Unique Stuttering/Freezing Issue

[Zathras]

First let me thank sub and all those who have assisted me in my home pvr project efforts to this point.

Today I received my client pc and got to work straight away on setting it up for use as my living room client. Once the software was loaded it functioned perfectly in my GB-PVR server room (converted spare bedroom :p )

When I relocated the client pc to the living room, I got choppy/freezing Video and Audio during live tv. Other functions such as playing music work fine.

Both the server and client have 1Gigabit network cards and the network switching hub is rated for gigabit transfers as well.

I am assuming that the only difference between the 2 locations is the additional length of cat 5 cable. The living room cable is about 25 ft long.

I searched the forums and the wiki to see if others had experienced similar problems concerning network cables but had no joy.

I could post logs but to be honest they are a mess because I was trying every combination setting such decoders ect.

Just hope someone can point me in the right direction.

Thanks, Kevin Yokohama Japan

[HtV]

I would check the cable or try another one.
edit: did you make the cable yourself, if so, did you keep the right order for colours and pairs?

[Zathras]

HtV Thank you for your quick reply.....

I purchased the cable pre-made, and you are right I probably need to try with another one...

I will pick one up tomorrow but before I do, I just wanted to get some professional opinion if cable length would cause streaming problems or not. (in other words am I using to long a cable run).

After posting, I realized this is not a GBPVR issue and should have probably posted in the General Discussion or another appropriate forum.

Appologies to Sub if this post is improperly located Please move to a more suitable location if necessary.

Thank you again. Regards, Kevin

[HtV]

Afaik with good cat 5 (100mbit) there should be no problems up to ~300 ft.
I think for gigabit network you need cat6 cable, I doubt if there is much difference between good cat 5 and cat 6. http://www.broadbandutopia.com/caandcaco.html
Good luck.

[Zathras]

Thanks again HtV,
The article was very informative!
I hope that a new cable will solve the issue.
Of course if I get this working correctly... then I have to start on the wife's "Honey-Do" list......
One can only hope that "Fine Tuning" phase will require many hours of TV viewing. (Guess that list will just have to wait till later:p )

[Zathras]

Purchased a Cat 6 cable and experienced the same Live TV stuttering/freezing as before.

Further investigation revealed that if the Frontend PC's network card is connected at "1Gb/s" (using CAT 5e or Cat 6 cable) the stuttering is present.

The playback is smooth if the Network card is connected at "100Mb/s" using and old Cat 5 patch cable I had laying around.

I am not sure how a smaller data pipe improves playback performance but in my case it does.

As I mentioned before I realize this may not be a GBPVR issue but if anybody has an idea on how I can proceed I would really appreciate the assistance. Is there any priority setting or something that would possibly improve the situation?

Thank you in advance for your help.
This is the most awesome community that I have seen!

Regards, Kevin

Edited for spelling errors....