VLC streaming and samba threads

[Dutchy]

I put this in general because I don't believe it is limited to an OS and it is about a combination with samba.

Here's the situation:

I keep my files on a debian server, and share them to my windows PC with samba, where I play them with VLC. Because my samba shares/harddisks on the server are fairly busy, I use a script to kick samba connections which use too many threads (5 or more) to download or stream (it is currently not possible to limit this with samba). Here's the catch: Streaming with VLC opens more than a 140 threads to read the files.

Is there a way to limit the amount of threads? preferably, I would like it to use only 1 thread.

[Dutchy]

Further study shows that this happens with x264 mkv's but not with avi's. That leads me to believe it is not a problem with windows or samba...

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

Don't use file formats that requires lots of seeks... not much we can do about this. We only open one file handle per input, but we do seek a lot if the format requires it. The rest is not within VLC's control.

[Dutchy]

Thanks for your answer.

However, I tested Media Player Classic (with ffdshow) and this does not open an excessive number of threads for the x264 file. I really wish to play my files with VLC again, but the current situation makes that just impossible. Perhaps I could (or should) submit a bug report?

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

You can. But with no further informations, it's not likely to be fixed.

[Dutchy]

You can. But with no further informations, it's not likely to be fixed.

Can you tell me what kind of information you would need?

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

I don't even know. VLC only opens a single file handle. To me it makes no sense that it would spawn countless threads on the server.

[Dutchy]

After further investigation, i have found out that the information stated in my first post was incorrect (sorry about the confusion): After opening an mkv, vlc opens _all_ mkv's in the directory, just one thread per mkv. A directory with only 1 mkv opens only 1 thread. Would you know anything about this? A sequential scan of all files in the directory perhaps? (in this case samba would list this incorrectly as simultaneous threads, i've seen samba do this before)
I have things like VLC's media library turned off, so I would think it is not scanning for that reason...

A similar effect occurs if thumbnail view is used in windows, however for this very reason I have it disabled.