How much bandwidth is necessary?

[bond00]

I'm experimenting with the Placeshifter. I'm currently using the trial license and I can connect to my server, but the video just says "TRIAL" instead of actually playing the recorded show. I'm thinking the "TRIAL" should be an overlay of the video actually streaming so is this a bandwidth limitation? I let video try to load for about 2-3 minutes, but all that appeared was the "TRIAL" screen.

I have a FTP server setup as well and the fastest I can download from the server is about 95 Kb/sec, so I'm sure that is my upload bandwidth limitation. Is that enough upload bandwidth to smoothly stream my recorded shows? Also, does the trial edition actually show the video or is the "TRIAL" on my screen with no video a bandwidth limitation. Thanks!!

[GKusnick]

It's been a while since I ran Placeshifter in trial mode, but I'm pretty sure it ought to play the video. However I don't think 95K isn't going to cut it; in my experience you need a few hundred K minimum to get anywhere close to a watchable picture.

[reggie14]

In my experience, 30 kilobytes/second (240 kbits/sec) is the minimum bandwidth for watchable video. My experience was much, much more pleasant when I had about 100 kilobytes/second of bandwidth (800 kbits/sec).

In trial mode you definitely should get video and audio, but "TRIAL" will be displayed on top of it. If you only have 95 kilobits/second of bandwidth, that's probably not enough. Also, I noticed that when I had less than 300 kilobits/second of bandwidth I had to turn off dynamic streaming and manually set a low bitrate to transcode to.

[bond00]

Great...thanks for the answers. The placeshifter software then is pretty hard to use for home users...especially since most ISPs cap upload speeds. I'm with Qwest with a 5 meg down, but my up supposedly is 768 k...which i don't even come close to in real life. Like i said when it comes to file transfers I'm right around 100k. Not gonna work for me, which really sucks...but thanks for the info and quick responses.

[GKusnick]

You may find it's worth it to pay a bit more for "pro" or business-level service with guaranteed upload speeds. Those cheap consumer-level packages aren't really meant for serious bi-directional traffic.

[sainswor99]

Well, there are other factors besides bandwidth that you can tweak to see if will work; I use AT&T DSL with a 6M/512K pipe, and it works OK.

Questions to consider:

1. Is your Server CPU capable of the compression required to placeshift? The more you compress, the more work your server has to do.

2. On the client side, do you have a reasonably powerful CPU and GPU to watch Placeshifter?

3. Have you tried tweaking the settings for Placeshifter on the client side? Things you can try:
a. Manually specifying the Bitrate to be less than your upload (e.g., 512 instead of 768)?
b. Toggle the B-frames; on my older laptop, this made a huge difference.
c. Adjust the video Frames per second to 20 or 25 instead of the default of 30.
d. Disable Video Post Processing


Try playing around with those settings first; I do agree that Placeshifter needs some improvement, but I think you can get watchable video out of it with enough tweaking.

Stu

[Djc208]

The client (in my experience) doesn't need too much. I can watch fine with my little $500 celeron laptop with integrated graphics. My mom watches on a similar setup without too many issues. I do agree with the post processing/b frames issue though, that helped a lot with my laptop too.

Have you tried using placeshifter from another computer within your network? This would remove the upload speed limitation of your internet connection and help determine if the net connection is really your bottleneck.

If you're trying this from work or similar that internet connection could also be part of the problem. My work connection is fairly fast but the number of people on it make it have high lag rates at times. Where as my parents cable modem connection is faster and usually only limited by my upload speed (which is 2 Mbit peak though 700~900k is more typical).

[bond00]

wow...thanks for all the answers. I'll play with the settings and see what I can come up with. Thanks again!