Switch vs. Router for Smoother Playback

[EdwardATeller]

I just got a HD100, and it works fine, but now and then it seems like the network gets a little congested and the video stumbles. Right now, the HD100 is connected to the STV computer through a D-Link DI-524 router:

http://support.dlink.com/emulators/di524/h_wizard.html

I just bought this D-Link switch from Circuit City:

http://www.circuitcity.com/ccd/produ...&cm_keycode=85

but I haven't picked it up yet. I'll post results when I have them, but I'd be curious to hear what people think about using a switch vs. a router to direct traffic. Don't know much about how either box works, so I'm just going to try it and see.

EDIT: I could also put another network card in the STV computer and run the connection directly to the HD100. Seems like this would be the best, but if anyone has experience doing this, I'd love to hear your results.

[carlgar]

I would think that you want at least a 1 Gbps switch. You should also have a 1 Gbps NIC in your server. The D-Link switch you linked to is only 10/100 Mbps, so I don't see what it would do for you. But if you server is only 100 Mbps a 1 Gbps switch probably would not be much help either, unless you have multiple servers in your network.

[autoboy]

I've never had trouble with my system where a Xbox360, PS3, AppleTV, and HD100 are all connected with a 10/100 Hub. My server has GB ethernet though.

[EdwardATeller]

I'm pretty sure the speed of the transfer is determined by the slowest component. Unless the network interface on the HD100 is Gigabit, then paying more for other Gigabit components will not improve performance, IMHO. Make that very humble because I don't know much.

I did connect directly using another 10/100 NIC and a crossover cable. After playing with the network settings on the HD100, I ended up with perfect video playback. I am heading out right now to pickup the switch, and I'll see how that does.

[carlgar]

The HD100 is a 10/100 Mbps device. The transfer speed is determined by the speed that the server can output the data. With only 1 device then there should be no problem. But if you server can only output 100 Mbps and you have multiple devices, you may see studdering.

The cost of Gigabit components is not much more than for 100 Mbps components.

[klaberte]

I would expect that you will have better luck with the switch. Basically, the switch does exactly what you want it to do. It takes packets from the STV and sends them only out the port connected to the HD100 (i.e. unlike a "hub", where the packets are broadcast on all the ports).

With the wireless router, that device is trying to mate the wireless packets zooming around your house with the wired network. I'm not sure how the routing tables get set up on the DI524, but any received wireless packet with a broadcast address will be replicated on the port connected to the HD100. This "may" (I really don't know) be the stuttering you see from time to time.

At the very least, I would turn off the wireless radio in the DI524. After doing this, I would hope that the DI524 would operate as a reasonably intelligent switch, but I don't know.

[dlandrum]

This is an excercise of determining your worst case inputs and outputs. I see you have some type of QAM or OTA tuner. Those files are at most 6GB/hr = 13.65Mb/s ... so, worst case you need a connection better than 15Mb/s. A 100Mb switch would be sufficient.

Assume that the switch and lines have some loss. If we want to calculate how many clients your server can host:
Throw in about 25% loss, and that leaves 75Mb for your server. 75/13.65 = 5.49. So, your server could host 5 clients with a 100Mb switch.

Yet, you will find that your real issue is with harddrive collissions, not the network.

If you are using an HDHR where recordings take place across the switch then you will need a 1Gb switch.

[EdwardATeller]

The switch did not perform noticeably better or worse than the router. BTW, I'm using the router purely as a wired device, no wireless.

Connecting the HD100 directly with a crossover cable into a second NIC on the STV computer performs flawless, so far at least. Since others play video over T100 networks without a problem, I seem to have some issue with my network setup. Makes me reluctant to try the HDHR because once the recording is glitched, there is no fixing it.

Thanks for the replies.

EDIT: Thinking about it some more, the direct connection uses a PCI NIC vs. the on-board Ethernet for the other connection. Maybe if I use the NIC for the connection through the switch that will improve the performance. Too late to try right now, but a fun Memorial Day project awaits.

[sic0048]

The router and the switch are basically the same thing when it comes to connecting components. You need the DHCP function of the router to assign network addresses to all the connected components, but the actual hardware portion of the router where you plug the components in is simply a switch. So a router is a regular switch with DHCP added. A switch doesn't have any DHCP ability. So it is not surprising that you saw no difference between the switch and the router.

[electron]

Something isn't right IMO. I am on a 100mbit network, and I can not make my HD100 stutter at all, even while copying gigabytes of data (in process of copying all my DVDs to my SageTV server) to the SageTV server while playing a HD recording / watching Live TV.

I have had issues with stuttering in the past with my MVP's, but that was my own fault (watching HD recording on MVP while recording from 3 tuners). However, there is a setting to give the tuners a higher priority, which resolved this issue for me (in my case it was a CPU issue). Have you verified it isn't your CPU maxing out, instead of your NIC? How much bandwidth is your SageTV server using when this happens (task manager -> networking tab)?

[valnar]

Some of the switch chipsets used in home routers may talk 100Base-T but that doesn't mean they will get 100Mb fast ethernet wire speed on all ports. Sometimes manufacturers only make them powerful enough to handle the expected WAN throughput with the firewall turned on.

A separate switch can make a difference.

Please also see this post.

This is not necessarily the problem of the OP and YMMV.

-Robert

[EdwardATeller]

I had a T10/100/1000 PCI NIC lying around, and using it instead of the motherboard connection definitely improved the playback, even through the router. Maybe I have a crappy motherboard.

Since I have the ability to connect directly with a crossover cable, I decided to go that way for the smoothest playback, plus nearly complete independence from anything else going on in my network.

Thanks for all the help.

[thestig]

Can you check your cables? I had a similar performance issue with my 100MB setup due to a nicked cable.

[sic0048]

Originally Posted by valnar

Some of the switch chipsets used in home routers may talk 100Base-T but that doesn't mean they will get 100Mb fast ethernet wire speed on all ports. Sometimes manufacturers only make them powerful enough to handle the expected WAN throughput with the firewall turned on.

A separate switch can make a difference.

-Robert

Well, I would consider that a specific hardware issue. I was simply talking in general terms about the difference between a router and a switch.

Personally, I have a router simply acting as my DHCP router and use a 24port 10/100/1000 switch to handle all my connections and another wireless router set up as a WAP for wireless connections. So I'm not suggesting that a switch isn't a good idea sometimes.

[EdwardATeller]

Originally Posted by thestig

Can you check your cables? I had a similar performance issue with my 100MB setup due to a nicked cable.

Didn't think of that. The onboard T100 connection always used one cable, and the NIC always used another.

Moved on to other projects now that I have smooth playback, but if I get multiple HD100's on the network, directly connecting them all is impractical. I'll test the cables at that point.

[jc8367]

Switch will be faster than a router. Think of the OSI layer, you network geeks know what I'm talking about.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by jc8367

Switch will be faster than a router. Think of the OSI layer, you network geeks know what I'm talking about.

If it's a home "router" though it's really just a regular network switch built into the device so there shouldn't be any speed difference between the two. Home routers are nothing like a real Cisco or the like.

[jc8367]

Business version may have more options but the basis of a router is the same whether it's home or business. A switch is faster because it uses the MAC address on a NIC to communicate where as the router communicates by IP address and every IP address is associated with a MAC address anyway. So it's an extra step.

[valnar]

Originally Posted by jc8367

Business version may have more options but the basis of a router is the same whether it's home or business. A switch is faster because it uses the MAC address on a NIC to communicate where as the router communicates by IP address and every IP address is associated with a MAC address anyway. So it's an extra step.

I think you missed the point of the thread. No one here is saying we should forward packets at layer 3. We were talking about the (layer-2) switch quality that is built into home routers, which aren't always that good.

Robert