Client over 802.11G glitching

[DRM2PVR]

My sage server is running 6.4 and DVD quality mpeg recording. My server connects at to my wireless G router at 48mbps but only utilizes 16% (7.4 mbps). This is just under what the client tries to play a sage recornded video file (2GB an hour) at. Divx films seem to transmit just fine (1GB files for 2 hours). What can I do, if anything, to get clean playback?

[Brent]

Sorry, but wireless G is just not enough for consistent, quality playback especially for HD. Even wirless N is iffy.

Your best bet is to wire ethernet.

[S_M_E]

Originally Posted by Brent

Your best bet is to wire ethernet.

I agree and if you're going to run Ethernet you might as well go gigabit. Wireless-n might be OK for SD but wired is the way to go for speed and stability.

[brainbone]

I've run SD over 802.11g without any problems. QAM or OTA HD is out of the question.

What wireless router (make/model/version) are you running?

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by Brent

Sorry, but wireless G is just not enough for consistent, quality playback especially for HD. Even wirless N is iffy.

Your best bet is to wire ethernet.

I agree for 2.4GHz N, but 5GHz N is a different story. 5GHz isn't as bulletproof as wired, but in my environment it's been able to handle anything I've thrown at it including mounting BR ISO via an UNC.

[DRM2PVR]

Ahhh, fooey, I was hoping there might be some kind of trick to getting better perfomance out of my wireless lan or turning on something is sage to gracefully degrade. I'm running a linksys wrt54g, have all the obvious stuff set like mac address limmiting rather than wep security, no compression going on, burst mode and priority for the sage. It is sooo close to playing without a stutter. Not sure I can run wires where I'm at without a hassle but looks like I'll have to. What about placeshifter, that transcodes on the fly but is it remote control capable?

[stanger89]

You could use placeshifter and force transcoding. That should help.

[DRM2PVR]

I'll download the demo and see If I can map the remote to it. Thanks.

[stanger89]

You'll need an external app like Girder or EventGhost, Placeshifter doesn't natively support remotes.

[DRM2PVR]

To my suprise, placeshifter worked immediately with my USB MCE remote. I didnt even install any drivers for it.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by DRM2PVR

Ahhh, fooey, I was hoping there might be some kind of trick to getting better perfomance out of my wireless lan or turning on something is sage to gracefully degrade. I'm running a linksys wrt54g, have all the obvious stuff set like mac address limmiting rather than wep security, no compression going on, burst mode and priority for the sage.

Are you in an apartment building, or somewhere else where there are a lot of visible access points? If other APs are visible, did you try to find an empty (or emptier) wireless channel? Technically 802.11g only has 3 non-overlapping channels: 1, 6 and 11. I've noticed significant performance increases by moving to less crowded channels. I think most people end up on channel 6 by default. Channels 1 and 11 are usually less crowded.

Also, you could try upping the wireless output strength. I don't think the standard firmware lets you up it, so you'd have to try 3rd party firmware like HyperWRT or DD-WRT (which is what I use).

Neither one of these is likely to give you a major performance increase, but maybe it would be enough. I never had any serious problems streaming 3GB/hr SDTV using a wireless G, except to the wMVP (whose wireless radio apparently just has poor performance). And that was even in a moderately crowded apartment setting.

[brainbone]

Originally Posted by reggie14

Channels 1 and 11 are usually less crowded... DD-WRT

I agree.

Load up DD-WRT on your WRT54g, assuming you don't have a version 7 WRT54G.

Survey your location and select a channel that seems to be the least used (1 or 11 are a best bet, as reggie14 said).

In DD-WRT's advanced wireless settings, crank up the TX power to around 80.

The default firmware on the WRT 54Gs generally perform poorly. DD-WRT, and cranking up your router's TX power (not too far, or it will become noisy and lower performance) should help, without resorting to lowering image quality with place shifter.

Make sure the SageTV server is plugged directly into the WRT54g, and not connected wireless. Let the clients be the ones that have the wireless connection.

Go ahead and use WPA security. Mac address filtering and the like does little good.

[DRM2PVR]

Thats what I was looking for.. but my v5 wrt54g is the nuetered one - so I'd have to run the micro version and take the risk of brickding it. Maybe I should go upgrade first!

[reggie14]

I think most routers capable of WPA2 actually perform the AES algorithm in hardware. So, there really shouldn't be a penalty to using WPA2/PSK/AES. TKIP is a lighter algorithm, so it tends to be done in software, which can result in a performance penalty. Still, I'd recommend trying things without encryption first. As soon as you have that working then try turning on WPA.

[DRM2PVR]

I see placeshifter recognises the local network and is not transcoding, how do I force it to transcode over lan?

[brainbone]

Originally Posted by DRM2PVR

Thats what I was looking for.. but my v5 wrt54g is the nuetered one - so I'd have to run the micro version and take the risk of brickding it. Maybe I should go upgrade first!

Micro will be fine. You won't need the extra ram for what you are doing.

As long as you follow the steps, you wont brick the router. If for some reason you do, look at it as an opportunity to upgrade.

[CollinR]

Agreed on DDWRT, I will not buy a router thats unsupported for a while.

[brainbone]

If you do use DDWRT, its probably not obvious that you should be running SVN 11028. (micro version in your case).

More details here.

[Peggysis]

I've been using wireless G successfully on my HTPC for several years. I can view the highest quality SageTV recordings, avi files, and even mkv files smoothly via the SageTV client, and I get full throughput most of the time. (Usually 48 - 54 mbps.)

However, my SageTV server is a P4 system running Linux and it is wired. My client is a K8 WinXP system and wireless. Someone else mentioned, (and I agree), that's the way to go, if possible.

I noticed your client is: WinX Pro - P3 800MHz on 250W power supply, 2 x 128MB 100Mhz Ram (256)

I also have another SageTV server that's a P3 system connected via wireless, but I don't expect it to run WinXP. It's also an 800 MHz, but has over 600 MB of memory. (Odd number, yes, I know!) It's just fine with Win2K, though, as long as I don't try to stream video. Maybe worth looking into?

Here are some other things I learned about wireless PCs and SageTV:

Use a PCI based wireless card, not a USB based one. I could never get a stable connection via a USB wireless interface. Throughput always sucked and even signal strength would vary constantly.

Increase the number of buffers in the client's registry by a factor of 10. That tends to smooth things out a bit:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Frey Technologies\Common\DSFilters\MpegDeMux NumBuffers


I would expect a P4 wireless system to transmit at 54 mbps, unless there is a problem with the wireless hardware, the connection is being limited on the receiving end, or as someone else mentioned, the channel in use is clogged with other traffic.

The problem with Placeshifter is that it won't play DVDs, even though the local system is perfectly capable of doing so...

Hope this helps!

-Judy

[stevech]

Originally Posted by Brent

Sorry, but wireless G is just not enough for consistent, quality playback especially for HD. Even wirless N is iffy.

Your best bet is to wire ethernet.

I use a Std Def MVP with my own 11g bridge. With an ideal signal strength and no significant (streaming) competition with neighbors' for WiFi air time, I never see a glitch.

Wouldn't try HD with 11g though as 22Mbps is about as fast as 11g goes, with ideal signal conditions.