Testing network performance

[raspberry_pd]

Firstly, sorry to hear of your problems. Life would be much easier if stuff 'just worked' more often.

I don't want to muddy the waters here but one thing that I have noticed in the last couple of days is the impact of power supply on video playback - or at least that is how I am interpreting recent evidence. That being that until I tried a higher amp power supply I was unable to play the birds example video file:

http://www.auby.no/files/video_tests/h264_1080p_hp_4.1_40mbps_birds.mkv

from my Drobo NAS powered SMB share.

However using a different power setup to my usual, I was able to play the birds clip without substantial stutter three out of four times. Sure it took a little time to initially load the file but once it started playing it was fine.

Of course a couple of factors may make my experience unscientific or unrepresentative:

- I had just switched to the 3.6.11 kernel
- I am using a Model B Rev 2
- If I remember correctly I had not just the normal micro-USB power, but also power running into one USB port

The frustrating part is that when the file stopped, more often than not, CEC control was unavailable! I'd expect that when the file was playing but not afterwards It was clear whether XBMC has frozen or not but in effect it might as well have.

I'm impressed by your desire to solve the problem and willingness to test. Can you try downloading the above birds file and playing it from your SMB share? I have a strong suspicion that although that file is very high bitrate, resolution and has full-screen movement whilst also panning, because it is only a short sample, even the Model B Rev 2 can save it fully into RAM and thus that must help the smoothness of playback.