ReadyNAS Duo 4.1.8 and HD video quality .MOV

janpeter wrote:
Hi When I read HD-video quality in .MOV format from the NAS to my Mac using CIFS it is not really smooth. (I use my new Nikon D7000 camera video files.) However with standard video quality .AVI format I have no problem. I just wonder if this is a limitation of the Duo or mainly the router. How do I see where the bottleneck is? Thanks

Based on the info at http://www.dpreview.com, the HD video from this camera is about 24 mbit/s (or 3 MB/s). The Duo should handle this rate easily - I have watched 40 mbit/s BluRay m2ts files stored on the Duo w/o any problems on my NTV550. So my guess is that the network is a likely place to start.

-When you say the playback is "not really smooth", do you mean that it actually pauses, or has audio dropouts? Or are you seeing something less noticeable?

-Though it is likely obvious, have you checked local playback on the Mac? At 1080p, the video frame rate for this camera is 23.976 fps (the normal frame rate for film). Since the PC display refresh rate is usually 50 or 60 fps, there is some amount of jutter that cannot be avoided.

-What transfer speed to you get with drop and drag?

-How are you connected? (wifi, powerline, 100 mbit ethernet, gigabit ethernet).

Some routers have QOS or let you prioritize traffic on a lan port basis. Those settings might be worth exploring.

-Have you tried a different software player? The amount of buffering (and general playback performance) does vary. Ideally the player would use the graphics acceleration hardware in the Mac.