Mplayer2.exe freeze/stutter problem (1 Viewer)

[malgod]

MediaPortal Version: 0.2.2.0 (any recent SVN)
MediaPortal Skin: BlueTwo
Windows Version: Windows XP SP2
CPU Type: AMD Athlon 64 3200+ or 3800+
Motherboard Chipset: nForce4
Video Card: Nvidia GeForce 7600 GT
Video Card Driver: ForceWare 93.71
Sound Card: VIA Envy24
MPEG2 Video Codec: Occurs with any/all
MPEG2 Audio Codec: Occurs with any/all
Remote: MCE remote

Hi all,

Was hoping somebody else had encountered this problem and might have a fix (I've searched the forums but can't find anything that exactly matches the issue).
I've been using MediaPortal for around a year and a half now, and since I switched to a server/client setup (with files stored on the server and played back on a MediaPortal client machine) I've been having issues streaming XviD/DivX videos across a network. The problem is that the video temporarily freezes at regular intervals; the audio keeps playing, but the video literally just stops for 10-15 seconds, then starts up again. The error doesn't occur at all when watching video stored on the playback machine, or when playing video over the network outside of MP (ie. in Media Player Classic/Windows Media Player 9/10/11).
I've been trying to solve the issue for months, and attempted every solution to a related problem posted on the support forum, including rolling back to earlier Nvidia drivers, using only the XviD codec, making sure my network drivers were up to date, moving video files to another machine on the network to test if it was the server's NIC, changing the network switch and the router, mapping and not mapping network drives, rebuilding another machine for media playback (with a completely different NIC), adding more RAM, trying different graphics cards, buying a NAS box and trying to stream from that, telling mplayer2.exe to cache 30 seconds of video and more stuff which I've probably forgotten.
I'm fairly certain that it's an issue with the way mplayer2.exe reads files off the network.
Has anyone experienced similar problems, or think of any other way to fix this? (Incidentally, I've also got an Xbox running XBMC on the same network, and the problem doesn't occur on it.)

Thanks,

mal

 

[FeersumEnjin]

Hey Mal,

You are not alone, I too suffer from this problem not matter what format the video file is (MKV, MP4, AVI) although for X.264 encodings I also get frame skip.

Anyway after approximately 15 minutes (although not always that predictable) the video will pause, there will be a lot of network activity and then the sound will kick off with the video in fast forward briefly until it catches up

All of my media is stored on 2 SAMBA streaming NAS servers and this issue affects them both, I also run Mediaportal on 2 pc's of different configuration and it affects both of them.

I have yet to be able to resolve this problem which is frustrating to say the least, Any help will be most welcome.

I fear however that this may be a bug in Mediaportal itself and as this a relatively uncommon thing to do with most people storing their video locally it may take some time to fix...

(SAD PANDA)

 

[chiun]

I have the same problem. My movies are shared on a fileserver and mapped to a drive letter on the MP machine (only one). Whatever format the movie has, it freezes every 15 sec. Playing with other player such as MplayerClassic Mplayer, zoomplayer, or Windows mediaplayer works fine. Also playing local files with MP. I'm stuck. Don't know what to do next. //Chiun

 

[cursor]

When I first set up MediaPortal in my home, with a client/server setup, I assumed that the frame skip and pausing of DivX/XviD files was caused by my network switch. After upgrading the switch and all network cards to gigabit, I still have the same issue...
It doesn't do this with MPEG2 streams from the TV Server, just my DivX/XviD files from a seperate machine.
I have even tried sharing out the files from another machine on my network, with the same results.
My XviD files average 360MB per hour of video, really not much for a gigabit network to handle.
I don't see video performance problems in Windows Media Player or the media player in Vista Media Center.