INTERACT FORUM

More => Old Versions => Media Center 11 (Development Ended) => Topic started by: Laffer on August 26, 2004, 02:11:03 pm

Title: Video via media server?
Post by: Laffer on August 26, 2004, 02:11:03 pm

Maybe a dumb question - Is media server supposed to support video?

More specifically DVD type files .VOB etc?

Playing music over a wired or wireless network works fine.  If I try it with a couple of different hard disk based DVD's (that work fine 'locally') I just get a file not found error message.

Can anyone advise?

Laffer.

Title: Re:Video via media server?
Post by: Alex B on August 29, 2004, 08:01:37 pm

I don't know about VOB files (I don't have them), but MPG and AVI seem to work. Videos are not streamed. The whole video file is buffered before playback. The startup time for an 808 Mbyte video file is 83 seconds on my 100 Mbit LAN.

Title: Re:Video via media server?
Post by: IlPadrino on August 29, 2004, 08:18:39 pm

Quote from: Alex B on August 29, 2004, 08:01:37 pm

I don't know about VOB files (I don't have them), but MPG and AVI seem to work. Videos are not streamed. The whole video file is buffered before playback. The startup time for an 808 Mbyte video file is 83 seconds on my 100 Mbit LAN.

I always considered that a design flaw...  there should be a way to stream video.  I remember asking about it once and I think I was told it was *supposed* to stream.  I don't think I ever checked it again - I decided it was easier to share the media library itself.

Transferring an entire 800 MB file on an 802.11b network is not feasible.  Even on an 802.11g network it's still excessive.

Title: Re:Video via media server?
Post by: John Gateley on August 30, 2004, 01:06:39 pm

I just checked, and videos are streamed.  What is your video playback option set to? Use WMP engine or not?

j

Title: Re:Video via media server?
Post by: Alex B on August 30, 2004, 03:20:38 pm

MC 11.0.70 on both ends, default settings (no WMP engine)

Does the file format matter?

That 808 MB file is MPEG2 (stereo audio).

I tried also with a 700 MB Xvid (AC3 audio) AVI file. Startup time was 72 seconds.

An older 120 MB MPEG1 video opened at 5 seconds. So it was obviously streaming. Also the playback was a bit jerky.

Those big files played smoothly after buffering.

Title: Re:Video via media server?
Post by: John Gateley on August 30, 2004, 05:02:19 pm

So some are streamed and some are not?

Try switching the WMP setting to see if that changes anything.

j

Title: Re:Video via media server?
Post by: Alex B on August 30, 2004, 07:58:43 pm

With WMP engine big MPEG2 and Xvid files downloaded even slower. It took several minutes.

I also tried with a 400 MB MPEG1 file and the startup time was the same 5 seconds.

Title: Re:Video via media server?
Post by: Laffer on September 03, 2004, 08:44:10 am

I'll do some more testing (.VOB, AVI & MPG etc) and post back here.

Laffer.