Buffering, caching and HD content!

[riegersn]

Im a little frustrated when it comes to HD content and have a few gripes that maybe some of the devs can help me out with.

1. Buffering for HD content. I love me some HD video and use to my pc downloading episodes of HD podcasts\podshows and watching after download. Boxee doesn't download your feeds the the hard drive. Which in a sense is good, its always available and doesn't take up any space on your pc. However when watching HD content with boxee it has to buffer every few seconds. Its really annoying. I have Comcast cable and pay an extra 10 a month for 16down/2up which is plenty if the site your getting the feed from can actually send you the data that fast. Most don't, so for smooth playback we need to buffer.

I guess my actual question would be is there a way to change the amount buffered before play, I can't enjoy watching a show that stops to buffer every 5-10 seconds. There must be a setting somewhere.

2. There are some great podcast feeds avail in the video channel section. Like GeekBrief and DL.TV, both of these feeds offer a high-res\hd option, however boxee is grabbing the medium sized feed. I don't know about you guys but I have boxee hooked up to a 42in widscreen that supports 720p, those medium divx feeds just don't cut it when it comes to quality. I know I can edit the video sources list under ~/.boxee but that doesn't contain the source info for the items in the video channel section. Is there a way to change this?

[vulkan]

hi riegersn and thanks for this report.

we do plan to better support downloading of feeds in future versions. maybe a workaround you can currently use is to "pause" the video and release it after a while. but thats only a workaround and we should definitely tackle this problem.

regarding HD feeds - you can always manually add an rss feed that inetests you. simply go to "settings->media sources->add source->manual" and type in the rss link prefixed by rss://

example: rss://tedtalks.blip.tv/rss

hope this helps.
thanks again and welcome to boxee :)

-vulkan.

[vcosta]

Hi guys!
I'm totally with riegersn, those buffering hiccups every 5-10 seconds totally break the joy of watching whatever. In my case, not even just the HD content but all types of media.
I also have fast internet access here, and somehow feels not normal.
To Vulkan: pausing while buffering/loading would be definitely an alternative, however, don't know about u guys but in most applications, the pause doesn't actually respond. I give u as an example, comedy central (the videos that actually play like southpark) you press pause (or any other button other than STOP) and they dont' work. Is this happening to anyone?

[agentlame]

you can increase the cache size to it's maximum...

open: ~/.boxee/UserData/guisettings.xml and locate the cache tags.

here are the max values for each type:


<cacheaudio>
<internet>256</internet>
</cacheaudio>
<cacheunknown>
<internet>4096</internet>
</cacheunknown>
<cachevideo>
<internet>4096</internet>
</cachevideo>

[gregwa]

Mine is already set at that and I also have the issue.

It seems that if the video that's streaming has a large amount of white, it really goes into the buffer mode alot. For example, Hak5, whenever they show a screenshot that contains a great deal of white (anything from google) or the ads from go-daddy.com, it freaks out.

[conjett]

What's interesting to me is that the commercials play without any hiccups but as soon as the tv show resumes, so do the hiccups.

[agentlame]

guys, boxee has no control over the caching of flash sites.

cc, hulu, cbs, etc all set their own cache via the flash player.

[vcosta]

My cache tags are all set to the maximum also. And all internet videos load on intervals. Is there anything wrong with my installation? on the Laptop nothing loads like that. Of course there is buffering but it buffers larger chunks and it won't stop playback in order to buffer more.

I give an example and if anyone could check for me please. There is this TED podcast on "ART AND CULTURE" section of the Internet Videos Podcasts. 4 or 5 minute videos take ages to load. Can anyone please check this example and let me know if in your end is ok?

Thank you in advance

[agentlame]

i tried both the newest ted talk, and the latest south park... no issues.

[vcosta]

Cheers agentlame. That's right the newest episodes are fine.
There are other episodes (futurama for instance) which have built in advertisements, seems like once CC finishes the "contract" with these advertisers they leave a black spot in place. While the movie continues, the black thing is in place and sometimes (only sometimes) the video resumes after the commercial. Have you noticed that?

[Canadaka]

I have 20Mbit up/down fibre internet and I can't even watch TED talks, it stops the playback every 20 seconds and sits there loading for long periods.

I can goto the ted website and stream the video in the browser just fine. This is really ruining the boxee experience for me.

[Fishermanb ob]

you can increase the cache size to it's maximum...

open: ~/.boxee/UserData/guisettings.xml and locate the cache tags.

here are the max values for each type:


<cacheaudio>
<internet>256</internet>
</cacheaudio>
<cacheunknown>
<internet>4096</internet>
</cacheunknown>
<cachevideo>
<internet>4096</internet>
</cachevideo>


Hey, what if this file does not exist in your install? I've reinstalled Boxee on three different computers and tried a variety of things. I have many issues with shows not starting, freezing up on opening commercials, just a black screen, and extreme lag. I am trying to decide if I should get a boxee box and so far not a chance.

Now I know I don't have the greatest of connections, so I am looking into buffering solutions, because with a proper buffer my speed shouldn't be an issue as I just have to wait for a larger buffer before starting. I just have not had any luck so far :(.