Video freezes MiBox4 Android TV VLC

I have my server running Serviio, it works very well on my Panasonic 4K Media Player

However, playing content on my Android MiBox(s) with VLC, aftr a period of time (not specific in duration), the video just freezes. Come out of the film, load it again, it keeps playing - until it freezes sometime later.
The films are 1080p MP4

If I play the same film on VLC connecting via SMB, the film plays correctly (Although SERVIIO gives better screen quality - so I'd prefer to do it that way)

My server is a 10th Gen i7 with 32Gb RAM. Windows 11 24H2. Connected to LAN via CAT-5e

The MiBox4(s) are connected to LAN via CAT-5e

I've tried (on VLC) increasing the buffer, turn on / off screen blocking, hardware acceleration and or any other setting I could find.

Any idea how to fix it please ? Perhaps, I must use something other than VLC

[atc98092]

My Android based players are the Nvidia Shield, Onn 4K Media Player and a FIre Cube. I have no experience with the MiBox. But the problem is not with Serviio, regardless of the issue only occurring when using that method. I find VLC is normally a fantastic player with a terrible user interface. But on my devices I use Kodi as my player, although I also have VLC installed for a rare video that doesn't display the captions correctly in Kodi.

Kodi is a bit of a pain to set up for DLNA, as it doesn't find the server automatically like VLC does. But once the setup is complete, I've never needed to touch the settings again. I can play anything without requiring transcoding with the Shield (both are connected to an AVR for audio bitstreaming). The Onn doesn't support lossless audio bitstreaming, so the audio needs transcoding. The Fire Cube will bitstream lossless audio, but I don't have mine connected to an AVR.

I don't know if your MiBox will bitstream lossless audio, but if it doesn't then you'd have the same issue using VLC, so perhaps that isn't an issue with your media.

Thanks for the reply.

The MiBox4 is very similar to the sheild, or at least I have read that it is.

The fact that it actually plays OK, suggests that it is not a transcoding issue. Unless something needs tweaking in the renderer settings.

VLC streams lossless audio on the MiBox very well, the frequency responce on the audio output, isn't amazing, but that's another matter.

Playing movies on VLC (serviio) works without problems on the PC (Windows version of VLC), I will get an .apk version of VLC (Android) and try it on the PC too, to see if that recreates the fault.

I'll try KODI on the MiBox too, to see if it works better.

I have found the reason for this problem.

No idea why, however either the Mi Box or VLC does not like streaming uPNP over the wired network and connecting it via wifi instead (which goes against common sense) resolves the issue.

Streaming SMB over Ethernet works perfectly fine, however uPNP with SERVIIO does produce substantually higher resolution.

Some forums had suggested that the box was over heating, however I took the Mi Box apart and tested it with a fan cooled heat sink, this did not resolve the problem.

FYI:
Connected screens are 4k 24p, the content is 1080p.mp4, full acceration is enabled, default network buffer (0) and max deblocking. Mi Box is MDZ-16-AB
The wifi is provided by Mikrotic HAP AC (RBD53iG-5HacD2HnD - wifi 5), Ethernet by Mikrotik RB4011 (RB4011iGS+5HacQ2HnD)