How to get rid of choppy video streaming playback from Network attached storage (NAS / VLC / Mac OS X)

Posted on January 1, 2009
Filed Under Gadgets | 2 Comments

I did replace my QNAP NAS with a shiny new Synology 207+ this Christmas. And whilst I was more than pleased with its functionality and the great user interface I was more than dissapointed by the fact that all videos I did try to watch on my MacBook Pro via the VLC player did not run smoothly at all it was snatchy really. 

And as the VLC preference changes by extending the buffer in size didn’t do the trick I had to search quite a bit to find the solution to this problem. The solution then was found by using SMB (Server Message Block) network protocol instead of the Apple OS X standard AFP (Apple Filing Protocol).

Follow the steps in this article to connect to Windows File Sharing (SMB) from Mac OS X 10.1 or later. SMB is the native sharing protocol for Microsoft Windows operating systems, but it may be offered by other computers.

Follow these steps:

  1. Click the Finder icon in the Dock.
  2. Choose Connect to Server from the Go menu.
  3. In the address field of the Connect to Server dialog, type the URL using this syntax: smb://ServerName/ShareName/
  4. Click Connect.

You will be prompted for the workgroup, user name, and password. In addition to connecting to actual Microsoft Windows computers, you may also use the Connect to Server dialog to connect to a Macintosh that is offering Windows File Sharing.

Doing this resolved the issues for me and videos do run like a charm now via WLAN and directly from the NAS.

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    • Comments

    2 Responses to “How to get rid of choppy video streaming playback from Network attached storage (NAS / VLC / Mac OS X)”

    1. Edward from SynologyNo Gravatar on January 4th, 2009 6:45 am

      Great to know this. Happy new year :)

    2. AlfNo Gravatar on February 19th, 2009 6:40 pm

      Great advice! I was really annoyed with this choppy vlc performance. now everything seems to be just perfect!!!!
      thanks!

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