HDTV viewing Placeshifter impossible?

[grauchy]

I'm running the trial version of placeshifter and I'm trying to decide whether I want to buy it or not. Here is my dilema.

SDTV looks pretty good and streams well I am satisfied
HDTV Pauses and freezes a lot. I assume it's a bandwidth issue but I thought Placeshifter was supposed to down rez content on placeshifter to provide smooth playback. I'd rather have smooth playback over clarity I don't mind if the image resolution is reduced from HDTV -> SDTV over placeshifter.

But I can't see how to fine tune any settings to provide smooth playback.

Any ideas?

[ke6guj]

I'd guess it is probably a CPU horsepower issue instead of a bandwidth issue. Take a look at your server's CPU usage during SDTV usage and then during HDTV usage.

[flavius]

I use the placeshifter on my iMac which has a C2D 6400, and I have disabled transcoding, since I'm on the same network - are you trying this over the internet?

[grauchy]

Yes over the internet. I'm currently out of town on business. I'll check the cpu usage on my server. So it's the transcoding that is the limiting factor then?

[grauchy]

You are right. It was my CPU. During SDTV Transcoding I'm at 60%. HDTV is topped out. What I have is a 2.5 GHz CPU. What minimum speed do you think i need to transcode/serve HDTV on placeshifter?

[flavius]

Good question! I'm trying to find out myself for the MVP. Maybe its worth a shot to play with the target quality, one could start with something really low res and go from there ..

[grauchy]

There's just a few shows that I can't wait until I get home to watch. For now I think I'll just start recording both SDTV and HDTV version of those shows. That's my work around.

[ldavis]

Guys,

I used to have a 2.4 machine and HDTV over the internet was not possible due to transcoding CPU loads. With my new dual core 3.0 there are absolutely no problems(about 40% CPU load) so that CPU is certainly sufficient.