pre-install question

[rikardo1979]

Let me try to explain

As you probably know, Raspberry Pi have some limited hardware and it was never meant as media device primary. So its pretty amazing what it can achieve.
But there are some limitations.
XBMC on Raspberry Pi went a really big mile since started and it can play almost everything you throw to it.
But keep in mind that there are so many factors what can cause issues with playback, especially playback of HD stuff with high bit rates and files of big sizes.
The main hardware factors are
- inappropriate PSU
- slow SD card
- additional hardware plugged into USB ports directly (drain power from RPi)

Also the software make a big difference, and XBMC is still in Beta state so there still may be some issues in.

So back to XBian
If you flash the latest XBian you should be able play your files smooth even over the network. I personally use external DTS decoder but I've also tested the playback of HD 1080p/DTS 5.1 down mixed to stereo ( average size +/- 10GB mkv ) and all is playing smooth, no stutter or glitches.
This is stream over SMB/LAN network from my server. I've also tested bigger files more like 25GB +/- mkv, and this was smooth too, but it is not guarantied.

So I would say, give it a try and I'm pretty sure you not going to be disappointed