video playback of files on network (1 Viewer)

[dorijan]

Hi to all..
I was wondering is there a way to buffer files that are played over the network?
I have a problem that my network is unstable, every 20 minutes i lost network for couple of seconds, and if I play somthing, playing stops.
Thanks to everyone...

 

[MageMinds]

It's not normal that you loose network, even for a few seconds... Buffering imply that you are streaming, but you are reading a file from the network, thus relying on Windows ability to supply the file as needed to the application.

When you loose the connection to the file it's because Windows lost the connection, then you need a new connection to continue getting the file.

I don't think adding buffering would really solve your problem. One thing would ... Get your network stable!

 

[dorijan]

Thank you for your reply...
The problem is that this is a big wireless network, that exist in the city, and I play files over the network that goes over many rotuers and long distance. Speed and latency are not the problem, I allways have over 20 mbits and under 10 ms, but sometimes network stops for couple of seconds and then all stops.
I tried tweaking errors in ffdshow, but did not accomplish anything

 

[MageMinds]

I see your problem ... You're getting the files from a friend probably located the other side of the city... That's awesome by the way the you city provide you with that kind of network...

But I don't think that you can buffer a network file unless you're using a streaming protocol... That's the way media container and codec works...

Maybe you can pre download the file locally before reading it? You could even automate this using some kind of rsync between your friend and you... rsync would restart where it stoped in case of a network failure... A job that is initiated every 15 or 30 minutes would do the trick. rsync is really fast, but you have to have a rsync server at your friend place...

cwRsync is the Windows version of rsync, it works very well and you would not have to worry about network failure anymore. You would only have to have a NAS on your side... QNAP have a nice NAS that integrate rsync natively. You could also backup important data to each other place.

I also hope you're using a VPN between you two, this add up on your network problem, if the network drop, then your VPN does also and both have to come back before you can have access to the files.

I would do rsync with local cache, you would have a small delay before being able to read the files... 20mbits would get you a 1 GB file in under 10 minutes...

 

[dorijan]

actually, we, as organization of citizen build our own network over whole town, we financed all by ourself...
we have over 150 rotuers, over 400 wirless links and over 500 users, and I am a main system and network administrator.

I will try rsync, but problem with rsync is that it sync all data I assume, but I do not want all data from my friend, just one file...
I have users that have share over 5 tb

also, we dont use vpns, because all network devices are routable, and we do not allow nat in the network...

 

[MageMinds]

You seem to have a really great network!

Maybe there are some package that you install on Windows that will handle that... But I don't know...

I'm thinking of a layer between Windows and the application, where the application request a file to Windows and then the software get the file as fast as it can even if the application is not requesting is. Thus caching the file locally.

I see that VLC have some kind of caching, I'm guessing that it speed up the decoding and playback the result at normal speed... The problem I see with that is that you loose the whole network. I think VLC would work with fluctuating latency on the network, but not loosing the connection.

Does the states in the router get disconnected also, do you know for sure that the connection is lost completely, like your wireless card need to reconnect with the access point?

I've done a quick search on Google and I can't find anything that will cope with a file transfer being interrupted mid-point by a network failure.

rsync would only sync the folder on that server... But yes it would sync the whole folder, you could make some sort of ignore list, but I sure you're looking for a simple solution... Like showing your friend folder in MP and from the menu select what you want to listen...

Do you know what is exactly the network problem? Is it on your end or one of the routers on the network the give up?

 

[dorijan]

Hi again...
I do not loose connection on local media because all our clients are connected with utp to the router (we use mikrotik) with wireless cards.
It is hard to tell what is the problem with network, but I suppose couple of packets here and there, and this is big problem to ffdshow I suppose.
I looked for vlc and I think this could be a solution, it has :file-caching=xxx option, but I do not know how to use vlc as external player...last plugin for mediaportal was in 2008, so I suppose it is no loger supported?