Boxee really slow to start playing file from SMB share

[vw412fan]

I am running boxee on my atv 2.3.1 on a wired 100Mb network (router is an Apple Airport extreme, atv & Mac are both on wired ethernet). My Intel Mac mini has the SMB share working, I have my folders mapped and can navigate to them in boxee.

What I can't figure out is why after selecting "Play" it takes up to 4 minutes to start playing the file. We literally sat there and watched the big spinning thing for 4 minutes, waiting. Once the file is playing it's fine, no stuttering, can navigate forward or back OK. Kind of strange.

Is boxee queueing/buffering this whole time before it plays the file? I would think it should start streaming it sooner.

The file in question is an XVID .avi, 624x352, 25fps, 350MB file. I generally get the same behavior with other similar files.

Any ideas on what might be causing this? I do have afp sharing enabled on the Mac as well, but I wouldn't think that would cause a samba conflict, or could it?

Thanks in advance. Google and boxee forum lurking haven't turned up a whole lot for me yet, but I rediscovered this fine forum today!

 

[vw412fan]

Update:

I decided to try XBMC last night, since it is available in the Launcher. Running Atlantis BF-1 build from Dec 08 iirc.

I found it very easy to set up, and was also able to easily install the Mediastream skin as well. (Thanks to Cyberduck!)

Interestingly, my samba shares are *much* more responsive in XBMC than they were in Boxee. They are a bit sluggish to browse, but when I select a file to play, it starts in 4 to 5 seconds. Boxee was taking minutes to start.

I'm in the process of adding other video plugins (Hulu, NBC, etc) to XBMC. I may end up preferring this over Boxee in the end.

In the meantime I also figured out nitoTV as well (it helps to have files actually on the Apple TV first... d'oh!) so I'm a happier camper now.