Cant Play Hi-Def over Network

[hamd01]

I've hit pretty much my first ever problem with playing hi-def on Boxee, having been a user for around 3 years.

Around 12 months ago I purchased a boxee box to replace a PC which was set in our lounge hooked up to the TV. It didnt look very attractive, and didnt have a remote, and so I decided to replace to with a proper Boxee box. Its been flawless until now.

We havent watched many films latetly, but last night I decided to watch a blu-ray rip.... and to my surprise boxee took an age to start playing the film. When it did star playing it got around 5 seconds in before boxee starting having streaming issues (where the grey bar comes up). This happened every 5 or 6 seconds so clearly it was unplayable.

I have slept on the issue, wondering what has changed since we last watched a hi-def movie....and came up with the following;

1. A hard disk was added to my server (which is just a PC running XP with multiple USB drive attached).
2. At least one Boxee box firmware update

And thats it.

I didnt think number 1 could be anything to do with it, because the movie in question wasnt even on the new hard disk.

So, I decided to dust off the old PC with boxee installed on it (which was left in the shed!), plugged it in, and it played the hi-def film without any problems at all.

Now I know 100% that the boxee box WAS playing hi-def movies without any issues at all.....and now it isnt, so it must be since an update.

For info;

Network is CAT5 wired, with everying connected via a switch.....no changes at all in terms of the cabling, or network hardware for several years.

Does ayone have any ideas why this has happened, because it has pretty much rendered the boxee box useless?

[jasmeet_9sb]

For 1:1 BD rip I'd suggest you to go for haneWin NFS and watch your movie using NFS protocol. As you haven't mentioned which protocol you're using, I assume you're using SMB. So give NFS a try !!

[hamd01]

For 1:1 BD rip I'd suggest you to go for haneWin NFS and watch your movie using NFS protocol. As you haven't mentioned which protocol you're using, I assume you're using SMB. So give NFS a try !!

These files hav always worked before.... I am using SMB, but that has always been the case and I cant really change that because I have other devices which use the same shares....it would be an administrative nightmare.

Is this an issue with a recent boxee update?

[jerkbag]

I've hit pretty much my first ever problem with playing hi-def on Boxee, having been a user for around 3 years.

Around 12 months ago I purchased a boxee box to replace a PC which was set in our lounge hooked up to the TV. It didnt look very attractive, and didnt have a remote, and so I decided to replace to with a proper Boxee box. Its been flawless until now.

We havent watched many films latetly, but last night I decided to watch a blu-ray rip.... and to my surprise boxee took an age to start playing the film. When it did star playing it got around 5 seconds in before boxee starting having streaming issues (where the grey bar comes up). This happened every 5 or 6 seconds so clearly it was unplayable.

I have slept on the issue, wondering what has changed since we last watched a hi-def movie....and came up with the following;

1. A hard disk was added to my server (which is just a PC running XP with multiple USB drive attached).
2. At least one Boxee box firmware update

And thats it.

I didnt think number 1 could be anything to do with it, because the movie in question wasnt even on the new hard disk.

So, I decided to dust off the old PC with boxee installed on it (which was left in the shed!), plugged it in, and it played the hi-def film without any problems at all.

Now I know 100% that the boxee box WAS playing hi-def movies without any issues at all.....and now it isnt, so it must be since an update.

For info;

Network is CAT5 wired, with everying connected via a switch.....no changes at all in terms of the cabling, or network hardware for several years.

Does ayone have any ideas why this has happened, because it has pretty much rendered the boxee box useless?

Try downgrading your firmware to something before 1.2. (1.1.1.19092 is working great for me). Tons of us are having issues with the box's ability to stream hi bitrate content after 1.2 (and it gets worse with 1.5). Regardless of weather you use NFS of SMB, lots of people experience that the box can't handle stuff above around 20mbps regardless of connection, and downgrading to an earlier firmware will fix the problem. Hit "i" on the remote while you're watching -- if you see the VQ % figure drop slowly but steadily, rebuffer, and then repeat on a wired connection, then an pre 1.2 firmware will probably fix things for you. Super annoying.

[Razorax]

jerkbag is right, see http://jira.boxee.tv/browse/BOXEE-11034 for details

[aaronwt]

I can't say I've run into that issue with the current firmware. Very High bitrate BD ISOs have no buffering issues on my three boxes. Although I did have a couple of low bitrate titles that had issues a long time ago.

[jerkbag]

I can't say I've run into that issue with the current firmware. Very High bitrate BD ISOs have no buffering issues on my three boxes. Although I did have a couple of low bitrate titles that had issues a long time ago.

I wish I knew what was different with your setup. For me (and everyone on the jira ticket), it's buffer buffer buffer, and then downgrade and it goes away. The only change is the firmware. . .

[mbryanr]

Similar to aaronwt, I don't get buffering on high bitrate files over SMB. DTS <core?> audio dropouts occur though during those high bitrate scenes though.
The overhead has significantly increased...I can stream max 50Mbps constant bitrate files without buffering with the current firmware; pre-1.2fw, 70Mbps was no issue.

[mbryanr]

Also...because the max bitrate is currently limited on the Boxee - it is highly sensitive to protocol, network setup and type of file server.

I've had issues with nfs and a Syno connected behind a switch; but once the Boxee is connected to a router, everything was back to normal. I've had the opposite scenario with SMB, where the Boxee connected to a router will buffer <unRAID to the switch>, once my unRAID and Boxee are connected to a switch...blu-ray ~35Mbps, buffering goes away.

Pre-1.2fw - none of these issues.