Problems with infinite/jumping buffering using Strobe MP with progressive download MP4

Question

Hello,
I am fighting with the Strobe Media Player and an MP4 video that it is supposed to load and play with progressive download.
The video is playing perfectly fine, except if it needs to buffer somewhere on the middle (the first "buffering" works correctly). If it happens, either it will stay buffering forever - but the buffer bar keeps filling up -, or after several seconds it will jump the video some seconds ahead, and start buffering again, repeating this until the end.
I have tried a lot of different scenarios, with different options on the buffer settings of Strobe, and different encodings on the video, without results.
The video can be seen here: http://www.webfuel.pt . It's currently encoded for 750 kb/s, using VBR 2 pass, web optimized.
I am testing using a bandwidth limiter (Service Capture), and limiting to around 200 kb/s. When the video reaches the buffer, the problem happens.
What can be the cause of the problem? A setting on Strobe? The video encoding? HTTP server configuration? A bug on Strobe?
By the way, just a fast question. For the current use case (the video you saw on the site, autoplaying), which bitrate would you consider acceptable? And considering the purpose is Web/Progressive downloaded is it recommended the use of VBR, or should I use CBR? Is there anything more relevant when encoding a video to be deployed on the web?
Thank you,
João Saleiro

Answer 1

We have solved the problem by creating our own video player and applying the technique described here:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1079935/actionscript-netstream-stutters-after-buffering
In another words, when the buffer gets empty, we pause the player, and we create an eventlistener that checks when the buffer is full to resume the playing. The result can be seen our site.
This is, IMHO a big problem in the Strobe Media Player that made us loose around 2 days researching, and can be easily solved with the above technique.