EDIT: Z9X Is there a limit on the number of files that can be in a directory (us old DOS guys say directory instead of folder)? I have a directory on my NAS where I have collected lots of mp4 videos downloaded from YouTube. There are 1496 files. When I went to play them (via Media Center) there is a long delay before the video starts and any fast-forwarding is likely to suddenly stop and send you back to the file list or main menu. I thought it was a malfunction or that the files were somehow corrupted but that isn't the case. I'll have to organize them differently by making more directories to cut down on number of files in one place. I have a "movie" folder that has over 2,000 sub-folders and don't seem to have a problem with that.
Not sure if this will help, the following suggestion is anecdotal based on my experience with a Popcorn A500. I had a similar problem with navigation of MP4 files. What was suggested by a guru on that site was wrap the mp4 file in a MKV container using MKVToolNix . It worked, so that's been my modus operandi for all my mp4 files. Give it a go and see if it's improves? I think it has something to do with where the index is located in the file?
Maybe, but there are a lot of files to convert to mkv. I did read something about the file duration data being stored at either the beginning or end. I copied some of the files to an empty directory and they play normally - no extended delay before they start. Haven't been doing anything with this since I posted. I'll have to try it out (mkv) using a USB Hard Drive.
I just copied 4000 mkvs to a single directory (old DOS guy too!) - these are just small 80KB video test files that I use to test large Dummy libraries. Same test file 4000 times with 4000 different names! The difference in time to start for a single file directory vs one with 4000 files is about 1s - the single file takes 2.5s from button press to file playing and one of the 4000 files takes 3.5s from button push. You can see a small delay of about 1.8s when entering the directory vs opening a single file one which is pretty much immediate. The biggest issue is navigation - with that many files on one place it's a bugger to get around. I don't know if this would be different for larger files or with MP4s but I don't have that many real world files in one directory to test. Other than reading the directory listing, I can't really see any reason there should be a delay. (Quite refreshing using "directory" instead of "folder" again!)
The delay that I experience is something in the range of 15 to 20 seconds. Sometimes it just returns to the main menu at that point. I'll have to find time to experiment a bit. I wonder if something else is wrong with that directory.
I'm sure you know that these things are just a process of elimination - be interested to hear what you find...
