend you try that using an advancedsettings.xml which forces buffering.
you might want o check the WMM/QoS settings on your wireless router, enable WMM and set the QoS policy for your specific device.
You could also use Mount Manager or any other similar program and mount your Pc shared folders as local drives. I'm doing that with my mx2 and Mx-Player and works perfectly and immediately, not needing to download to a temp file like Es explorer do.
Anybody had or having this issue? I am using TVMC, and I have my video library set up with an SMB share to the Nexus. I will start playing a TV episode and it will stop a few minutes in or halfway through and return back to the episode list. I don't think this has happened with a movie (yet).
I have tried messing with Hardware Acceleration vs Software (one actually works better for streaming sources from outside of my network). Tried clearing out the cache, purging packages. None of these have made any improvements. Thinking I may try to install a vanilla version of Kodi, and maybe also try Gotham.
Did a little searching and haven't found any solutions yet.
This is probably #3 in my disappointments with this device so far along with lack of apps, the Netflix bug, SlingTV's frame rate, and the Live Channels app. Starting to wish I opted for the Fire TV.
Yep Kodi runs like sh.. on my Nexus Player as well.
But on my Shield Tv it runs without any problems.
Video not playing on Kodi
Hi, I had the same problem. My video library is hosted on a Windows 7 PC and connecting over SMB to stream a film would work sometimes but not others. After much research I found the problem to be the network connection to the Windows PC. I found this out by installing ES File explorer on my Android TV and copying a large file to the local storage of the player. The copy would usually start then suddenly stop after a random length of time, additionally the bandwidth was very low. Try this to make sure you can copy a large file to the device without any problems.
I fixed the problem with a combination of solutions. I upgraded the network card drivers of the Windows 7 PC, I purchased an OTG LAN adapter for the Nexus Player and finally I used haneWIN to connect to my media library via NFS rather than SMB.
I now have a rock solid connection.
Hope this helps
Thanks for the responses. I have found that streaming the videos to Kodi via UPnP with Emby works fine. So I am thinking that is a network issue. I have DHCP set up, so I think what I will try is setting a static IP for the Windows PC
I also have one of these Ubee Modem/Router combos, but I have been using my own router. I didn't have the Ubee in bridge mode, which I changed last night. So I will get everything set again like I had it and see if it will play without stopping.
your problem is most likely trying to stream content over wifi. i dont care what anybody says, wifi + streaming media sucks. it can work fine 1 minute and then stop working another regardless of how good your connection may be.
EDIT: Seems to be working just fine now. Getting sustained 80mbps across my network for playback, no issues. In the settings, I migrated everything to the SD card, but I think Kodi (and thus Plex temp files) are still on the internal storage. Maybe this fixed it, who knows.
I'm having trouble getting 4k video to play back continuously without pausing and skipping. I occasionally get the message that the source is too slow. Here is a quick overview of my setup.
- Media is on an UNRAID server running plex. It's an AMD A6-3500, 8GB memory, 3x 4TB WD Red (1 parity).
- UNRAID server is connected by ethernet to my Asus RT-AC87U. My shield was connected on 5g, but I ran a temp ethernet cable and still see the issue.
- Kodi 17 is running on my Shield TV using the PlexKodiConnect plugin. Video playback is direct play, no transcoding (verified in Plex).
I'm not sure where the trouble lies and exactly where to work.
I did test by using SolidExplorer to copy the 4k file to the device to see what rates I get. Speeds are about 6-8MB/s but its very inconsistent and drops below 1MB/s often. I'm not sure if this is a good test to go by or not. Is the Shield capable of streaming and playing 4k over a network? Or is the hardware not fast enough to do this?