[Discuss] NFS mounts

[tmetro+blu at gmail.com (Tom Metro)]

Dan Ritter wrote:
> In this case you aren't really streaming...

Sure. Early versions of MythTV worked this way, with live video
"streamed" via an NFS mount point. (Newer versions stream over a TCP
protocol.)


> The application thinks it has a reliable file and will not be
> expecting to have to do extra buffering and error-correction.

Well, NFS should still be doing the error correction (application layer
above UDP), but I'll agree that TCP will provide some buffering as a
side effect of how it works. Bad for a real-time protocol, but no big
deal when streaming a broadcast where some added propagation delay is
irrelevant.

So if you have a modern video player that will do buffering even when
reading from the file system, like say VLC (or the player used by
XBMC/Kodi), then no real advantage to using TCP for your NFS mounts.

On the other hand, the overhead of TCP is not likely to be significant
for typical compressed video use. I often stream HD (720p) content over
sshfs mounts (which are on top of TCP) over WiFi and get stutter-free
playback. (On very rare occasions XBMC/Kodi will pause for a second to
buffer, then resume.)

 -Tom

-- 
Tom Metro
The Perl Shop, Newton, MA, USA
"Predictable On-demand Perl Consulting."
http://www.theperlshop.com/