As you’ll be aware if you’ve followed this blog for a while, I use a Hudl2 as an occasional portable Kodi media centre. This weekend I started to experience issues with stuttering FLAC audio files when played via Kodi on the Hudl2. I’m not sure exactly when this started happening, as it used to work fine.
FLAC files tend to be massive relative to mp3 files as they are lossless and generally provide markedly better audio quality. However, it was slightly puzzling as Kodi on the Hudl2 would still happily stream 1080p video without any problems.
The audio on FLAC files would drop for a fraction of a second every 20 seconds or so. As I’m sure you can imagine, this destroy any immersion when listening to music tracks and as starting to drive me mad.
I did some digging and it transpired there was a solution. You need to create a file called advancedsettings.xml containing the following information:
<advancedsettings>
<network>
<buffermode>1</buffermode>
<cachemembuffersize>52428800</cachemembuffersize>
</network>
</advancedsettings>
This needs to be pasted into the userdata folder on your Kodi installation on the Hudl2. You can do this from within Kodi, browsing to Programs selecting Android apps and launching ES File Explorer. You need have this installed on your Hudl2 from the Play store to do this.
If you haven’t already done so, you need to select Settings within ES File Explorer, selecting display settings and making sure there is a check next to Show hidden file which start with a “.” Otherwise you won’t be able to browse to the .kodi folder.
The path you need to go to is /sdcard/Android/data/org.xbmc.kodi/file/.kodi/userdata
You can then paste your advancedsettings.xml file and resolve any issues with FLAC Stuttering. At least it works for me! I also used this technique to resolve issue with Kodi running on an Amazon FireTV Stick in another room.
http://kodi.wiki/view/HOW-TO:Modify_the_cache
Use 5Ghz N wireless if possible. This will insure higher data transfer rates that will also help to avoid stuttering and work in tandem with the advanced settings files above.