Displaying thumbs and XML data

WD Legacy Products WD TV Live Streaming
1

All of my files are stored on a NAS device (Linkstation 2TB), WD SMP is on wireless connection currently.

I’ve got all my movies rearranged into subfolders.

Structure looks like: 

Movies

     >Action

     >Comedy

         >Folder of Movie Name

             >Movie.avi

             >Movie.jpg

             >Movie.xml

So all that in mind. If I connect to the NAS through the SMP as a Media Server, I get no thumbs or XML data. If I change over to Network Share, I get all the thumbs and XML data no problem.

Here’s the bigger issue… Connected as a Media Server videos play fine, they start quick, play with no stutter. If I connect as a Network share though it takes 10-15 seconds for the movie to load, then video playback is choppy, with no audio.

I figured I’d bypass both options and take advantage of the My Media Library option so I tried to configure that… I added my main movie folder and let it compile a list of what was in there. That ran overnight, and still didn’t finish ( I can’t imagine my library is that complex). For giggles, I removed that listing of the main folder, and had it scan a smaller folder instead. That took again longer than expected, (took a few minutes to scan for 6 files in the folder). Thumbs and XML data showed up fine, but video playback was the same as when connected as a Network Share, stutters with no audio.

So, questions at this point.

  1. Can thumbs and XML data be displayed while connected as a Media Server? If so, what may I be doing wrong?

  2. If the answer to number 1 is no, does anyone have any idea why playback would be so drastically different when I’m connected as a Network Share or the My Media Library?

I’d really like to take full advantage of the ability to have cover art, and xml data for my movie collection so any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

2

  1. No.   Metadata is only supported for Local media or via Network Shares (Windows or Linux.)

  2. Network Shares (using Windows protocol) uses Samba.   The processing / network overhead is higher with Samba than most protocols.   Media Server (DLNA) uses an offshoot of HTTP (same as Web protocol) for file transfer, and is slightly more efficient.

That said, I would suspect that your network is marginal to begin with if Network Shares causes such poor performance.

I have in excess of 20TB of media stored across almost a half-dozen NAS devices…  I use Network Shares for everything (except music, but for non-technical reasons.)

My NASes and everything in between is Gigabit Ethernet; the SMP itself is the only thing using 100 meg ethernet.

Since your SMP is using WiFi, I would start looking there – try connecting via wire.   If you have good results, you then know your WiFi isn’t up to the task of handling Samba file transfer, and you can know where to start looking to determine why.

1 Like
3

Thanks. I’ll check the network itself tonight. I hadn’t dove into that end to ofar due to the fact that streaming to any other device over wireless in my house works flawlessly. (Logitech Revue, Android Tablet, Galaxy S2, and Galaxy S3).

I’ll take a closer look though and see what I find.

Thanks for the assistance.