The toddler loves having Kodi full of all their faves but I haven’t been able to iron out all the buffering I’m getting streaming from my mini-pc NFS mounted shares to the pi4 libreelec hooked up via Ethernet in the living room. Everything is wired, so I wouldn’t think that would be an issue but here I am about to put down a couple hundred dollars for a Synology router that looks like the monolith from 2001. Is this going to do the trick, you think? Is there another router recommended to keep a distributed little homelab (any 10tb spread between various usb hdd, raspberry pi’s and mini PCs all hosting a variety of containers and services) running smoothly? Budget I’m hoping to keep under 300 and lower the better but happy toddler and buttery smooth streaming over lan is the priority.
Kodi on my 2015 Nvidia Shield doesn’t stutter for me playing back 30GB+ 4k files on a 1Gb network from and ancient (2012) AMD Athlon TrueNAS box. It could be network related, but you can test this from another machine (laptop, desktop, etc) or by using local playback on the pi. I have cheap network hardware, and have never needed better. All this is to say Kodi mounting NFS shouldn’t need much bandwidth or high end gear. Perhaps the issue is on the playback side. Good luck!
Thanks! Super helpful data point. I don’t have the same buffering issues streaming the same video to my desktop over nfs, so I’m leaning towards it being a pi4 bottleneck. Just plopped down for a Vera V so fingers crossed that’s the issue.
Do you experience buffering if you watch on a pc / laptop on VLC via network? This will tell you if it’s network speed related or hardware power related. I would assume the pi is not quite powerful enough. I am using a device called a Vero 4k+ and it works wonderfully. But my network setup sounds similar to yours, I just have an smb share on my pc and I added it as a source in kodi.
I don’t, super helpful. So I’m guessing this is a pi bottleneck. Just ordered the Vera V so we’ll see! Fingers crossed for happy toddler.
Nice, should be a nice upgrade! Been debating getting the V for av1 support, but I’m also just holding off hoping Apple TV will support it soon.
Any luck with the vero?
That is a complex setup. What’s wrong with Jellyfin?
Also doing media streaming from a RPI is not going to work well. Go with a old minipc as they are cheaper anyway
? Not particularly. I have an intel mini pc hosting jellyfin and a few drives via nfs and samba in one room along with the rest of my homelab. In the living room I need to get that media to the tv so I’m using a pi4 running libreelec atm to connect to those shares.
Change the baby for a dog. You’re welcome.
I hear you need dark magic for that
Broth…er?
You made my wife cry
EDIT IRL
Same solution as with the baby. Sorry, gotta go hide from my wife before she reads this. I kind of like breathing.
Instructions unclear. Baby is now a werewolf and howls loudly when Kodi is buffering.
My bad, I apologize. Put it in the freezer for now and I’ll shout out when I have clear instructions in a codeberg repo.
I gave up on kodi. Jellyfin works better, presumably because it transcodes better.
Haven’t used Kodi but am running Jellyfin via the official docker image on a Raspberry Pi 4. Even there transcoding works reasonably well for one user at a time, admittedly didn’t try with several users at the same time so far.
Just mentioning the docker image because I used to install it without docker directly via the repository and I never got transcoding to work on the same hardware.
It still transcodes it just uses the CPU
What quality is the content? I have a pi4 running OSMC, kode front end and things are buttery smooth. All content is 1080p or lower as the pi can’t handle 4k
Network is a 1gb switch from the mini pc running NFS and homeplugs to get the network from a bedroom to the living room.
Have you tried reading to your kid instead
Well maybe don’t post about how your kid crys when they can’t watch TV. And maybe you should have solicited advice from your pediatrician.
Your poor kid
Sorry you seem to not be getting it https://lemmy.world/comment/11720780
I’m going to assume you don’t have kids.
Unless you’ve had kids you don’t understand that it is practically impossible to complete even the most basic tasks unless your child is distracted.
Staying on top of household duties while managing a child is challenging enough, but then add on work, study, and every other responsibility.
I’ve never met a single parent who shares your opinion.
I do have a young child, and where does op state they are a single parent. Yes throwing screens in front of kids is the easiest way for you to ignore them and do what you have to do, but it’s not recommended and it’s bad for their development.
I didn’t mean OP was a single-parent. I meant I haven’t met any parents.
In any case, are you telling me you haven’t ever let your kid watch TV because you were too busy?
All these answers are wrong you want Stremio.
Are you by any chance using flat Ethernet cables? Those are not to spec and are vulnerable to radio noise. Friends don’t let friends buy and use flat Ethernet cables.
Woah really?? I am actually…
Your setup sounds much too complex and misses key information and troubleshooting steps. The flat cables are kind of the cherry on top.
You need to start laying out which devices grab which stuff from where and which cables, switches, routers and panels you are using.
Otherwise people wont be able to help you. A new router isnt going to help you at all.
Example: I run plex on a terra miniserver, stream to my phones and computers over wifi (the server is connected via cat7 wired networking with a tested gigabit connection). I also stream to a libreelec-pi in another room which is also on wifi and has issues sometimes. That is why I‘m gonna wire the connection later this month so that is no issue. I also have an appletv in the livingroom which is connected by wire and has no buffering. There are 3 gigabit switches and a fritz!box also connected but they‘re all gigabit as well: Between PCs and the main router, appletv and the main router and the server and the main router.
It’s really neither much too nor very complex at all. I have a home lab stack of mini PCs and raspberry pi’s in my office hooked up to a switch to my router. Among the stack is an intel nuc with a few attached usb hdd, sharing those drives via NFS and Samba and hosting Jellyfin. The same machine serves jellyfin to my other devices and a few family members over the internet. That machine is more than capable for the task. In order to get that media to the living room I have a raspberry pi 4 running libreelec also hard wired to the Ethernet also to the same switch (running through a cable window in the wall). No, I had not heard of the issues with flat Ethernet cables that are otherwise advertised as cat 7 compatible, because I have (some) of the machines networked with flat Ethernet cables. Those are getting replaced.
For the most part the pi4 libreelec machine handles content fine. But I have a number of multichannel audio, hd not-quite-4k animated movies that do routinely cause buffering issues. It seems most likely upon review and after the comments in this thread that it was a simple bottleneck at the pi4. The same content plays unstuttwring on other more equipped machines on the network. I do think the router is on its way out though and deserves an upgrade but that looks to be an optional next step. I’m replacing the pi as a media machine for now.
Flat cables can be conformant and they still have twisted pairs. Cables just have to meet the physical properties set by the standard.
Just run a sustained load over the cable in both directions and/or use testing tools. Even if the cables were okay, something is sincerely wrong with that setup and its not the pi as they work very well.
Sure they might exist but the ones you buy off of That Website never are.
Before getting all crazy and changing the setup why don’t you try Wi-Fi. Yes Wi-Fi. Your cable might only be 100mbit and your WiFi may be faster.
Wi-Fi 5 can theoretically transmit data at speeds of up to 3.5 Gbps. And obviously WiFi 6 and 7 are even faster.
Just get a tablet and run VLC. Hardware transcoding is a privilege, not a necessity.
It’s not doing hardware transcoding afaik. This is the equivalent of running VLC, right? It’s kodi we’re not talking about jellyfin transcoding.
VLC will just do network transfer and decode on the software side without issue.
Jellyfin will default to hardware decoding.
Right. The architecture we’re talking about right now is a NFS hosted share going to a Kodi instance, not a jellyfin instance sharing to Kodi. Kodi does not transcode. It handles things similarly to VLC afaik.
In my living room, buffering happens when the connection is only WiFi, but you are on ethernet already (which solves that for me).
pi4 libreelec
Have you considered getting one of these small Chinese “Android TV” boxes?
Please do not buy cheap no brand android tv boxes unless you know how to verify they are not running malware out of the box. This is a known problem and shouldn’t be recommended.
unless you know how to verify they are not running malware out of the box.
So why don’t you tell us how to verify that?
First result searching “how to check if android tv is infected”: https://www.tomsguide.com/news/thousands-of-android-tv-boxes-infected-with-dangerous-malware-linked-to-fraud
I have a similar setup but my nfs server is not a mini pc.
You could try diagnosing if it’s the network or if your mini pc is too busy (maybe out of disk i/o?).
If that’s too hard, temporarly stop all other programs on the mini pc. Does it help?
Does streaming something from the internet to kodi work without freezes? If it’s ok, then network is likely not the issue
Last but not least, does playing the same video from an USB stick work smoothly? If not, maybe the quality is too high or the video is x265
To me it looks like you don’t have enough power, either on the Pi4 side to decode, or the mini-pc to encode.
On the other hand, putting a baby in front of a screen just to stop it from crying isn’t a solution. That’s the best way to make him/her a future problematic child with poor impulse control.
Appreciate the solicited technical advice, less so the unsolicited parenting advice, thanks! You’ll be shocked to hear that hyperbole exists, I’m sure. I’m just trying to watch the Aristocats with the kiddo without them wondering why the screen stops mid song, stranger.
ADHD diagnostic in 3, 2, 1…
There are very few things more obnoxious than an asshole for unsolicited parenting advice
Right? The absolute gall.
Removed the parental advice part. I didn’t want to be an asshole, believe me.
❤️
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters NFS Network File System, a Unix-based file-sharing protocol known for performance and efficiency NUC Next Unit of Computing brand of Intel small computers SMB Server Message Block protocol for file and printer sharing; Windows-native
3 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 11 acronyms.
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