Hello.
I’ve done some speed tests with the latest infuse 6.5 and tvOS 14.
Results:
SMB: 100Mbps
NFS: 100Mbps
SFTP: 100Mbps
FTP: 300Mbps
Plex: 400Mbps
The file was shared from my MacBook Pro 16 via wifi (802.11ac 5G), Apple TV is connected via 1G ethernet
I’ve also done a simple smb file copy test, from the same wifi connected MacBook to another ethernet connected MacBook, and get a speed about 500Mbps.
So why Infuse has low speed via SMB and NFS?
Infuse tries to model speeds when streaming a video as that isn’t a pure file transfer. There is a lot of overhead with nfs and smb whereas ftp and plex are more optimized for that. There are things like being able to scrub ahead to a later section that isn’t available with pure file transfer.
But there is something I really don’t understand:
If I do a Speedtest with FTP
=> I get incredible 650 Mbit
With NFS
=> I get 250 Mbit
BUT with FTP the Video-Start and Scrubbing is incredible slow!!!
But with NFS the Start and Scrubbing has much more Performance!!!
How this could be??? 
Exactly, smb and nfs should be faster than FTP in this case.
Seems something wrong with SMB and NFS implementation in Infuse, looks like issues with TCP, because I get 100Mbps via WiFi and 250Mbps via Cable, so speed depends on physical link speed, but 4-6x slower than physical speed for SMB and NFS. For FTP and WebDav speed is very close to the physical link speed.
SMB speeds are heavily dependent on the client device, so it’s somewhat expected to see different speeds on an iOS/tvOS devices compared to a Mac.
Adding Wi-Fi into the mix will always add another variable into the mix as well.
We’ve had people report SMB speeds from virtually zero all the way up to 900+ Mbps. There are just so many variables (source hardware, router, switch, cabling, Wi-Fi, server implementations, etc…) and each can have a substantial impact on speeds.
You may try playing with the SMB version setting in Infuse to see if this impacts speeds at all.
Tried different protocol versions (smb1/2/3) and different SMB servers (MacOs/Linux/Windows). Same speed.
So what is the preferred connection method? WebDav?
With SMB/NFS I have freezes every 5-10mins with 4k BD Remuxes. With FTP no freezes, but very slow start and scrubbing…
Did you try the “Legacy” setting?
Yes.
Now I do some tests via 1G cable connection, without WiFI.
SMB: 240 Mbps (all versions, including Legacy)
WebDAV: 900 Mbps
Hi, late to the party but having a similar problem with SMB speeds. When I connect Infuse Pro on my Apple TV4K and do speed tests with my Plex server, the speeds are over 100 Mbps, but when I connect to my MacBook Pro via SMB to check speeds on BluRay files, I’m getting speeds under 20 Mbps. I tried all SMB settings to see it made any difference and they were all similar with Legacy being the slowest. Will changing “Port” or entering “MAC Address” help? BluRay disc files images have higher bitrate so I definitely need speeds over 100 Mbps to play these. Any help is much appreciated. Thanks!
This sounds more like a problem somewhere in your network. Speeds like that indicate a bad cable, switch, incorrect router settings, connecting to poorly located WiFi etc. can you describe your setup?
Hi, I have a decent wifi signal. My setup is a modem with wireless router. My MacBook Pro is connected to the wireless router and getting around 90 Mbps with Internet Speed Test, but the Infuse Pro speed test I’m getting 160Mpbs speeds with the Plex Share but when I check the SMB share for the same movie it’s getting only 4-5Mbps before I get “an error has occurred” prompt. What am I missing here?
Checking my router settings now, is there anything I should look for?
In Router Settings under “Media”
DLNA is set to “Off”
File Sharing is set to “On” that’s for plugging a hard drive or usb directly to the router though.
Edit: I spoke with my ISP and they said my wifi connection looks great, they mentioned the SMB connection between my MacBook Pro and Infuse is a local connection and might be a separate issue. I turned Plex off so it wasn’t sharing the same connection, and I entered my MacBook Pro Address in Advanced settings and was able to get up to 50Mbps speeds on the same movie. Is there any other setting or anything I can do to speed up the SMB connection to watch higher bitrate BluRay Disc Files?
It sounds like you are using Wi-Fi on both your MacBook (source) and Apple TV. Is that right?
Wi-Fi is generally ok for most videos, but can be hit of miss for some videos, like 4K. Having the source also connected via Wi-Fi adds another variable which can slow things down even further.
As a quick test, can you try connecting one of these devices via Ethernet to see if things improve?
Alternatively, you can try connecting a USB hard drive directly to your router. This would eliminate one of the ‘hops’ the video would need to make before it gets to the Apple TV.
In general, SMB will always perform better on Ethernet, even with a fantastic Wi-Fi signal. It’s just part of how the underlying protocol is implemented.
Correct, I am using Wi-Fi on both my MacBook Pro and Apple TV4K.
I just connected my Apple TV4K via Ethernet and its drastically faster for the speed test when I use Plex at 300-400Mbps, but only 25-35Mbps with SMB for same file.
Don’t let me derail what you’re doing with James but I just am trying to follow this and want to make sure I understand things correctly.
Are you using the speed test in Infuse with a plex share and getting the 300 to 400Mbps and you’re only seeing 25 to 35Mbps using the same speed test on a non plex SMB share?
Hey, no problem. Yes that is correct. Using Infuse Pro to do a speed share with a Plex media server I’m getting the fastest speeds I’ve ever seen lol. 350-400Mbps. When I do the same speed share but with my SMB connection to my MacBook Pro I’m getting 25-30Mbps. Something is up here.
Thanks for clarifying things 
This may sound like a ridiculous question but I still need to ask, are there visible problems while playing files even with the reported 25 to 35 Mbps like pauses or getting the spinning loading wheel?
What do you have set for the SMB share as to protocol? Auto, 1, 2, or 3?
Lastly, would it be possible strictly to test for you to use Ethernet totally? Both between the Mac Book and router and the ATV and router?
Thanks for helping. This is going to be a weird answer but I don’t even know if it’s trying to play movies over SMB. I turned my Plex media server off and did a speed test again with the same speed result 25-30Mbps. I closed Infuse Pro and re-opened it and did a speed test again and now it’s giving me 75-80Mbps (with Plex media server still off).
That being said, none of the movies are playing. It’s as if Infuse is trying to access the files connected to Plex so I just get the pinwheel when I try to play a movie. Not sure how to select a file to play from my SMB shared folder on MacBook Pro. It’s possible none of my movies are showing from the SMB share? I am able to speed test them so that’s weird.
For SMB protocol it’s set to Auto. I did individual tests on each protocol to check average speeds and this is what I got (I only did these for a few minutes and they all seem to be declining slowly as the test goes on but here are the results):
Auto average speed - 85 Mbps
SMB1 average speed - 77 Mbps
SMB2 average speed - 80 Mbps
SMB3 average speed - 80 Mbps
Legacy average speed - 85 Mbps
I can’t connect my MacBook Pro to Ethernet right now, I would need to buy an ethernet to usb/thunderbolt adaptor and move all my hard drives and MacBook pro closer to the tv where the router is to connect.
I’m seeing a lot of buffering playing high bitrate videos as well. Infuse Speed Test is showing ~25 Mbps no matter what I do. I tried all the SMB protocols and nothing helps. I’m using Infuse Pro on an ATV4K on wifi mounting a NAS (wired). Speed Test App on the ATV4K I get ~250 Mbps so I don’t think it’s the wifi. I thought it might be my NAS which is using 5400RPM HDD but I tried playing videos from my Mac (wired with SSD) and see the same speed. Anyone have any thoughts? It’s driving me a bit mad!
A couple of more data points, connecting from my iphone using the same share, Infuse Speed Test show around 90 Mbps. I tried setting up Plex on my NAS and I’m only seeing ~35 Mbps, was hoping that would do the trick based on the previous posts here, but unfortunately not in my case.
Hi,
I also confirm the behavior described by some users above.
I did a long battery of tests at home, and have the following numbers:
SMB: ~125Mbps
SFTP: <100Mbps - expected because of encryption which maxes out my server CPU
FTP: ~450Mbps
Jellyfin: ~450Mbps
I have similar results with my iPhone, iPad Pro or my AppleTV 4K.
I haven’t checked NFS though.
My WiFi coverage is excellent (Wifi 5, 2.4+5GHz) and I even performed these tests having my mobile just a few inches from my access point to make sure that there is as few interference as possible.
Obviously, I cannot check the numbers with an Ethernet connection as none of these devices have an Ethernet port.
I also tried every possible flavor of SMB (2, 3, as SMB1 is disabled for security reasons on my server) on Infuse but the results are roughly the same.
The only sensible comparison was with my MacBook which has a WiFi connectivity close to my iPad Pro.
It uses the SMB client embedded in macOS and I manage to achieve consistent speeds of around 300Mbps on the very same files.
For the sake of completeness, my SMB server is based on an NVMe SSD and CPU usage when streaming to Infuse never goes over 15%.
Of course, I am not expecting to be exactly on par with FTP/Jellyfin in terms of throughput, as SMB is more verbose, but here we are talking about 25% of the performance, or less than half the speed I manage to achieve on the very same files on my Mac.
I’ll try to check the numbers with the iOS embedded SMB client later on, to compare with Infuse SMB client on the very same device and report back.