caching remote media files localy

[Dilbert1234567]

So here is the setup, i have a pc running windows xp pro hooked to my tv, its networked to my media server (xp pro) downstairs, i play files directly from the server, normaly everything works fine, but sometimes when i am working on my server, then i get spots of lag, i've found a way with winamp to buffer 20 seconds of content so i dont notice the lag, how ever, i cant find a video player to do the same. VLC can do it, but it has to be set each time a file is opened, not set as a default. BSplayer pro 2 says it can, but it does not work at all.

Does anyone know of a media player that can buffer video files from a remote share?

[cyrnel]

You're basically streaming content that may not be "streaming friendly". The only way an app knows how far to look ahead (and which files might be needed) in every case is to preflight the media. Plenty of room for error there given all the authoring options. Hopefully someone will mention players that handle it better, but you might do best to write a simple media browser that copies locally before handing off to your players.

Should mention I got sick of random things happening on the net or on my server causing video stutters. Most of the annoyances were my own fault and not something predictable, even with preflighting. Without a full copy at the player there's not much to be done if a big task fires up, and two hours of video provides lots of opportunity for murphy to send me running and cursing.

Perhaps if the boxes were static - if I didn't change things all the time - then maybe a point of comfort could be reached. They aren't. If I ever stop screwing around with them it means I'm dead. (No more movie problem.)

I'd considered setting up a priority model on the server to ensure resources, then remembered I wasn't 20 anymore. Since most big stuff that's affected arrives at the media box via a disc or external drive anyway, I came to terms with using it that way. The server became more of my archive and music source. As for video, more stuff goes to the server than plays from it.

The change also affected my original playback box. I'd started with a cute little VIA M10000 appliance that could barely flash a cursor while decoding MP2s. When the playback blues hit I upgraded completely. Even do some encoding on that box now. What was elegant, small, and slow became big fast commodity stuff that's hidden, so it's just as quiet. Cute sucked.

[Dilbert1234567]

Originally Posted by cyrnel

You're basically streaming content that may not be "streaming friendly". The only way an app knows how far to look ahead (and which files might be needed) in every case is to preflight the media. Plenty of room for error there given all the authoring options. Hopefully someone will mention players that handle it better, but you might do best to write a simple media browser that copies locally before handing off to your players.

I wish I could just copy it locally, but the files are about 1.5 to 4.5 gigs, and its a 10/100 network, 10+ minutes to copy the file first, I’d like to find a way that it would start playing and copy the file at the same time. so 10 minutes into the movie it would be fully cached.

Originally Posted by cyrnel

Should mention I got sick of random things happening on the net or on my server causing video stutters. Most of the annoyances were my own fault and not something predictable, even with preflighting. Without a full copy at the player there's not much to be done if a big task fires up, and two hours of video provides lots of opportunity for murphy to send me running and cursing.

Perhaps if the boxes were static - if I didn't change things all the time - then maybe a point of comfort could be reached. They aren't. If I ever stop screwing around with them it means I'm dead. (No more movie problem.)

This is my problem, I’m always doing something on the server, mainly BT, if I’m accessing a file on a HD that is being used for BT, every so often the cache BT has fills up and it has to dump to the hard drive, I’ve increased the cache to 64 MB, but the pauses still happen. I do have a complete front end, all the media is indexed in a SQL database, which my IIS server serves through a few ASP pages.

[cyrnel]

Yea, I wanted to work on a redirect driver that'd represent a remote filesystem locally and do snowball reads. (Reading more than x sequential blocks of any file starts a full tilt copy to the local cache.) Probably already on sourceforge somewhere.

You've probably already tried dropping the BT cache to something miniscule? You may gain fragmentation but the overhead would flatten. Big lazy writes can be evil.

[Dilbert1234567]

oh yeah, some more info, the display adapter on the server shares the IRQ with the network adapter, that is where alot of my problem comes from. if i ever use VNC it locks up for a sec. thats why i want caching on the local box, not on the server.

[cyrnel]

I haven't kept up with all the VNC variants. Have you noticed an option to disable local video? More of a bandaid but if it's an option... I know other RC programs like logmein have separate display drivers for the remote connection and can "disconnect" local video.

[Dilbert1234567]

Ok I’m half way there with temporary offline files. enabling offline files, and forcing the share to cache the file locally (automatic caching of programs and documents under the cache button under the windows share window), I can now cache files under 2 gigs, but windows is lame, the max size I can get for offline temporarily cached files is 2 gigs, I’ve tried changing it everywhere, the registry, Group policy, and the normal way, can’t get more than 2 gigs.

This function auto caches the file, and I can have it clear the cache at shutdown, or replace the oldest cached file, however, I’d like to be able to cache my larger movies, (5 gigs each) and I can’t seem to get the size up. Google says it’s capped at 2 gigs. Anyone have any ideas? Besides breaking the movies up into smaller chunks.