Client PC Help for choppy playback

[ydekmekji]

I'm flirting around with running a client pc for gbpvr. Set up and installation was easy-peasy... I've tried both streaming and file sharing, but never got streaming to work so sticking with file sharing. The playback is very choppy. There are dozens of posts of people who wrote on this one topic, so i spent a couple hours swimming through that, but i just need kind of a bottom line help.

Both client and server are running on a wireless card (which i'm sure affects playback)... Is it a problem of buffering and just increasing the buffering cache could help? (Is that even possible)... Any help or pointers would be much appreciated.

[elite]

I'd think wireless is the problem, how is the stream if you just play the file on a share from WMP rather than GBPVR?

[ydekmekji]

pretty choppy and horizontal lined... does that mean it's got deinterlacing issues too?

[elite]

pretty choppy and horizontal lined... does that mean it's got deinterlacing issues too?

I wouldn't worry about the lines until you've solved the choppy playback. I'm not sure that buffering would help much (or if that is an option ) - Is there anyway you can improve the signal - or even better run cat5?

[HtV]

I've a wireless connected client. Works ok but only with streaming. When you use sharing there is more overhead network traffic, well at least for livetv. Has to do with the fact that the client has to check the file that is being played for it's size. Something like that . Sub explained me when I had about the same problem you seem to have.
I think you really should sought out the streaming problems.

How good is your wireless connection?

[K.S.]

i have a client connected through WLAN, server is 100MBit cat5, the WLAN connection is just below 11b, playback of DVB-T mpeg2 recordings through file sharing is no problem. what kind of capture card do you have? DVB or analog? if analog, you could reduce filesize with lower quality setting. to find out if your connection is fast enough try something very simple: pick a recording, check how long that recording is & simply copy that file with windows explorer (do it from the client side, emulate the connection). check how long it takes you to copy the file. if it takes longer then the recording would run, your connection is to slow. you should have some air, only then would a increase of the buffering cache have any effect.

[ydekmekji]

I think streaming would be fine, but i just don't get a display. The screen just stays blank. I'll try the copy file test. I am also running analog, but i don't want to reduce the quality setting. My hope is that people can watch a recording from another room. Is there a "work around"? I've tried orb, but that was pretty much hit or miss...

I just tried the copy test... Yes, the file is taking longer (about twice as long) to copy. I have a 6 minute clip that took about 12 mins to copy.

[K.S.]

what router do you have? 11b or 11g? each WLAN client reduces the available bandwidth, basically you'll only get half the speed with 2 WLAN clients. if possible, try to connect either the client or your server with cat5 cable & try out if it is enough. try to find out how good your WLAN connection really is, maybe switching to another frequency (only if something interferes, i.e. neighbour with WLAN on same frequency, microwave oven, DECT phone station) or changing the location of your router (less obstacles) could help.

[ydekmekji]

Thanks guys for the help... I wonder if what would be helpful is to have a "suggested minimum requirements" post or something on the front page. I realize that what i have is probably not condusive to making a client thing work.

[HtV]

You may be right, but I think it might be quite difficult to set those "suggested minimum requirements". The same with the minimum specs for a gbpvr system. Sub advises 1ghz-512MB. However you you'll see people with a 600mhz-256MB claiming it works fine.:eek:

In your case I would try the Enhanced WebAdmin, it does almost the same as a client but offers more configure-options for streaming etc.