HD300 live playback choppy/unusable, but HD200 is fine

[cwilson]

Hi,

I recently upgraded my SageTV v7 server to Windows 7, and added an HD300 for my primary TV. Everything is up and running fine, except that watching live TV on the HD300 is impossible. The video shows, but almost like it's in slow motion -- very jerky -- and with no audio. Playback of pre-recorded shows, or movies, or pictures, etc. is all fine.

My first thought was something to do with the server upgrade. However, I have an HD200 on my TV in the bedroom, and it works *flawlessly*. No stuttering, perfect scrolling of tickers on news/sports, audio fine.

I've tried updating the HD300 to the latest firmware (both beta and non-beta), but it makes no difference.

Any ideas on how to troubleshoot further?

A little overview of my installed environment:

SageTV Server
* Intel Core-2 Quad @ 2.83 GHz
* 8 GB RAM
* Windows 7 x64
* gigabit NIC

Storage NAS (where entire media library is housed)
* Synology DS1511+
* 5 x 2 TB disk in RAID 5
* dual gigabit NICs with link aggregation enabled

Network
* Cisco SLM2024 24-port gigabit switch
* hardwired Cat 5e to media extenders

Best,

Chris

[stuckless]

I had a very similar experience... even the UI felt sluggish compared to my HD200. I then hooked up my hd300 at another location and it ran great. Turns out that I have a small switch near my TV (where I was running lines to the ps3, xbox, and sagetv) and when I got rid of the switch, my problems disaapeared. Funny thing was that I didn't visually notice an issue with hd200, but the problem was still there. An easy test is to simply hook up your hd300 to another location and see if you have the same issues.

I had another issue where I thought My hd100 had died (at another location) because it would only get an IP address sometimes. turns out it was a bad port on my main switch. I moved the same cable to another port and it worked fine. (I later just replaced the entire switch).

[cwilson]

Agreed on the sluggish UI on the HD300 vs. HD200. I do have a small switch nearby for the Xbox, but I ran a separate network drop for the HD300. I'll try a different port on the Cisco switch first, and if that doesn't change it also try a patch cable straight from the Cisco to the HD300, bypassing the wires in the wall.

Thanks for the clues... I'll post back with what I find out this evening.

Best,

Chris

[cwilson]

Good call on the network issue. Turns out there is an issue with that particular network drop. I moved the HD300 to the small switch to which the Xbox is connected, and it works fine.



Thanks again,

Chris

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by cwilson

Good call on the network issue. Turns out there is an issue with that particular network drop. I moved the HD300 to the small switch to which the Xbox is connected, and it works fine.



Thanks again,

Chris

I have no idea why the hd200 appears to be normal even with a bad network drop, but yet the hd300 is unusable. My guess is that the hd300 must be more bandwidth intensive. What i did notice though was that even my hd200 (which I though was normal) actually runs much smoother as well since I've replaced the bad switch

The only issue that I had noticed with my hd200 (and I thought it was normal) was that when I did a 30 second skip on an HD recording, i'd get a small lag which was annoying. Now, the hd200 skips HD video as fast as the hd300.

Glad you solved the network issue and you can enjoy how wonderful the hd300 really is