Placeshifting Server/Client observations & questions

[sainswor99]

Ok,

I think I'm finally beginning to understand what some of the advanced options in placeshifter do (after much monkeying around on my home network with my old laptop), and I thought I'd share (and ask for additional enlightenment):

The biggest issue with Placeshifter (AFAIK) is smooth playback. Even on a relatively high speed internet connection, I was getting occasional jerks, etc; I finally figured out that playback quality is a balance between server CPU utilization, the network, and client CPU utilization (some of you are probably saying "DUH!" at this moment). Let me lay out my environment for you: My SageTV media server is a dual-core Pentium D 2.8 ghz box, with 2 gig of RAM. I have my media partitions formatted with 64K blocks. I have cable internet access, with a 1.2M upload speed.

When on my LAN, playback without transcoding is fine on my laptop if I disable video post processing. However, when connecting over the Internet, I start running into problems. What works reasonably well is to

a. Disable video-post processing (client factor)
b. Set the network speed to 512K (half my upload bandwidth), and
c. Disable b-frames (client & server factor)

However, I'll still get the occasional hiccup; what I noticed last night is that one of processors maxes out to 100% (50% for the box) with SageTVTranscoder.exe when I adjust the playback speed. There does not seem to be any relationship to the recording quality and CPU utilization when transcoding; in other words, if I transcode either a high quality or a low quality file, the CPU utilization still jumps to 100%.

Now for the questions:
1. Are the specs for my mediaserver too low for transcoding?

2. Is there some setting on the server to help with transcoding that I'm missing? I used to use Orb on this box (before they went nuts with the Orb 2.0 design), and I don't remember the load elevating this high.

3. Anybody have any other suggestions to improve the Placeshifting experience?


Stu

[sainswor99]

I almost forgot to mention: using ffdshow helped playback on my laptop immensely on the LAN; not sure why, however.

[breizh]

Hi,

There are a few observations I'd like to add about a weird behaviour regarding client/server:

SageTV latest version is installed on a PC that acts as the server, on which I rarely watch TV directly. The service starts with Windows.
SageTV Placeshifter is installed on another PC of my LAN, on which I regularly watch TV.

Usually, I start Placeshifter and connect to the server. Then I start watching TV and I notice regular "lags" on the image (little "freezes" every 5 seconds). That's quite annoying because it's not pleasant to watch such an irregular video.

Then, if I start SageTV on the server. The image is fine on the server (no lag). And the strangest thing is that, at the same time, the video becomes perfect on the Placeshifter client (no more lags)... and if I exit SageTV on the server, the video remains perfect on the SageTV client. Until I switch to another channel; after that, problem occurs again...

Any idea where it could come from ? and how I could fix this definitely ?

Thans for your help.

EDIT: I don't use encoding.

[CollinR]

#1 You should be using client instead of placeshifter.

#2 What do you mean you don't use encoding?

[rickgillyon]

Placeshifter is fine for watching over a LAN. I do so from time to time. And I assume the OP means transcoding rather than encoding.

Sounds like a service issue, anything in the log? What OS are you on?

[sainswor99]

Originally Posted by CollinR

#1 You should be using client instead of placeshifter.

Well, that's an assumption; perhaps he had another reason for purchasing Placeshifter instead of client (more flexible licensing schema, occasional use outside of the LAN). Not sure what he meant by encoding, though (transcoding, perhaps?)

[Trepidati0n]

Originally Posted by sainswor99

Well, that's an assumption; perhaps he had another reason for purchasing Placeshifter instead of client (more flexible licensing schema, occasional use outside of the LAN). Not sure what he meant by encoding, though (transcoding, perhaps?)

Still boggles me why the extension licenses are all a different item BUT all cost the same. Just don't know why it isn't 1 unit license cost per 1 external connection. Don't know...seems like that would be a lot easier to manage. Shrug..maybe their business model gets more money this way.

[breizh]

Hi all,

Sorry for the delay, and thanks for your suggestions.

Yes, I meant "transcoding" (sorry for my English).
And yes again, I made the choice of Placeshifter rather than Client because I want to use it over the Internet regularly.

I am using Vista 32. The service seems to work fine. I will have a look at the log files.

Thanks to all.

[sainswor99]

I think I may have also stumbled upon a possible solution to my CPU spikes; I updated the BIOS on my MEDIASERVER. I was inspired, in part, by nielm's reflection on updating video drivers. (http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25664)

I was updating my video drivers on my server (which I mostly use for a placeshifter connection), and noticed that a BIOS update was available, which included support for a newer CPU. After the update, SageTVTranscoder now runs at 10% when transcoding (even down to 300 kbps).

Stu