It seems that little bundle of joy called Raspberry Pi computer is perfect for media player and what better choice than XBMC. I have decided to use XBian distribution since it is optimized and tweaked just right. Here are few tips I have stumbled upon during setup:
Cache all filesystems (internet/local) and optimize cache fill rate to make playback as smooth as possible. In your /home/xbian/.xbmc/userdata/advancedsettings.xml you should add/edit following section:
<advancedsettings> <network> <cachemembuffersize>20971520</cachemembuffersize> <readbufferfactor>4.0</readbufferfactor> <buffermode>1</buffermode> </network> </advancedsettings>
Mount options for NFS shares (network storage) to avoid stuttering you should add something like this (I use it on my DLink-320):
# Mount NFS shares [DLINK-320-NASIP]:/mnt/HD/HD_a2 /mnt/new nfs _netdev,rw,udp,vers=3,async,noatime,rsize=32768,wsize=32768,intr,nolock,actimeo=0 0 0 [DLINK-320-NASIP]:/mnt/HD/HD_b2 /mnt/temp nfs _netdev,rw,udp,vers=3,async,noatime,rsize=32768,wsize=32768,intr,nolock,actimeo=0 0 0