You are forcing the file to be played with MMAL (DVDPlayer) as opposed to OMXPlayer… I’m not sure, but I would really recommend not using UPnP. I would test with smb (windows networking) or NFS to be sure that UPnP is not contributing to this problem. Call it a gut feeling…
Okay. I think I read in another thread here that SMB is not yet supported. I know that I can’t make that work from either direction with the Pi and the Mac. But I’ll have a go at NFS and see what I can access. UPnP has just been very convenient.
I’ve never delved this far into the underpinnings before. Does seem to be much better about playing things now.
“Pi as SMB server” is not yet supported. (So as not to mislead any other readers)
Yeah, most would definitely prefer NFS over SMB, given both options anyway.
A test that would pinpoint it as definitely a network issue (an indication our choice of players is not really at the core of the problem) would be if the file played from your sdcard or an attached USB drive without problems.