Samba buffer pausing

[nelsonj3]

I have a Samba server built into my router with several USB hard drives connected to it. These hard drives have movies on them, most around 2-4 GB per movie. My network is all Ethernet, run through a couple of switches. While I have WiFi, i DON'T use it for streaming.

I know the setup works well because I have a Patriot Box Office connected to my TV that streams from this server very well. Seldom do I have a problem.

My computers can stream HD content from the Internet just fine, so I know my network to the computers should be alright. When I play the files directly over USB in VLC there are no problems.

The problems happen when I try to play off the Samba server over the network. Every couple of minutes VLC will pause for a few seconds then keep playing. When it resumes the image goes grey then adds the changes from each frame to the grey until the next key frame.

This happens whether I am watching a 1080 Bluray rip or a standard definition DVD rip. It happens on my Macbook Pro and my Windows desktop, both using Ethernet.

Using a network monitor I see the downstream being utilized at about 1 MB (Megabyte, not Megabit) per second then go to zero. A few seconds later the video freezes, the network starts to buffer again, and the video starts playing.

I have already adjusted the buffer time up to 10,000 ms and all it did was make the buffer issue take longer but it is still there.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. VLC plays anything, I wouldn't want to have to reencode my whole collection to get Windows Media Player or Quicktime Player to play the files.

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

I would mount the filesystem locally and play the video as regular files. If that fails the same way, then you know VLC is not the problem (since buffering would be done by the OS in this case).