I have a MacMini 1.8GHz Core Duo running Leopard 10.5.6 connected to a terastation live (1TB) via gigabit switch/Cat5E cable. I am encountering stuttered playback with 720p mkv movies when opened from my NAS. VLC makes a better job of it than frontrow but neither is watchable.

I am able to successfully open SD (divx) movies from Front Row and VLC player from the NAS and they play absolutely fine. I'm also able to open DVD backup folder files (VIDEO_TS etc) from the NAS as well as mp3/flac etc without problems. However if I try and open/watch any 720p mkv files (typical movie file is about 8Gb in size) I get frequent frame freezes. If I copy the 720p movie files to the local mini hard disk (takes about 23mins meaning I get about a 50Mbps transfer rate) I can open the movie from there and it plays fine.

Since it would appear my LAN supports a sustained data transfer rate of 50Mbps I doubt this is simply a network issue. Is there something I can tweak in VLC/Quicktime/FrontRow that would support these movies files being opened from the NAS? Having to wait 20mins to copy a movie file locally kinda kills the "home theatre" experience.....

thanks for reading

TC

Use Plex, www.plexapp.com

720p MKV files should only be around 10 - 15Mbps tops. Plex plays every 1080p I throw at it over my Unraid via gigabit network.

I had seen mention of PLEX before and was a bit concerned that it would be like using a sledge hammer to crack a nut but I installed it last night and I managed to play the first 15minutes of a 720p movie without stutter (..didn't have time to watch anymore but I'm convinced there won't be an issue..will post back if there is).

In addition the Plex interface looks amazing and assuming I can get a bit of time to set it up properly I imagine I'll be binning use of Front Row & VLC altogether and just sticking with PLEX.

Many thanks for the suggestion, was kinda driving me nuts

TC

PS added bonus, looks like PLEX supports flac..which is what a good chunk of my music is stored in...no chance of playing that in front row.....

I use boxee (similar to plex) and found that a lot of my videos stuttered until I removed the smb share and readded as a local volume i.e. /Volumes/networkshare -- It's still networked video, but the mac sees it as local. Just an fyi for you to try if you run into again.. This has worked far better for me.

I run plex on my imac 24" I just hooked up the imac to my 106" 720p projector and htr606 and played some bluray rips in dts it was pretty amazing.

I am waiting for my 1.83ghz mac mini (clearance) to come in the mail for my htpc setup.
Plex is awesome. I can't wait for future upgrades to improve stabilty

its built off 8 years of Xbox media center (XBMC) code and its come a long way.
I can't believe how nice revision3 internet tv is streamed, the resolution is like watching a regular program on tv (not like youtube)

Plex uses both cores on the mac, and I think vlc doesn't so plex is macs only real solution for Media management...please correct me if I am wrong anyone?

I tried WDTV, pretty limited and also bought the HDX1000 nmt and spent a day trying to install a media jukebox so I could see the cover art and movie info. something plex does right out of the box. I returned the HDX1000 (popcorn hour equilvent) and can't wait for the mac mini

will post my results with the older hardware in this mac.

I use boxee (similar to plex) and found that a lot of my videos stuttered until I removed the smb share and readded as a local volume i.e. /Volumes/networkshare -- It's still networked video, but the mac sees it as local. Just an fyi for you to try if you run into again.. This has worked far better for me.

Could you detail how you did this or are you simply saying you mounted the share using Finder vs feeding boxee the smb path?

I have the same mini and I can't watch live TV from my HD Homerun if I'm storing the files on a network share. It seems like the mini just can't handle trying to play HD video while reading from a network. I believe it is a chipset issue and there isn't anything we can do.

just got my Mac mini 1.83ghz hooked up and set up with plex

I pointed the mac mini to the server(imac usb drive) and once the volume was mounted, I went into

preferences, accounts, login items, and dragged the new mount into the login items, now ever time the mac mini starts up it will automatically mount the usb drive on the other computers or nas. if you don't see the mount click on the finder preferences and select Show connected servers. it will then appear on the desktop and you can drag it

I played some 1080p content Quantium of solice it was an 8gig rip, it played over the lan perfectly. not sure if it matters that I am displaying in 720p because I only have a 720p projector, but its handling it non the less

Also I went into plex settings and adjusted the cache. I set the local video cache pretty high. This will give it a nice buffer so that it wont stutter



edit. I am doing all this network sharing over G wifi
this mac is stock 1gig ram 80 gig 5400 rpm drive

I have the same mini and I can't watch live TV from my HD Homerun if I'm storing the files on a network share. It seems like the mini just can't handle trying to play HD video while reading from a network. I believe it is a chipset issue and there isn't anything we can do.I don't think it's a hardware issue. I can watch HD content from my HDHomerun (both live and recorded from a separate backend machine) without a problem on my first-gen intel mini using MythFrontend. I think it's a software issue. Apple is less than exited about you watching non-local content via frontrow.

Could you detail how you did this or are you simply saying you mounted the share using Finder vs feeding boxee the smb path?

Did nothing differently mounting the share in macos-- Just went to boxee and added the media source under Local -> (browse to /Volumes/sharename) instead of adding Network source.

optional: also add the share to the startup items for your user so that it gets mounted automatically on reboot