Hey,
I've been trying to make local streaming better for my VR clients and AVPlayer isn't being very friendly. I have a local plex DLNA server and d-link DLNA server on my network. Both of them experiance issues from my test location, upstairs, but when I'm sitting next to my router I still get buffer issues.
What I started to do, which made buffering way better in most cases, was to look at the loaded time range and pause playback if I don't have X seconds loaded. I started with 15 seconds and my D-Link server is fine with that. But when using an url from Plex it will only load 5 seconds and AVPlayer doesn't attempt to load anymore until I start playback, my buffer % stays at ~39%. If I lower the buffer limit to 5 seconds, it will start playback and generally work. I may need to have the buffer lower the threshold over time to compensate.
Would this be a Plex issue, or is AVPlayer trying to be smart and not overload data? Is there no way to make it just preload more?