Can't play VIDEO_TS from smb share

[danny_w]

I have several VIDEO_TS folders on my Mac being shared (they are in my public folder for now, so username/password should not be an issue). I can browse to the share just fine, and add it to the sources. The problem is that when I try to play any folder on that share, I get the error "Failed to retrieve data". The same thing works fine using xbmc, but not boxee.

[mBox]

I'm having a similar issue. When attempting to play a video_ts movie from an smb share, Boxee just sits there forever. After about 5 minutes, I give up. I have never waited long enough to see if an error message eventually pops up. Any thoughts on this?

[danny_w]

The fact that Boxee sits and waits is not my issue, but it is a problem. For some reason last night it just magically started working for me. What it is doing while it is sitting is that it is buffering the data; if you are on a slow connection (b or g especially) it can take quite some time, but 5 minutes seems extreme. Anyway, I did get it working and it does wait for quite some time with no indication of anything happening, but eventually (for me at least) it does show the movie menu. Selecting Play from the movie menu starts another long wait cycle, but eventually the movie starts playing. Both Boxee and XBMC do the same thing and take about the same amount of time to start. At least with XBMC on the Xbox you can get a status menu that shows that it is buffering; if there is such a menu on the ATV, I don't know how to get to it.

[mwunder]

I have my ATV hardwired and it is pretty quick on the buffering side...maybe like 10 seconds. Then the movie starts playing. I understand that you are on a slower connection, however, I do recall it saying it was buffering and it even had a status bar that filled up.

Just FYI.

[danny_w]

I have my ATV hardwired and it is pretty quick on the buffering side...maybe like 10 seconds. Then the movie starts playing. I understand that you are on a slower connection, however, I do recall it saying it was buffering and it even had a status bar that filled up.

Just FYI.
Right. Maybe I'm confusing Boxee with another product right now, I've looked at so many. Right now MediaCenttral on my old spare iMac G5 seems to be the best bet for me; it takes like 2-3s maximum to buffer a video_ts that is stored on a disk attached to my Airport Extreme over wireless g. Plus it has so many other options to make it well worth $30.