Client on laptop is choppy, suggestions?

[Todd33]

It just stutters like made 80% of the time. If I hit pause for a few seconds it will make the playback smooth for 30 seconds or so. I'm on a 802.11g network with a good signal on both machines. The server is a 4400+ w/2GB and the laptop is a 1.8Mhz P-M 1GB. Playback on the main machine is fine.

[stanger89]

It's the network, almost certainly. Some people can get wireless to work, many can't.

[Todd33]

Are there any tricks to get Client to play a relativly low bit rate file smoothly? The network is normally at 30-54Mbps, but maybe there is a XP setting to send larger packets?

[GTwannabe]

Make sure you disable packet bursting/power save mode on the laptop's wireless card.

[flavius]

You may also consider hooking the laptop up with a regular ethernet cable - to make sure that it really is the network. Then, if that proves to be the case, you could experiment with the quality of your recordings, to see if there's one that plays smoothly.-

[fontabg]

If it works with a wired connection it is definitely related to your network speed. If it is still choppy even with a network connection try changing the video render from VMR9 to overlay or default.

[chadman]

I had the same problem. When I connected it with a network cable the problem stopped. I guess my wireless will just not work well with Sage.

Chad

[Todd33]

Ok I plugged in a cable to the laptop to the router and it played smooth, despite the files coming from the server via wi-fi. I then played back some Dora cartoon that was recorded on a low quality setting, itplayed fine. So I bumped my default recording quality down to "Great" in hopes that it will help.

[bobvoeh]

Sage works just fine over wireless if it is setup properly. I have an old Sony 700mhz laptop that Sage Client works fine on over a Linksys 54g network. I also have a Media MVP connected to a Linksys WRT54GS router which acts as a wireless bridge using WDS to my main Linksys WRT54GS which connects me to the internet. My server is hardwired to my main WRT. No stuttering anywhere. One thing I had to do was disable "Afterburner" which is Linksys' 125mbps technology. If your router has such a thing as Afterburner, Speedbooster, etc... make sure you disable it. I have also heard of Antivirus causing problems although I have not experienced this personally.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by bobvoeh

Sage works just fine over wireless if it is setup properly.

Streaming video can work fine over wireless, but due to the nature of wireless (it's inherent instability), it is often troublesome.

That's one issue, the second is that the OP is specifically talking about HD, which, with a nominal bitrate of about 20Mbps, basically requires a perfect 802.11A/G connection (54Mbps) at the bare minimum. Considering that wireless more often than not can't reliably maintain even half of it's advertised bandwidth, that is a prime candidate for the troublemaker.

[TakeFlight]

With any wireless network, you can assume in a perfect set up that you will get half the advertised rate. So, with a A/G 54Mbps wireless network in a perfect environment you can expect to get 27Mbps. This is clearly enough to do SDTV and "should" be enough to do HDTV. I say should be able to do HDTV because almost no wireless network is going to be "perfect" even if you sit the wireless NIC 5 feet (with no obstructions) from the WAP. This is not scientific, but I would venture to guess in most environments you are lucky to get 20Mbps with wireless A/G and at that rate you likely will have issues trying to stream HD.

My own personal experience in my house is that in general I'm able to stream SDTV over wireless G without a problem (computer client as well as an MVP). I would try streaming HD, but my laptop isn't even capable of playing HD even when the file is local. And my other computer is too far away to reliably stream SD, let alone HD. I'm now running CAT5e in my house to avoid having to use wireless to stream video altogether.

[bobvoeh]

Originally Posted by stanger89

That's one issue, the second is that the OP is specifically talking about HD, which, with a nominal bitrate of about 20Mbps, basically requires a perfect 802.11A/G connection (54Mbps) at the bare minimum.

I agree that HD over wireless would be on a whim and a prayer, but I see nothing in this post about HD. My results were using SDTV on the DVD Standard (3.2gb per hour) setting. But reading the above posts, it all looks like SDTV stuff to me. But I guess I could be wrong.

[Todd33]

No HD streaming, just standard TV. It seems the "great" setting plays smoothly. Both machines are always connected at 48 or 54Mbps, which should be plenty. It's too bad sage Client can't have a buffer setting like streaming from Internet videos. If I could set a 45 sec buffer, it would not be so dependent on the instantaneous network performance.

[bobvoeh]

What Wireless Hardware do you have? Maybe I can see if there are any brand specific settings to try.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by Todd33

No HD streaming, just standard TV.

Sorry, there's a similar thread going about HD over wireless, I'm so confused

It seems the "great" setting plays smoothly. Both machines are always connected at 48 or 54Mbps, which should be plenty. It's too bad sage Client can't have a buffer setting like streaming from Internet videos.

HKLM/SOFTWARE/Frey Technologies/Common/DSFilters/MpegDeMux:
BufferSize = 0x00010000 (65536)
NumBuffers = 0x00000040 (64)

If I do my math correctly, that comes out to be a 4MB buffer by default. I think you may underestimate how inconsistent wireless links are. But you could play with the NumBuffers setting.

[bobvoeh]

Don't get me wrong, its not that I underestimate the instability of wireless networks (I'm a network engineer by day), its just that I believe there is usually a solution to the problem. It could be as simple as changing some settings on the Access Point / Router or even going as far as using directional antennas to minimize interference. Hardwired is always better IMHO, but I am in the same boat as some others in that where my main TV is, I cannot get Cat5 down that wall without breaking into the drywall. That would be a major hit on the WAF I'm just the type of person that will exhaust all efforts before giving up on it and I don't think we have all the pertinent info on his wireless network to determine if there is anything we could try on the hardware side to make an improvement.

[waltc]

Got a free computer from work with these specs:
OS Name Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional SP 4
System Compaq Deskpro
Processor x86 Family 6 Model 8 Stepping 6 GenuineIntel ~863 Mhz
Total Physical Memory 261,552 KB
Available Physical Memory 99,764 KB
Total Virtual Memory 1,025,756 KB
wirless:Airlink 101 USB 54Mbps G
router D-Link DI-524

I used an ethernet cable and have no probs, but it's when I go wireless is when I get choppy video/audio. I'm using the onboard videocard - if I change it to a better card and up the memory to 512M will that help? Getting the video card and memory is gonna cost me little and I don't want to go drilling holes thru my walls to get a network cable to my living room tv.

[bobvoeh]

My first guess is does that pc have USB 2.0? My guess is not. USB 1.x will only go up to 11 or 12mbs which will not be enough. Since your wireless card is USB, that may be your bottleneck.

[flavius]

What's the quality you are using? Try reducing recording quality.

[bobvoeh]

One thing I forgot to ask, are you recording SDTV or HDTV ?