MVP Extenders Stuttering

Stuntman · #1 12-18-2005, 02:43 AM

Ever since putting in 4.1 today, my MVP's have been exhibitting some significant stuttering during playback.. I have 2 mvp's and both are showing the same problem.. One is plugged at 100mb directly into my Linksys wireless router and the other is connected via 802.11g wireless via a ethernet to wireless game adapter.. both worked perfectly with Matt's plugin earlier today.. I've tried rebooting sage server, rebooted sagetv.. I've defragged.. it acts almost as if it loses signal briefly.. the video locks or stutters a few frames then continues for a minute or two and does it again... the stutter lasts between 3 and 7 seconds...

My SageTV server isn't showing any type of excessive traffic or CPU use..

Any ideas as to what might be causing this?
Thanks!

Enormous · #2 12-18-2005, 11:13 AM

I'm experiencing the same thing. I've also noticed that if I try to do too many things quickly (i.e. pause/play/pause/play in quick succession, or frame-by-frame advance), it will lose the connection to the SageTV server, and display the "Media Center is booting" screen.

Stuntman · #3 12-18-2005, 04:30 PM

Mine does it on both MVP's.. while watching and doing nothing else.. I've tried watching the server while the MVP is running and I don't see any service or process that XP is doing that might cause this issue.. I've even switched NIC's just to be sure it wasn't a NIC.. I'm installing the client now to see if it stutters in a non MVP scenario...

m0ng00se30 · #4 12-18-2005, 07:23 PM

I really have NO way of proving this or even offering proof... this is more of a gut feeling, but I think the MVP is having negotiating with the switches its connected. Like when it stutters its trying to auto negotiate and really screwing with the bandwidth or its just not keeping up. Mine skips and stutters occasionly, but when it is locked in... its nearly "perfect". The linksys router I'm using doesn't seem to allow me to set the rate on the ports so hence this is all a gut feeling

--Mike

Stuntman · #5 12-18-2005, 10:27 PM

I'll bring home a "real" switch tomorrow and just uplink my internet to the Linksys.. see if the system behaves any differently with a real switch.. Unfortunately one of the MVP's uses the Linksys's router for the wireless connectivity!

Stuntman · #6 12-18-2005, 10:46 PM

I just tried watching a video I have been having trouble with when viewing on the MVP through the VLC/Webserver plugin.. and it streams and plays beautifully! So I don't think it's a bandwidth/switch issue... it is sage having a hard time with it, in some way... Does Sage in any way try to decode the stream, or does the MVP do all the decoding? I'm not sure if I should monkey with the video settings on the sage box (I only use it to record)... Maybe I'm on the path to a Sage Re-install!!!

m0ng00se30 · #7 12-18-2005, 11:40 PM

I think the video is all done on the MVP, but I could be wrong. I'm really not concerned with the bandwidth... I would think 10meg one way would be enough for video. Thats why I'm still not convienced that it is not the MVP and the switch unable to agree on a port speed, and maybe it bouncing around causing the hiccups. Mines has worked very well tho recently!

--Mike

Stuntman · #8 12-19-2005, 12:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by m0ng00se30

I think the video is all done on the MVP, but I could be wrong. I'm really not concerned with the bandwidth... I would think 10meg one way would be enough for video. Thats why I'm still not convienced that it is not the MVP and the switch unable to agree on a port speed, and maybe it bouncing around causing the hiccups. Mines has worked very well tho recently!

--Mike

It could be the MVP.. what I thought was odd was that if I watch the video through the webserver's viewer.. streamed accross the same network.. with my PC as the final viewing place, it plays perfectly... so it appears to be either between the MVP and Sage or perhaps Sage Itself... though once the stream starts, I'm not sure what part Sage plays in it..

Stuntman · #9 12-19-2005, 12:46 AM

I don't know if this means anything, but I've found that 'lesser' encoding qualities stutter less.. the video I have had the most trouble with was encoded with DVD-Standard.. seems the lower I go, the better.. Things recorded at "good" seem to play without hardly any stutter at all..

Has anybody tested the MVP at all the encoding options? Might be valuable to know which we can and can't use???

I'm running at forced 100mbit from my server.. the Linksys router should be at 100 but I have no way to verify that currently.

pvrpenguin · #10 12-19-2005, 06:39 PM

What STV are you using?

I've been noticing similar performance issues while using the SageMC 16x9 STV. The stuttering doesn't occur when I use the default STV though.

Stuntman · #11 12-19-2005, 09:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pvrpenguin

What STV are you using?

I've been noticing similar performance issues while using the SageMC 16x9 STV. The stuttering doesn't occur when I use the default STV though.

Default.. clean install...

jlabrue · #12 12-20-2005, 07:52 AM

Hey, you might try this fix listed here for an MVP issue. Not the same issue you have but it is related to the MVP and streaming of video.

bowtie1 · #13 12-20-2005, 05:59 PM

I too have the stuttering problem. I use a 54G wireless bridge. With Matt's plug in I have zero problems. With the media extender I rarely get more than 2 seconds without some audio or video stuttering. I even tried attaching it via ethernet to my router. I am using a Nforce 2 motherboard, the fix proposed in another thread is not even an option in my NIC driver.

blade · #14 12-20-2005, 06:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bowtie1

I too have the stuttering problem. I use a 54G wireless bridge. With Matt's plug in I have zero problems. With the media extender I rarely get more than 2 seconds without some audio or video stuttering. I even tried attaching it via ethernet to my router. I am using a Nforce 2 motherboard, the fix proposed in another thread is not even an option in my NIC driver.

Open your driver panel and go to the Advanced tab. Look for something like Optimize For. Make sure it's set for throughput. I'm pretty sure this is the same as the setting mentioned in the other thread just labled differently. If it's not you can always change it back.

bowtie1 · #15 12-20-2005, 08:30 PM

Thank you. I did try changing it to throughput. I even reset all equipment. No improvement. Either the Sage version requires significantly more bandwidth (I doubt it), the packets are not being sent "optimally", or my media MVP is not capable of performing the rendering on its own. If only I could narrow down the root cause.

Stuntman · #16 12-21-2005, 09:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bowtie1

Thank you. I did try changing it to throughput. I even reset all equipment. No improvement. Either the Sage version requires significantly more bandwidth (I doubt it), the packets are not being sent "optimally", or my media MVP is not capable of performing the rendering on its own. If only I could narrow down the root cause.

Does you machine have more than one NIC? My Asus board came with both an NVIDIA NIC and a 3Com NIC built into it.. I set the NVIDIA NIC to 'throughput' and disabled the options mentioned in the other posts to the 3Com NIC (Even though I don't use it)... the other thing I noticed is that somehow my NVIDIA NIC had been reset to 1/2 Duplex! I borrowed a switch (thought perhaps I had bad equipment) and it's control panel showed me that I was only in 1/2 duplex... so I went back into the NVIDIA's properties and made sure it was set to "Autonegotiate 100mb".. the switch then went to Full Duplex and I now don't see much stuttering at all (I watched 2 hours of TV last night and saw only 2 stutters.. it did have an issue coming out of pause once, but overall a HUGE improvement). So, I'm not sure if changing the 3Com card helped, or if perhaps it was simply all due to the Duplex issue (I have NO idea how that card got in 1/2 duplex.. I certainly never changed it on purpose!).

Good luck everybody!!!

bowtie1 · #17 12-23-2005, 06:07 PM

Unfortunately I don't have another NIC. I checked all my settings, everything seems to be in order. I guess I will have to use matt's app until this gets resolved.

Griff · #18 12-27-2005, 09:46 AM

Has anyone come up with any suggested solutions to the stuttering problem? With the new release of the built-in MVP client, I picked up 3 new MVPs and 3 new wireless access points (Linksys WAP54g) for my kids for XMass, and they simply are not usable with the built in mvp client/server feature because of all the stuttering (I will try to switch back over to Matt's plugin until this is fixed). The really strange part is that, prior to switching to the built in mvp client/server, I was using two mvps -- one wired and one wireless. The mvp connected by wireless access point actually tended to work more smoothly than the hard-wired mvp. With the built in mvp client/server feature, the hard-wired mvp is almost flawless, but the mvps connected over wireless (all four of them) are essentially useless because of constant stuttering. Although I anticipated that I might have problems trying to use multiple mvps over wireless connections at the same time, I cannot get even one to work without a crippling amount of stuttering.

Dbez55 · #19 12-28-2005, 12:19 AM

I changer NIC to USB Ethernetr adapter on server, Shutter went away?

Griff · #20 12-29-2005, 11:44 AM

For those who have experienced stuttering over their wireless connections with Sage v. 4.1+, note that I upgraded my Linksys wireless router (WRT54g) to the latest firmware last night, and it resolved most of the mvp stuttering over the wireless connections that I started to experience after upgrading Sage to v 4.1.4 (I skipped over 4.1.3). There is still some stuttering at the start of a file and whenever you fast forward or reverse, but at this point I am very pleased with the result.

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