Basic video buffering?

[capone]

This is for non-GB video watching, but this is a fairly knowledgeable group.

I know there's a long streaming to PCs thread, but I'm wondering if there's an easy way to do just buffering. I have a laptop w/ a wireless G card, but it's just quite not enough (and the system isn't just quite fast enough) to make it smooth. It just needs a little help, more than full streaming aid.

I've seen the VLC setup, and in honesty, I've had a hard time w/ it. All I've wanted to do is be able to open a file over the network and have it just buffer/load the file.

I'm new to this, and it may be that buffering is an element of streaming, and it can't be done independantly. I've got a web server on the media sotrage box if that helps do a makeshift setup.

[ydekmekji]

I have had no luck using vlc and the remote access via web. look up orb.com, it works best for me

[capone]

Seems a little much for sending video to the next room. I really just need a method to pre-load a little video. Really being able to preload 10sec would me more than enough. It's just second or two off at times.

[ejeffers]

Capone, I feel your pain. All the VLC guides just go way over my head, and I too am looking for a simple way to buffer a loaded file. I tried that Orb thing, but it just seemed like too much bloatware for a simple file view.

[capone]

W/ how prevalant computer-based video is becoming, and wireless is, I just find it hard to understand that there are so few players or easy server software just to provide basic playback help.

You see more "it's not quite there yet" w/ wifi, and no effort to close the gap w/ some media helper app. The ability to watch Lost on your phone from the computer in your basement is coming along much faster than the ability to make it play on your laptop on the patio.

If someone wants to make some pretty decent money even just in the shareware market, just flesh out a basic video player that starts playing a file, but doesn't display it for 5-20 sec so you have a faux buffer, specially for wifi/LAN. It would be a good "for the rest of us" app that would be w/o competition that I can tell.

[ejeffers]

I may a possible solution:
In WMP 10, under tools>options>playback, there is a setting called network buffer with an adjustable time. I'm about to try it on my Wifi comps and see if it indeed mean s 'network' buffer, as i watch my ,edia files from a networked drive.

[Torque]

Are you trying to watch buffered Live TV or just pre-recorded shows on your laptop? If prerecorded, it should be doable now with your setup unless I'm not reading you correctly.

I have my PVR connected to my LAN using a wireless G USB device. If I map a drive to my PVR videos on my office PC, I can watch pre-recorded shows easily. WMP buffers the video for about 5 seconds, then starts playing. When I had 802.11B, it just wasn't quite fast enough for medium quality recordings. G is plenty fast for high quality recordings.

[capone]

I knew I had tried the WMP option before, and tried again to see what the problem was. I set it up to 60sec, and it clearly wasn't buffering that much. I kicked down the video acceleration a little for network play (under advanced) and that helped lighten the load for the most part.

Still, it's not treating the LAN file like a true network file, and buffering it for the amount set. That's the aspect that seems to ingored, and the LAN is getting preferential treatment when you may not want it.

[ejeffers]

Yeah, i just fugured that out, when opening from a network drive, it doesnt really think that its a network dirve, and treats as a local one. Im still looking for a fix

[Torque]

I just remembered that I am NOT using WMP... I am using Media Player Classic. I was dealing with some funky codec issue with WMP that caused the video to have bright pink highlights, so I've been using MPC. It works for me without having to custom set the buffering or anything. A lot of times I'll just type \\mediapc\recordings\ in Winders Explorer and then launch the video without mapping it to a drive letter too.