Some questions about using Placeshifter @ home

[sdsean]

Ok here is my setup:

In very middle of my condo is a D-Link Wireless N router which can do 104Mbps per second with multi-casting.

In the living room is where my HTPC resides which is also the server.
It is connected to the Wi-Fi network, using a D-Link Wireless bridge (in bride mode at the moment so it basically just acts as a Wi-Fi N receiver).

I also have the router configured to prioitize any traffic to and from the HTPC machine/server.

According to my router control panel, the avg signal strength is about 65%,
and the avg Mbps is about 78 Mbps.

Ok so far so good, so then on an HP laptop I installed a trial of place shifter.

This laptop only supports Wi-Fi G, so max i get is 54Mbps. . .
Its avgs 54Mbps and about 55-60% signal strength depending on where the laptop is sitting.

(laptop has 3GB of ram, Nvida 512MB, and a 2.40Ghz dual core CPU, server is a beast (its in my sig line)).

So I startup placeshifter, and connect to the server via the Locator ID.
I use "dynamic bitrate" feature in the settings, and enable hardware video accelartion.

While video plays OK, there does seem to be problems. . . but here's my questions:

1.) Why does SageTV place shifter while playing only show bandwidth of (on avg), 800Kbps - 1.1Mbps? Certainly my in home Wi-Fi is much more capable (and yes btw I'm only playing 720p or lower content).

2.) Is placeshifter and the server still sending the signal out over the Internet? If so why? Can I adjust this? How? I can see in my Wi-Fi status, that there are connections to an external IP address over my SageTV port. . . so something seems weird. .

I think if I can get these questions answered i'd be more inclined to start using extenders. . . granted I could start wiring cat-5/6 every but geez. . .

[sdsean]

Ok I should also note that I tried setting the bit rate to be forced. . . but the settings dialog only lets you set it to a max of 2000? (i.e. 2Mbps right?) is that really it?

It seems to be a bit more stable. . .but still i'm surprised. . .

[bunch92]

If you are using placeshifter on the LAN, you do not need the locator ID.

I have a PC with placeshifter, and when I start the software, it recognizes the SageTV server and adds it automatically in the list . That server cannot be edited or removed, it justs shows in the list automatically with the following details :


Device.home
Local network
Last Connected : ...


I believe you need your 2 PCs to be in the same workgroup for the server to be automatically recognized.

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by bunch92

If you are using placeshifter on the LAN, you do not need the locator ID.

Not only do you not need it, you should not use it if you want to stay within your LAN. Using the locator ID guarantees that your Placeshifter will go out to the Internet and back again instead of staying local.

[Fuzzy]

Well, it won't really 'go out' to the internet. It will basically get to the WAN side of your router, and bounce back in. Either way, depending on your router, this will impair your performance. As for Placeshifter autodetecting your server, I'm not sure it's an issue of workgroup, but just that you don't have a firewall blocking the ports on the server that the auto-detection broadcasts to (31100 - UDP) and the actual placeshifter stream will be through 31099. If you are not transcoding (meaning it is actually detected a local network, which is what you probably want, as long as your WiFi can handle it, it will actually be streamed on port 7818.

In the end though, your best setup is to simply disable any firewalls on your actual server, and just leave that to the router. SageTV and the various utilities involved in running a full sage/media server use so many different ports, that it's juest easier to keep everything within your LAN open.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

...you don't have a firewire blocking the ports on the server that the auto-detection broadcasts to (31100 - UDP) ...

I think you meant firewall rather than firewire.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

Not only do you not need it, you should not use it if you want to stay within your LAN. Using the locator ID guarantees that your Placeshifter will go out to the Internet and back again instead of staying local.

BTW: if you use the Locator ID and are on the same local network as the server, it should be able to recognize that fact and use the local connection instead of connecting remotely... provided that none of the required firewall ports for this are blocked.

- Andy

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by wayner

I think you meant firewall rather than firewire.

heh..