Which streaming-protocol do you use? [Archive]

poing

2003-11-20, 05:33

personally, i run xbms 0.30.6.2 (an xns stream server) on my linux box and it works great, the linux version of ccxstream worked fine too when i tested it.
however some windows users in particular seem to have problems getting streaming to work, i have heard reports of ccxstream being choppy or not starting to play video at all, and several people have reported smb connections to their windows shares starting to play video, but then aborting after a few seconds. any comments / problem reports about streaming to xbmc? what works for you and what doesn't?

tslayer

2003-11-20, 05:40

well, i use relax on windows.

smb on windows works fine for mp3s, but with videos, it plays for about 1 second (if that) and then quits.

so, relax it is for me.

ts

floink

2003-11-20, 18:06

relax 076pre for me. i found that using samba on winxp got me into problems with accounts. something like when trying to log on to the pc it says "user already logged on from other location".

zilvershadow

2003-11-20, 21:20

samba is running on my server but directory browsing is slow with smb so i use ccxstream (better performance)

rayban

2003-11-26, 01:33

i use ccxstream on my linux with nfs mounts over to my windows 200x server. it works great, much better than smb. :)

rdperalta

2003-11-26, 18:36

i use relax on winxp... havent encountered any problems so far

oblivian

2003-11-29, 14:10

i use smb with winxp and haven't encountered problems other problems than that the network is very slow and nowhere near 100mbit/s.

i used relaxe, but since you both have to set it up as an extra service/server and the fact that it had some major security issues i stopped using it.

in the future i'd like to see full samba support.

silentyl

2003-12-01, 04:33

i've used smb (samba shares) for a long time with a 100mbits connection and never had any real problems with it...now i have a d-link 614+ wireless router and a d-link 520+ wireless pci in my pc and total bandwidth is meant to be 22mbits/s however signal is a constant 8mbits/sec due to the fact its wireless and there is distance between the router and the pc......

anyhow...i only ever use about 500kbytes per second anyway and it can do 1000kbytes per second...so its perfect for me and i can use cable modem quite well on the pc at the same time without either service being affected....go winxp!

rock on!
silentyl

b01

2003-12-01, 08:12

it is not that case that you have problems with these services, as smb, relax and xbms all work, but how you set them up.

in the past i have used relax and now use smb. if smb only plays 1 sec of video, then update xbmc and recheck your setup. if it runs slow, then there is a problem with your network config.

the reason i changed from relax is simple, why run extra software in the background, when there is one the is already one built into the os that works.

if it ain't broke, then dont fix it.

oblivian

2003-12-01, 15:36

in the past i have used relax and now use smb. if smb only plays 1 sec of video, then update xbmc and recheck your setup. if it runs slow, then there is a problem with your network config.
what do you mean by that? everything else in the network is running properly and at peak performance. i get 100mbit/s with all other units in my network and even the evox ftp send/receive 100mbit/s. i am 100% sure the problem lays with the xbmc smb service. the xbmc is set to inherit network settings from evox.

fuutah

2003-12-04, 20:44

i'm using xbms for freebsd, and on my windows machines i use relax, both works good

joe_user

2003-12-11, 12:26

smb3 on fedora here. i am using smb because it is an open standart. i am not a big fan of proprietary (?) things.

LiGhTfasT

2003-12-19, 00:58

prefer samba but its quite slow, but if i can be bothered turning relax on then i use that...

hope samba works nice and fast in xbmc, theres gotta be a way to speed it up... its well quick between pc's

Frodo

2003-12-19, 08:24

i am using smb because it is an open standart. i am not a big fan of proprietary (?) things.

eh both xns & xbms protocols are open and so are the sources of the streamers. nothing proprietary here.

but what about smb? thought thats was proprietary m$ stuff that was reverse engineered??

anyway i recommend the xbms using the ccxstream.exe streamer. its working perfectly

xns (relax) works nice but has some problems with going 2 parent directories.

smb doesnt work that good @ all. better not use it

frodo

joe_user

2003-12-27, 17:10

i tested now ccxstream. so far i am happy with it. fast and stable, if i can say this after 2 days http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/forums/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

oblivian

2004-01-05, 06:53

wow! with the new samba3 implemention it's ten times as fast! great!

joe_user

2004-01-05, 19:14

yep, absolutely great. i tested it yesterday. no crash at all. works really great.

amazing job, darkie!

ages

2004-01-07, 09:01

smb works great for me - no extra software to install, no hangs, works great.

big thanks to all xmbc developers this product is amazing

juise

2004-01-07, 09:09

the new smb code is fucking sweet!

thank you!!!

CoRe

2004-01-10, 13:01

just read through this stuff here. well... i'm using smb on my linux-server and everything works just fine with the new xbmc-rls. thx for that one. and just to quote someone in here:
why use xtra software when the thing you wanna do is already implemented?

EnglishRob

2004-01-11, 19:50

i was originally using relax on windows xp and i found it slowed my system down for some reason but apart from that, worked ok.

i did try smb shares on an old release and i couldn't connect to my pc, but with the new release with smb3, it works lovely.

i think xmbc makes it worth what i paid for my xbox & chip on its own, its such a good program and great for playing my movies on the telly without tying up the pc.

rob

PolishKid

2004-01-19, 06:03

i haven't really yet set up or tried any of the services while using xbmc, but i did try relax with xbmp and liked it very much. only had trouble with it when i was looking trough my mp3 partition on my computer (its a smart idea to have mp3s on a separate partition :) ) and it really lagged and even froze. i think that was when i was using temporarly the 20 gig hard drive of mine in my xbox. i was going to put in a 120 gig, but thought that the hard drive i got was too good for my xbox and put the 80 from my computer into my xbox. i have all that space and i'm not going to just let it sit there so i put my files on there.

lovedaddy

2004-01-20, 17:47

i'm currently using xbmc (with samba client) connecting to a linux machine running samba 2.2.8a. really really impressed with it all.
fast to connect, and i've never had any streaming problems.

big thumbs up and thanks to all the developers.

Toru

2004-01-22, 02:35

used to use relax on xp until the new samba code was added, now i use smb.

i created another account for the xbox, so i don't see any "already logged in" issues.

what i would like to do is keep the xbox account off the login screen - i.e. make it a remote-only account. don't know how to do that at the moment.

edit: ah, adjust local policies, user rights and add the xbox account to deny local login.

deoch

2004-01-22, 03:00

couldn't get smb to work before but after smb3 it does. *works great when i have the network cable plugged in, but does have some issues when i use a wireless connection.. *guess for now i will just drag a network cable over when i want to watch video files.

febs

2004-01-31, 17:39

mb is cool but i cannot use the new implemntation, since it's too slow with me. strange, since before that al was fine, and lots of people here says the new one is lightfaster.
there is still some work around it or it is leaved "as is" ?
thanx..

nimbles

2004-02-04, 15:44

i've had no probs with samba for xbmp & xbmc playing audio or video

and for mainy of the emulators that support it- having just added the xbox to the network it seemed the simplest one to setup particularly as i had severalof those folders already shared for others on the local network

i was wondering whther problems would occur if some on a pc and the xbox (using samba) tried streaming the same media at the same time. it hasn't happened and the chances of it happening a pretty remote but just thought i'd ask?

rdperalta

2004-03-14, 06:51

i also used to run relax as my streaming protocol but now that i have learned how to configure my samba shares in winxp :d its goodbye relax hello samba!!! :)

man its waay faster than relax

abc0815

2004-03-15, 13:56

samba shares on windows/linux
running cvs 03.14.2004 version
very nice :)

greetz

jaga

2004-03-16, 06:49

i'm using ccxstream on linux (2.6). it works perfectly for me.
--jaga

bungle

2004-03-20, 22:29

i used relax with xbmp and when i tried it with xbmc, i encountered the "relax directory navigation" bug. since then i have been using smb (with xp pro shares) and works great.
one disadvantage though (unless someone can tell me otherwise) is that you cannot show multiple directories on the same share.
for example, i have categorized my films into say, horror, action, comedy, etc and these are spread over multiple drives. with relax, i was able to add mutiple directories to the one share, so i could have "d:\movies\comedy" and "e:\movies\comedy" shared as "comedy" and when browsing on the xbox, i would see all movies in both directories displayed on the one share.

the limitation samba shares seems to have means that i must browse "d:\movies\comedy" and "e:\movies\comedy" as separate lists of movies.

not a big problem, but not as neat as when i used relax.

cheers

bradbradbrad

2004-03-22, 03:23

bungle: you can create symbolic links to folders using the junction program available from sysinternals (http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/source/misc.shtml#junction).
this will allow directories to be made under your smb shared folder to folders on other drives.

there is also a gui available for doing this, but i can't seem to find the link right now. i will post it if i can find it.

frank10

2004-03-22, 18:33

i use smb and it works great. am i missing something by not using the others?

bungle

2004-03-22, 21:14

bradbradbrad: thanks for that. i think i need to see if anyone's had this working without problems first though. if there's bugs in it, it could really mess up your filesystem!

(of course, we all have backups though don't we!)

cheers

bradbradbrad

2004-03-23, 05:32

i've been using it for a few months now with no problems bungle. keep it in mind for the future perhaps :-)

macsat

2004-03-24, 08:32

i use smb shares from a rh9 based little homeserver. working perfect afthe the new smb3 implementation in xbmc.

the xobx is connected to the server, using a wireless bridge and wireless router from linksys - works smooth as "normal" lan.

CodePoet

2004-04-01, 09:02

is there any way to use smb and have files from multiple drives/folders appear under a single folder in xbmc? i've used the junction program, but it seems that you can't point multiple folders to one junction folder. is there any way this can be done? thanks.

Gamester17

2004-04-01, 11:27

please respect that polls are not for support/help or asking for features, especialy not if the poll is the the genreral discussion forum.

ps! @codepoet, no, there is no function implemented into xbmc to do what you are looking for, hence it's a feature request

CodePoet

2004-04-01, 21:43

great - thanks for the info.

CodePoet

2004-04-04, 19:57

i've switched to smb - browing using relax was always screwy and my network can stream dvds fine using smb anyway. it would be nice to have some options for flattening/integrating folders, but i imagine they'll come in time.

djr

2004-05-12, 04:16

oneeyedelf

2004-05-19, 06:36

the problem here is everyone says how great smb is, honestly from my opinion it sucks, lots of the newer code out there sucks, smb over wifi, just wont cut it, relax using xns over wifi using the old player xbmp 12-8 release date works the best i have seen as of using allotable bandwidth, 1-7 xbmc has a problem streaming some stuff over wifi, and forget a new release of xbmc, xns support just doesnt work. relax is the only decent client that can scan my 8 drives on windows and dump all their contents into one massive directory. along with that, its the only thing its the only thing out there that to me is making nice use of its bandwidth and cacheing effectively. never really gave xbmps a go because ummm i cant find a client that can dump the contents of more then one drive into just one directory. i hope someone can go no wait try this program it works miracles, cause well i wish i could use the new players at home, i can at school cause everything is wired, but not at home.

small insert about media portal -
anyone instituting decent streaming support, would love to have wifi and be able to carry my laptop around having the movie play. windows & windows share just equals slide show city, videolan takes up too much bandwidth for wifi, 500k max is what i get through wifi usually, though 500k is enough for alot of stuff out there right now. 400k/s * 2hr movie = 2.8 gig file soo you can easily see the pipe of just wifi is adequate enough for streaming

Sarsippius

2004-07-20, 16:31

i originally voted for smb but since then i've realised that it was doing a lousy job of using the available bandwidth across my wifi network. with the xbox connected to my router/ap via cable and the pc streaming data connected wirelessly there's 500kb/s available bandwidth and smb would fluctuate between 100-300kb/s. so i set up ccxgui and it streams at 500kb/s or very close to it, high bitrate vids now stream no worries.

BizKillAll

2004-07-31, 21:02

finally after figuring out my port issue, i got cxxstream gui v1.3 to work. before that i was running through smb via windows shares. i don't notice a difference between the two protocals in speed or quality. the only thing i like about cxxstream better than smb, is that i navigate 2 less folders to get to my media. cxxstream works great and doesn't have any conflicts with my http or ftp server also setup on my network.

jsd

2004-08-09, 08:20

i tried ccxstream + gui last night and was instantly sold. i didn't like the idea of having smb shares that my neighbors could see (and i couldn't figure out how to easily hide them using xp pro).

they do have an xbox but i'm pretty sure it's not modded.

i also had problems with smb and directories with many files but i'm not sure it's any better under ccxstream yet. anyway i like the ccxstream gui very much. it works well. kudos to the developers.

Hullebulle

2004-08-21, 17:19

i tried ccxstream + gui last night and was instantly sold. *i didn't like the idea of having smb shares that my neighbors could see (and i couldn't figure out how to easily hide them using xp pro).

they do have an xbox but i'm pretty sure it's not modded.

i also had problems with smb and directories with many files but i'm not sure it's any better under ccxstream yet. *anyway i like the ccxstream gui very much. *it works well. *kudos to the developers.
to hde a share in the network neighborhood just add a $ to the sharename (like movies$). its still possible to find em with special apps tho.

snufsan

2004-09-15, 09:21

is samba 3.0 available for macintosh? xns works great but i want to see filesize, or maybe there is a fix for this with relax?

antny

2004-10-07, 16:55

pike

2004-10-11, 12:38

and this is the last time a poll ever gets bumped just because someone votes!

halleluja!

pasqualz

2004-10-16, 07:59

hi all, i was searching for a thread that already discussed the merits and downsides of the varying protocols, but found nothing. since this can easily become an opinion based discussion (and we all know what opinions are like!) i'd like to keep it as fact filled as possible. which protocol is faster, easier to configure, more flexible, etc?? thanks in advance!

johnh123

2004-10-20, 07:47

i use and have no problems with samba. never really could get the others going.

Scotch&Dry

2004-10-20, 16:08

hi all. i have one query with smb shares on winxp. i have noticed that after the creation of the share, all files copied after the share is created can be seen by xbmc. however they can't be plsayed. this is the same for audio, video or pics. the only way i can get new files to work, is to delete the share and then re-create it. any ideas anyone?