Placeshifting HD shows over the net

[wayner]

My internet upload speed is 800kbps.

When I am away from home and want to watch HD shows streamed from my home Sage server am I better off recording my shows on an SD channel and watching that via PS rather than recording on an HD channel on my HD-PVRs or OTA tuners?

It would seem to me that it would probably be less prone to problems to stream an SD show, especially since my upload speed is the real bottleneck.

[gplasky]

Well Placeshifting a HD-PVR recording means transcoding on the server. So any SD show (HD-PVR) will require less transcoding and less bandwidth. Your OTA should be mpg2 so no transcoding. But again SD will require less bandwidth.

Gerry

[wayner]

I would record the SD shows on a PVR 150 tuner rather than the HD-PVR so that should make things easier. Even though OTA shows are in MPG don't they have to be transcoded down to a lower bitrate to fit though a pipe that is, at best, 800 kbps?

[gplasky]

I don't think anything happens on the server side depending on your upload speed. I think it is based on the Placeshifter client which would dynamically adjust for what it is receiving.

Gerry

[razrsharpe]

I'm pretty sure wayner is right on this one.... The server will transcode the show in real time (pretty much all shows) to fit in the bandwidth it has available (which is usually limited by your upload speed). Sage does a connection test between the server and client and then determines the amount of compression that needs to be done.... and if you use sagetv's "Dynamic Streaming System" it will auto adjust the streaming settings if necessary.

[Gustovier]

I have a more than capable server with an upload rate of about 9mbps, I think the live transcoder that SageTV is using is being limited. I should be able to get near HD quality with a good transcoder with the proper settings. Not sure if you guys are familar with airvideo or streamtome but these iphone apps run a process on a host machine that uses ffmpeg to realtime transcode HD content to the iphone/ipad. When I use the VGA output of the iphone or ipad with these apps the quality is pretty good. I'm disappointed the transcoder with sagetv is not on the same level.

[gplasky]

Define more than capable server. Sage also uses ffmpeg for transcoding.

Gerry

[mickdaly]

Originally Posted by wayner

My internet upload speed is 800kbps.

When I am away from home and want to watch HD shows streamed from my home Sage server am I better off recording my shows on an SD channel and watching that via PS rather than recording on an HD channel on my HD-PVRs or OTA tuners?

It would seem to me that it would probably be less prone to problems to stream an SD show, especially since my upload speed is the real bottleneck.

I've been wondering the same.

My upload speed is 720kbps and both PS on my laptop and PS on an HD200 are unwatchable - constant stuttering of video and audio - regardless of the download speed at that location.

Any help would be appreciated.

[Brent94Z]

I too have found anything recorded in HD to not be watchable using Placeshifter. I have a very fast download that I'm trying to use it on as well as a very fast upload at the Sage server. The limiting factor for me is my server computer is not a speed demon. This leads me to think the bottleneck is in the server computer. Also, I'm not even expecting to watch HD... I just was wanting it to be watchable. I've even tried manually adjusting the Placeshifter settings way down and it still skips and stutters.

[Gustovier]

Originally Posted by gplasky

Define more than capable server. Sage also uses ffmpeg for transcoding.

Gerry

I have a i7 950 box and a q6600 box I have been playing with. Well that's good to know it uses ffmpeg so the right foundation is there. I just need it to use better settings when doing live transcoding to an extender client in placeshifter mode so I can obtain a better quality image.

[sacrament055]

I've had better luck with improved picture quality by specifying my own settings with my average bandwidth along with increased number of B Frames and decreasing the output resolution.

I reasoned that a lower output resolution along with higher B Frames (delta frames) seemed like it would require less bandwidth and my ATI card seems to do a good job of cleaning up the final image to look ok. I wouldn't call the picture quality great but it is ok for non sporting events and a bit below par for sports.

[simonen]

I am getting pretty decent picture quality using a quad core system to PS the HD channels to my HD300 hooked up to a 32" LCD TV (2Mbs upload).

FF and RW is the most annoying part; it is slow to respond.

[Gustovier]

Originally Posted by simonen

I am getting pretty decent picture quality using a quad core system to PS the HD channels to my HD300 hooked up to a 32" LCD TV (2Mbs upload).

FF and RW is the most annoying part; it is slow to respond.

And your doing it over the internet? I was looking for at least DVD quality which I can't seem to get for my 720p mkv. . What are your settings on the sage server and your hd300(I have one as well).

[simonen]

Yeap, over the internet. No special settings configured, everything is default on both sides. I have a 2Mbs upload from my home which makes a big difference, otherwise I don't think it would work out so well. Like I said, the menu navigation and FF/RW is sluggish, but I can deal with it.

I am not sure if the transcoder is multi-threaded now or not, but I remember a few releases ago, I couldn't PS HD recordings because it was only using one core to transcode.

[Gustovier]

I guess it all boils down to what your calling "decent video quality"..lol

[Fuzzy]

There are two factors in determining the quality/experience you'll get with Placeshifter.
First, is the CPU. Regardless of the bandwidth, you have to have a fast enough processor to be able to decode the content, scale it, and encode it - on a single core. If you can't keep up with this, it will stutter/skip.
Second, is the bandwidth. Placeshifter will adjust the bandwidth used on the fly, using the client end's buffer as a guide. If the buffer is running closer to empty, it will switch to a lower bandwidth to get it to fill back up. If the buffer is full, it will switch to a higher bandwidth to get better quality.

All video in placeshifter goes through this transcoding process, regardless of it's original format (unless the transcoding is explicitly disabled in the Setup).

There are also other complications that may be affecting some people. Unless you're using a newer version of sage (v7+), it used an older version of ffmpeg, that had problems with interlaced H.264 material. This would cause stuttering, regardless of the cpu available.