Changing LAN-bandwith-priority of SageTV service....

[Sten3danny]

I use a server/client setup which is working pretty good, except for one nasty problem.

Suppose I'm watching a recording(or Live tv) on one of my two clients, say computer A , and at the same time do some normal computer work on computer B.
Then if I copy a large file, say 200MB, from the server to computer B over the LAN, it uses all available bandwith on the LAN for copying the file and the streaming to the Sage client on computer A stops. This results in the Sageclient on computer A locking up. It has to be ended via taskmanager and then restarted.

If I play the recording on computer A directly over the LAN, for example via WMP, it keeps playing fine, no matter how much I fiddle around on the server.

Is there a way to up the priority of the Sage server, so that it keeps the necessery bandwith to itself?

TIA

[fidget]

Originally Posted by Sten3danny

I use a server/client setup which is working pretty good, except for one nasty problem.

Suppose I'm watching a recording(or Live tv) on one of my two clients, say computer A , and at the same time do some normal computer work on computer B.
Then if I copy a large file, say 200MB, from the server to computer B over the LAN, it uses all available bandwith on the LAN for copying the file and the streaming to the Sage client on computer A stops. This results in the Sageclient on computer A locking up. It has to be ended via taskmanager and then restarted.

If I play the recording on computer A directly over the LAN, for example via WMP, it keeps playing fine, no matter how much I fiddle around on the server.

Is there a way to up the priority of the Sage server, so that it keeps the necessery bandwith to itself?

TIA

That's odd. I have a similar situation (SageTV server and client driving my TV). If I am watching a recorded program on my TV, I can copy recordings from my server PC to another one (upwards of 30 GB) and don't see any problems on the TV. This has been true for every version of SageTV since 1.4.

[Sten3danny]

It can sometimes take a while, up to a minute or so, but the client will eventually start to stutter and then freeze...

I might also add that both the client and the server should have enough horsepower to pull off this job, being an Athlon XP2600+ and XP2500+ respectively.

[fidget]

Originally Posted by Sten3danny

It can sometimes take a while, up to a minute or so, but the client will eventually start to stutter and then freeze...

I might also add that both the client and the server should have enough horsepower to pull off this job, being an Athlon XP2600+ and XP2500+ respectively.

What speed of network do you run? On my 100baseT network, it can take up to a half an hour for some of my copies. When I am copying, my network bandwidth usually starts at about 70% and slowly drops to about 50% when it is done. Also, how do you have your server HDD formatted? I have mine formatted for 64 KB blocks. Your level of fragmentation may be the cause, and not the network.

[Sten3danny]

My LAN is 100Mbit. I'm pretty sure I formatted with 64 KB clusters, but it's been a while, how can I check now after the fact?

On the other hand, if it was due to fragmentation, I would also have problems playing recordings directly throug e.g. WMP, wouldn't I?

I also use my server as a movie server and can stream dvd's to at least five other computers at the same time and copy files without any hiccups, ever.

[mdmint]

With fast HD subsytems you can max out 10/100 bandwidth guaranteed. I use 1Gb copper Network and large file transfers can hit 250%, that's two & half times the theorical bandwidth of 10/100 (and the theorical limit cannot be achieved in practice so actually greater than 2&1/2 times)

SageTV Server priority wise if you're running as a Service it's is by default "normal" priority. There are three priority settings higher. I haven't needed to change it so don't know how changing it's might affect other services... I'd say play with and test it.

[Crashless]

Frey would need to implement the windows QoS (Quality of Service) API into all Sage traffic. This honestly wouldn't be a bad idea, and I would actually be surprised if it wasn't done to some extent already.

Any Frey people know about this?

Another option would be some sort of software QoS manager, but I don't have much experience here. Another still would be a QoS router, which really only exists for VOIP applications right now, I haven't seen any completely configurable consumer-level routers with QoS.

[Sten3danny]

I tried changing the priority of the SageTV service in taskmanager, but that doesn't work. Acces is denied.

[sleonard]

Changing the priority of the Sage service will not affect the network traffic it generates. That affects only the CPU time it gets.

[Sten3danny]

That's what I thought, but I didn't know what else to try....

[JasonJoel]

Well, if you use something like the Linksys WRT54G router, it supports QOS adjustments out of the box. You can adjust by MAC address, router port, or specific port numbers (so you could add the Sage client port to the list).

In fact, I use it to throttle bandwidth to my babycam (port 50000). Works great.

To use QOS in the router (if your router supports it), Frey wouldn't need to change anything since it is at the router level.

Jason Bottjen

Originally Posted by Crashless

Frey would need to implement the windows QoS (Quality of Service) API into all Sage traffic. This honestly wouldn't be a bad idea, and I would actually be surprised if it wasn't done to some extent already.

Any Frey people know about this?

Another option would be some sort of software QoS manager, but I don't have much experience here. Another still would be a QoS router, which really only exists for VOIP applications right now, I haven't seen any completely configurable consumer-level routers with QoS.

[fidget]

Originally Posted by Crashless

Frey would need to implement the windows QoS (Quality of Service) API into all Sage traffic. This honestly wouldn't be a bad idea, and I would actually be surprised if it wasn't done to some extent already.

Any Frey people know about this?

Another option would be some sort of software QoS manager, but I don't have much experience here. Another still would be a QoS router, which really only exists for VOIP applications right now, I haven't seen any completely configurable consumer-level routers with QoS.

The only QoS related problems that I have seen have been related with the MediaMVP, which has gotten better. To determine if it really is a QoS problem, you need to examine the network load. In my case (with no QoS problems), I can see an 8 Mbps change when I pause/play a 3 GB/hr recording (which is roughly 8 Mbps). If there is no change in the network utilization, or it is less that the bit rate of the recording, then there may be a QoS problem.

In my home system, I do not run SageTV as a service. This is for two reasons: 1) all the PC does is record programming so there is no need, and 2) I don't want to deal with the hassles of running it as a service (using remote drives, etc.). It would be interesting to see if it is simply related to Sage running as a service. On a related note, I would be i nterested in seeing the CPU load when playing a recording and doing the copy.

[Sten3danny]

I think I solved my problem. I realized I had the server set for 'best performance of background services' in processor scheduling. I changed it to 'programs' and now my Sage client keeps running fine.

I have yet to find out how this will affect other thnigs...

[Cayars]

Originally Posted by Crashless

Frey would need to implement the windows QoS (Quality of Service) API into all Sage traffic. This honestly wouldn't be a bad idea, and I would actually be surprised if it wasn't done to some extent already.

Any Frey people know about this?

Another option would be some sort of software QoS manager, but I don't have much experience here. Another still would be a QoS router, which really only exists for VOIP applications right now, I haven't seen any completely configurable consumer-level routers with QoS.

MS QoS is only one way to do bandwidth management. Many inexpensive hardware routers can do bandwidth management based on MAC addresses.