Studdering in new beta!!

[mikejaner]

Originally Posted by jasongrimme

As I understand it, this is an HD-PVR issue that needs a firmware update to resolve.

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...4&postcount=14

In the meantime, if you can set your STB to output 1080i, you should have better performance.

I read that, but the issue goes away, when I plug the server into a 100Meg switch, so it doesn't seem to be related to that. I could be wrong though.

I have my HD-100 hooked up to a NetGear 108T Gig switch along with 6 other machines. The switch is uplinked to a WatchGuard x10e firewall. I was having pausing HD content before the latest 6.4.6 Sage update HD-100 firmware.

Since the upgrade I have no shuttering or pausing on HD content. I watched "CARS" BluRay and and "Fantastic 4" BluRay without any dropouts or shuttering.

I would check the NIC in your media server, I have seen some off brands not performing well.

I have tried three network cards so far, all with different chipsets. I plan to test with another soon, and a different Gig switch also, so hopefully, I can narrow it down as a hardware Vs. software thing.


Looking at the packets, and consulting with another person here at work who does that sort of stuff, it looks like ACK packets are being sent from the HD extender back to the server multiple times for the same packets(as many as 7-8 ACKs). Whether or not this is something which would throw off SageTV, I guess those guys can answer. Those packets disappear on a 100Meg switch.

[_Demo_]

Could you try the latest 20080804-0 firmware and let me know if it helps.

Thanks

_Demo_

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by mikejaner

Looking at the packets, and consulting with another person here at work who does that sort of stuff, it looks like ACK packets are being sent from the HD extender back to the server multiple times for the same packets(as many as 7-8 ACKs). Whether or not this is something which would throw off SageTV, I guess those guys can answer. Those packets disappear on a 100Meg switch.

To shed a little bit of light on this, as you probably know, the acknowledgment number basically tells the server what TCP packet the client is expecting (technically it indicates what byte is expected next, which is why the number doesn't simply increment). If the client sees one packet, without seeing the one that should come before it, it will often reply with an ACK for the missing packet (telling the server it is still expecting the old packet). Sometimes it waits a little while to see if the packets are just out of order, sometimes it does it immediately. What could be going on is the HD100 isn't receiving one packet, but gets the next 7 packets. Assuming the timing works out just right, and depending on the implementation of the system, the HD100 will respond to each of those packets with an ACK for the missing packet.

Hopefully the newer firmware fixes things for you. So far I'm too scared to try out the betas or the release clients. After 5 years of using Sage I've put my time in tweaking and debugging it and now I just want it to work. It's sort of been an expensive hobby in terms of hardware, but I've certainly gotten my money's worth out of the software.

[thomaszoo]

Originally Posted by _Demo_

Could you try the latest 20080804-0 firmware and let me know if it helps.

Thanks

_Demo_

I can't find any release notes on the "20080804-0 firmware"; has it been officially released?

[_Demo_]

Originally Posted by thomaszoo

I can't find any release notes on the "20080804-0 firmware"; has it been officially released?

The release notes should be posted shortly.

_Demo_

[mikejaner]

I installd the new 0804 firmware. the studdering actually got worse. the video is constantly studdering so bad it looks like slow motion, and the audio doesnt play.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by mikejaner

I installd the new 0804 firmware. the studdering actually got worse. the video is constantly studdering so bad it looks like slow motion, and the audio doesnt play.

Does it still work OK with 100mbit ethernet? Have you tried doing a Wireshark capture again? Do you get more dropped/retransmitted packets than before?

[mikejaner]

Originally Posted by reggie14

Does it still work OK with 100mbit ethernet? Have you tried doing a Wireshark capture again? Do you get more dropped/retransmitted packets than before?

Yeah, sorry, forgot to mention that. 100Mbit is still fine with no issues. I will try to do a packet capture later tonight. I suspect it will be more of the bad packets in ratio to good ones, than on the last firmware.

[_Demo_]

Originally Posted by mikejaner

Yeah, sorry, forgot to mention that. 100Mbit is still fine with no issues. I will try to do a packet capture later tonight. I suspect it will be more of the bad packets in ratio to good ones, than on the last firmware.

If you have a 100mbit hub it would be interesting to have a capture on the 100mbit side of that switch by putting the hub between the gigabit switch and the hd extender and capturing from another port on the hub.

_Demo_

[mikejaner]

Originally Posted by _Demo_

If you have a 100mbit hub it would be interesting to have a capture on the 100mbit side of that switch by putting the hub between the gigabit switch and the hd extender and capturing from another port on the hub.

_Demo_

yeah, unfortunately, I don't have a hub. I will try some captures later, and see if they look any different.

[mikejaner]

OK, you guys can choose to believe this or not. Anyways, I got an ATI 3450 in the mail today, and I installed it about an hour ago. I then proceeded to start testing with Wireshark again. So I do a baseline with my NIC on the 100 switch. Next I plug into the Gig switch and playback is smooth!! I thought "weird", so I changed channels, and captured again. Still smooth. Next, I connected my onboard NIC, which I am pretty sure is a bad NIC, and proceed to test with it on both network switches. Still smooth.
Here's the weird thing. Now that playback is smooth, all of the wireshark captures still show bad packets, except for my first baseline. Check them out.

Baseline capture with good NIC on 100 switch:
https://my.syncplicity.com/share/pgi...ealtek100.pcap

Capture with good NIC on Gig Switch:
https://my.syncplicity.com/share/hiu...altek1000.pcap

Capture with good NIC on Gig Switch again:
https://my.syncplicity.com/share/h36...tek1000_2.pcap

Capture on suspect NIC on Gig Switch:
https://my.syncplicity.com/share/t76...000badnic.pcap

Capture on suspect NIC on 100 Switch:
https://my.syncplicity.com/share/b9y...00badnic2.pcap

[reggie14]

That's odd. Well, I was always a little skeptical about whether a few dropped packets here and there should actually interrupt playback. It seems like the buffer on the HD100 should easily be able to handle some lost/delayed packets.

I do think it's quite strang that you're still getting quite a few TCP retransmissions. I'm not sure how normal that is. I tried out some file transfers on my gigabit network and I don't see any. I haven't tried capturing on my server when I'm streaming to my HD100 though.

[MrD]

Is all of the cabling on your LAN between the server and extender at least Cat 5E?

You may also have a bad punch down somewhere along the line. Gigabit speed is much more sensitive to cross talk.

[mikejaner]

Originally Posted by MrD

Is all of the cabling on your LAN between the server and extender at least Cat 5E?

You may also have a bad punch down somewhere along the line. Gigabit speed is much more sensitive to cross talk.

I checked all of that, but I could have missed something. The two switches involved are connected together locally, so punchdown is not an issue. I even had my extender in the same closet during my Wireshark adventures. All of my cable is Cat5e. Also note, the server is plugged into the Gig switch with it's Fast Ethernet card, so the only Gig speeds would be an uplink to another Gig switch. Why plug it into a Gig switch then? Because, I had it plugged up with a Gig card, which died, and I plan to have one back in line soon. Also I invested a lot into a bunch of gig capable switches to place all over my house, for whatever future stuff I do. I am starting to wonder about that decision. Although I would have been really SOL if I had thrown away my fast ethernet switches.


All that aside, whether the reboot yesterday made the firmware update show the improvement, or video card install did anything (doubt it), I think the problem has been resolved. The firmware update definitly did something positive, because I rebooted many times over the weekend, switching out a bunch of network cards, and checking cables etc.......

and reggie14, thanks for your input. I would be curious to see if you see those packets also, with a gig switch in the line. I am going to do some more testing as I get more hardware loans from friends to narrow down potential culprits.

[Watch22]

The latest firmware makes mine shutter on either 100MB and 1GB. Also I get not audio. If I rollback to the previous firmware its smooth.

[mikejaner]

Originally Posted by Watch22

The latest firmware makes mine shutter on either 100MB and 1GB. Also I get not audio. If I rollback to the previous firmware its smooth.

Did you try rebooting the SageTV server? I think that caused the same thing for me after the firmware update,until I rebooted but it's hard to tell.

[tmiranda]

I figured out my stuttering issue and it had nothing to do with Sage. It ends up that my NAS was performing a SMART test on the drive at the same time I was trying to watch the recorded football game. When the SMART test ended, playback was smooth.

[gplasky]

mikejaner
You may want to check and see if you server NIC is connecting at half duplex or full duplex. If it says it is connecting at full try setting it manually to half and see if that might fix it. If there is a mismatch when set to auto it could be what is creating your studder. Just a thought.

Gerry

[Watch22]

Originally Posted by gplasky

mikejaner
You may want to check and see if you server NIC is connecting at half duplex or full duplex. If it says it is connecting at full try setting it manually to half and see if that might fix it. If there is a mismatch when set to auto it could be what is creating your studder. Just a thought.

Gerry

It would be nice if the HD100 would have a setting to set 100MB/FULL.