a lot of stuttering on my client

[kny3twalker]

I am getting a lot of stuttering on my client
I am using wireless g connection and the video will play find for a minute or two then just starts stuttering for a while
then plays for a minute then starts stuttering again and so on
I am giving up on the idea of a client for a while unless this can be solved
I am wondering if this is an issue though with the router and if anyone has any suggestions, although I can sit right in front the router and it still stutters
if anyone has any ideas or configuration changes suggestions, I could use the help
also Is it completely not possible to playback local media with a client or does it all have to be on the server
Is there a way to have local media on a client
that would be nice, that way until this issue is resolved, I can just drag and down the files into the clients folders

Also I still think enabling 3D Acceleration and/ or using VMR9 have issues with playback
-Robert

[mandrews44]

Hi Robert,

If you look at the windows task manager and click on the network tab while streaming a video, what % of network bandwidth are you using? I am using a 3.5 hour DVD for encoding and I use between 5% and 12% bandwidth per client. This leaves plenty of bandwidth for buffering which prevents stuttering.

A few questions will assist finding a solution. Other things that cause stuttering for me is an applicaiton using too much CPU or memory.

1> Is the wireless USB for example?
2> What is the CPU and memory usage on the Client while streaming a video?
3> What is the setting you are using for recording the video?
4> How many of your neighbors have 54G wireless networks?
5> What is the signal strength during streaming and how stable is it?
6> What version of Sage v2.0.xx are you using?
7> What wireless channel are you using? If it is 1, try 6 or 11.
8> If you copy a large file off the server, check % bandwidth. What is the average and how stable is it? Min and Max would also be helpful. I get 35% with 100% signal strength.

Using 2.0.15 with my 1.5 Gigs per hour VBR setting, I can stream to two clients via 54G while pulling both videos off a remote drive via the 54G network. On top of that, a video is being watched on the server that is also coming off the remote drive on the 54G network. 54G wireless can handle all of these streams which amounts to 6 streams at 416KB/Second or 2.4 MB/sec continous bandwidth. 2.4 MegaBytes per second amounts to about 20 MegaBits per second of network bandwidth which is about maxing out 54G. In any event, all this is possible and has been accomplished in my testing.

Regards,

Mark

[kny3twalker]

So you are saying that the highest bit rate I can run when streaming to the clients is 2.4 MB/sec?
Does this mean that a hardwired connection can do only double that since it is 100 MBPS?
I will check out the rest of the questions in the next few days


but is it completely not possible to playback local media with a client or does it all have to be on the server?Is there a way to have local media on a client?

[JasonJoel]

I regularly get ~20Mbit/s sustained throughput from my 802.11G network. That is more than enough top play ANY stream than can be recorded in Sage TV.

Hardwire connections can do much more throughput, because they do not use encryption, and have effectively 'perfect' signals.

Of course if you used NO encryption on your wireless (BAD idea) network, and had no interference from any other 2.4GHz sources (2.4Ghz cordless phones are REALLY bad for this - trust me) then you could get even more throughput on your wireless network.

To answer the last question, no, you can't play local media. When using the client it all comes from the server. Local DVDs might be an exception, never tried this.

Jason

Originally posted by kny3twalker
So you are saying that the highest bit rate I can run when streaming to the clients is 2.4 MB/sec?
Does this mean that a hardwired connection can do only double that since it is 100 MBPS?
I will check out the rest of the questions in the next few days


but is it completely not possible to playback local media with a client or does it all have to be on the server?Is there a way to have local media on a client?

[kny3twalker]

To answer the last question, no, you can't play local media. When using the client it all comes from the server. Local DVDs might be an exception, never tried this.

Well I guess I have no problem with this if it was just recorded TV
but it there a reason that I cannot have a laptop with its own mp3s
I think I may bug this?
I understand that DVD may be an exception for they are physical
but why not allow the client to have individual media of its own?
I am not asking for the ability to record TV or to make my other computer also a client and do peer to peer but I would want to have some media when I am not in range of my network and to play it back with Sage

[JasonJoel]

Not arguing that it would be nice if it worked that way.

But that just isn't what the design of Client was meant for. It was meant to play items from the server, period.

Maybe in a future version Jeff could change it to play local media as well. That would be a good change.

Submit a bug/suggestion.

Jason

[newmedia42]

I'm experiencing slightly similar results - for the first time with RC2, all the previous ones haven't had the problem. Now when I watch it on my Sage Client machine, it freezes and skips at fairly regular intervals, probably every couple minutes it will skip for about 1 or 2 seconds.

For reference, I'm using a 100mb wired connection between both machines, and both machines are 2.8gig P4's. The recording rate is 3G/hr... And I'm using the Elecard decoder. Nothing else in my configuration has changed.

[Opus4]

Just curious... I've mentioned this around here before, but is anyone here running a firewall, such as Zone Alarm? Ever since a few beta versions ago, I cannot run ZA on my server or else the client will constantly stutter.

- Andy

[kny3twalker]

I am running not Firewall or Antivirus only my router
Dell 2300 or something, (supposed to be the fastest around for g (non super) according to Cnet)

[newmedia42]

No firewall on either of my systems as well; the SageTV system is running pretty much a clean install of WinXP Home, and the SageClient is running Win2k with a variety of things installed, but nothing really network related.

[falchulk]

Quick question, do you have video orbiting set at anythign other then 0 minutes? I had mine set to 2 and it casued tremendous stuttering when I upgraded to 2.0. It took me hours to figure out the problem.

[newmedia42]

Video Orbiting on both systems is set to 0...

[FamilyMan]

I've used all the 2.0 beta's on my server and two client machines (all hard wired at 100mbits) and RC2 is the first to cause stuttering of any kind. It's happending on the server and the client machines. I tried changing the 3D acceleration and Video Overlay/VM9 settings but that didn't make it any better. Also on the server, I experienced significant delays in the response of the UI. As a result of all this I switched back to RC1 and now all is well.