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.
I’m not sure about how this works in kodi but in jellyfin the client might request a different resolution which causes the server to try and reencode the provided file on the fly. In my case my server isn’t fast enough for this which leads to constant buffering
Likely, This is it. It transcodes and hence it has to buffer because the server isn’t strong enough. Best is to use a gpu like intel a380 as described in jellyfin’s doc.
No no transcoding happening on kodi, it’s just playing it straight over the lan. That said I do have jellyfin set up on a machine that can handle transcoding for a number of clients. I gave considered switching to Kodi +Jellyfin and seeing if that’s better.
Installing the Jellyfin add on into kodi takes a few minutes. Nothing much to consider, just try it and see if that changes anything.
I have a similar setup (rpi with OSMC, media hosted on file server) and prefer using Jellyfin as the source for all clients, as it keeps track of watched status across everything. It’s not perfect, but better than without Jellyfin.
I havent used kodi in a long time, since swapping to jellyfin. I personally found kodi would always buffer sometimes, far more than it should ever need to. With jellyfin, same server, no buffer
There’s no backend server to do the transcoding in this case. Kodi can access raw NFS/SMB file shares the same as accessing local storage, so it’s just reading the file over the network, the same as if you were playing it in VLC on your PC.
Kodi doesn’t do any transcoding. It just mounts the NFS share and plays the file.
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…
Flat cables can be conformant and they still have twisted pairs. Cables just have to meet the physical properties set by the standard.
Sure they might exist but the ones you buy off of That Website never are.
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
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.
can you run something like iperf3 or openspeedtest between the server and client to prove its a network throughput issue?
do you have a network switch you can add to avoid switching through your router (if it is indeed bad?)
Have you ensured you arent unknowingly using wifi at either end?
Change the baby for a dog. You’re welcome.
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 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.
Depends on the color of the dog.
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?
Otw but after replacing the flat Ethernet cable (no change), and while waiting for the vero I switched to connecting to jellyfin / jellycon via its local address instead of its external one (🤦♂️) and zero buffering silky smooth everything. I don’t understand why but holding my breath for now while I wait for the vero when I can retire this unit at least to the office tv where it doesn’t have the responsibility of always performing for the family.
My first thought was also that it’s a Pi bottleneck. I have a 4b, and I don’t think I would really trust it to handle some of the higher-quality streaming. Maybe just barely.
The Pi4 USB controller and network adapter share bandwidth. Do you have any devices on the USB port that could be causing collisions? I really can’t think of anything in that kind of scenario that would cause that sort of issue unless somehow you were using USB for video out…
To me it looks like you don’t have enough power, either on the Pi4 side to decode, or the mini-pc to encode.
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.
There are very few things more obnoxious than an asshole with unsolicited parenting advice
Right? The absolute gall.
Removed the parental advice part. I didn’t want to be an asshole, believe me.
❤️
ADHD diagnostic in 3, 2, 1…
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
Kodi on my 2015 Nvidia Shield doesn’t stutter for me playing back 30GB+ 4k files on a 1Gb network from an 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!
Edit:
andanThanks! 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.
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.
All these answers are wrong you want Stremio.
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
You can’t and they are almost certainly preinfected
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?
