Server Error with EWA

[jeffy777]

That's hard say that it will work better. An N router will probably work better but your laptop is G so that's out.
More transmit power and more diversity (more antennas) is usually the way to get it to work better. Quite a few routers share the same radio platform internally and may not be much different in the long run.

I'm going from a single antenna to dual antennas, plus I'll be able to increase the transmit power on this new router to much higher levels with custom firmware (LINKSYS WRT54GL). So I think it's safe to say that it will be a much better wireless setup than what I have now And since what I have now does a pretty decent job (only an error about once an hour on average), I should be good to go after I get this new router.

[FirstTeamOPS]

LINKSYS WRT54GL... I should be good to go after I get this new router.

That is a solid wireless router.

[pastro]

I'm going from a single antenna to dual antennas, plus I'll be able to increase the transmit power on this new router to much higher levels with custom firmware (LINKSYS WRT54GL). So I think it's safe to say that it will be a much better wireless setup than what I have now And since what I have now does a pretty decent job (only an error about once an hour on average), I should be good to go after I get this new router.

Interesting that you can increase the TX power. Increasing the TX power for the lower rates usually works great. There isn't much room at the higher rates to increase the TX power by much on most systems before the PA distortion limits the performance. You might notice the PA getting a lot hotter as well as you drive it in distortion.

[jeffy777]

One person I know has the transmit power on this model turned up to 84mW and it works perfectly for him. The default broadcast power is 42mW.

[jeffy777]

Have you ever tried closing VLC on the client (without stoping the server stream) and then reopening and see if it still streams?

I just tried that and VLC opened, but there was no stream. Would this indicate that the problem is not with the wireless?

[pastro]

One person I know has the transmit power on this model turned up to 84mW and it works perfectly for him. The default broadcast power is 42mW.

Most radios can probably hit the 19.25 dBm (84mw) and still maintain decent performance at 54 meg. Sometimes the fading performance suffers when the power is cranked up too high because your TX SNR is lower to begin with. Power doesn't always buy better performance when the PA starts to distort. It isn't something that can be measured very easily by the end user either except by trying it and seeing if you think it works better. Manufacturers have to back off power for a number of reasons to maintain spec compliance and that's why they ship with sub optimum power.

[jeffy777]

Thanks for the info. It sounds like you know a lot about this. I'm not even going to mess with the TX power unless I have problems, but I'm hoping I won't since my current D-link does a pretty good job, and this Linksys is supposed to be quite a bit better out of the box.

[UncleJohnsBand]

I just tried that and VLC opened, but there was no stream. Would this indicate that the problem is not with the wireless?

Just to check....when you opended it back up did you click on the launch external player button? re-launching it this way tells VLC where to look for the stream.....if you just re-started VLC from the shortcut on your desktop of from start/programs it would not know where to look for the stream unless you went into the details and set the http stream location.

[jeffy777]

Just to check....when you opended it back up did you click on the launch external player button? re-launching it this way tells VLC where to look for the stream.....if you just re-started VLC from the shortcut on your desktop of from start/programs it would not know where to look for the stream unless you went into the details and set the http stream location.

Yes, I clicked launch external player several times with the same results.

[UncleJohnsBand]

Yes, I clicked launch external player several times with the same results.

Ok...what this shows is that the stream stopped on the server......

On your server have you looked in the Event log in the app listing to see if VLC is kicking out any types of errors?

Are the files that you are streaming all all mpeg files or are you streaming avi and wmv files as well?