Hey there!

I have a bit of an annoyance i've discovered when trying to stream large video files via a mounted samba share on Windows.

I have a fileserver running Slackware with Samba, which shares all my recorded tv shows and movies with whatever needs to access them within the network via a share.

The problem I seem to encounter is that Windows doesnt seem to stream the file direct from Samba, it just downloads it and streams from the cache, from my understanding; which leads to quite large delays if the file is big.

My question is. Is there a solution that allows Samba or any other share-based software to stream files on-demand to other computers without having to download the file first?

Thanks alot in advance,
Oliver

Maybe you can't execute the files on your server?. I have a Debian server home which works basically in the same way you are doing with Slackware, but I stream the movies to my modded Xbox instead. I can only execute files locally (thus streaming) if that file has execute permissions from the server. Play a bit with the permissions and see if that helps.

Good luck!

Hey Megaman X, thanks for your reply!

Heh, I also have an XBOX running XBMC, good stuff!

I set the file with the execute permission on the server but it still seems to be doing the same thing. Perhaps Samba just isnt built for streaming? But then again, why isnt it?

Thanks,
Oli

You're welcome mate. Sad that it did not work though. I think what I use my Xbox the most today is streaming video and playing emulators, ghehhe. XBMC rocks!

I found your problem very strange though. Just a quick test. Let's say you have a file called "my_movie.avi" in your Samba shared folder. Change the permissions and see if that helps:

su
chmod 777 /home/shared/my_movie.avi

The above path is just an example. Permission 777 is full read, write and execute. Also, make sure that the owner of the file and folder is same you use to connect to samba(I don't think this is necessary, but if everything else fails... we never know ^_^). Let's suppose I have an user called "alex". alex is the owner of /home/share/ and everything on it. It's also alex the name and password I use to login to my samba share from my Windows machine or Xbox. Works fine for me.

If that does not work for you, then I'm afraid that my cards to play here are over =(. I wish you luck though

Hmm, it still does the same thing despite making my user the owner of the file and setting CHMOD 777.

I guess i'll just have to put up with it for the time being

Thanks alot for your help anyway! It cleared up a few possible-solutions.

Oliver