MVP Client 1.3.0 (2005/08/16)

[pawn]

I guess I'm just an idiot, because I've wrestled with this thing for over a week and can't get it working.

Setup:

The MVP is connected to a SageTV Client. SageTV server and client are 2.27. Java has been upgraded to 1.5 (latest on Sun's site). I'm using the 2.20 version of the MVP plugin.

Let me say first that the client runs beutifully on it's own.

I have tried three distinct setups, all with problems.

Setup 1. WirelessG setup (actually, wirelessG "extreme" (sigh)):

D-Link wireless router connected directly to MVP, communicating about 10 feet away from client machine which is hardwired to SageTV server. Using DHCP on wireless router.

Believe it or not, this setup works best. Occassional crashes, routine freezes, usual 10 second wait for video when launching a file, need to rewind once or twice at start of file.


Setup 2. Local hub, single hardwired NIC on client machine.

Client machine has one NIC, client and MVP are both hooked up to local hub, which has a crossover cable to hub that server is connected to. Client/Server and MVP all on same subnet. Using forced IP feature of the MVP plugin software. Have tried setting network card to both half and full duplex, 10BaseT.

Totally unuseable: about 50% of the time, MVP freezes up after displaying main SageTV menu, otherwise, video freezes repeatedly for about 20 seconds before toal freezeup (MVP does not respond to even power button on remote).

Important (?): music files play fine.


Setup 3. Local Hub, two hardwired NIC's on client machine:

Client has one NIC connected to hub that server s connected to. Also has an additional NIC, set to half duplex 10BaseT, wired to a local hub which the MVP is also hooked up to. Two separate subnets. Using forced IP feature of MVP software.

The symptoms are identical to Setup 2.


In all cases, communication seems to be fine, MVP downloads interface, etc. And, again, the most useable setup is the wireless one, although it's not really useable at all.

I will go to the end of the world and back to get this working, so any and all help will be gratefully welcomed.

Thanks.

[David Lawrance]

Ah! That I've got and will try. The topology had confused me. Thanks!

David

[cmaffia]

Let us know if it worked for you

Originally Posted by David Lawrance

Ah! That I've got and will try. The topology had confused me. Thanks!

David

[waynedunham]

I would also look at getting a SWITCH instead of a hub. For the price difference a switch will give you better performance especially when loads are high.
I know that I have had problems with hubs in the past. Myself and several friends get together every month or so to do network gaming via a local net at my house or one of their houses. We would have problems from time to time using hubs, especially when trying to use the uplink feature to link more than one hub together.
Once we moved to switches our problems disappeared although I have to admit we alll got switches with enough ports on them to eliminate the need for linking multiple switches together

From your description of your setups (2 and 3 specifically) I can't really picture your layout, nor the need for the crossover cable. (uplink to a second hub?)
Also, is there some reason you are using the client software on a second machine? I'm running the client right on my Sage machine. Personally I would try that to eliminate the possibility of there being some issue with the machine your running the client on.

I have a wired network with a 16 port Dlink switch in the basement at the router/cable modem. I've got 11 wired ports around the house. I have Sage and Sage Client (no service mode) running on my HTPC (megabit onboard network) in the computer room/den with the MVP in the bedroom and a Roku HD 1000 (Photobridge) in the living room. I have had 0 problems running SageMVP in the bedroom on recorded files. Running live TV is another issue and I've had mixed success with that, but don't really use that option at all since I see no advantage to doing that in my setup (also have 2 ReplayTV's for live PVR functions if needed)
I only recently moved the MVP to the bedroom and put the Roku in the living room. There were lip synch issues with the Roku on the previous firmware that (imho) made it unuseable. Starting with the 2.0 firmware for the Roku the lip synch issue is gone and it works great which is why I pulled it out of the closet and put it in the living room and moved the MVP to the bedroom.

By sharing my Sage video directories I can even view my saved shows in the living room on the Roku. No Sage interface, but I can browse to the directories and pick the files to view on the Roku. The 3rd party player (Mplay) I'm using on the Roku even has a 3 minute and a 30 second quickskip forward and a 10 and 30 second instant replay as well as allowing me to set bookmarks in a file I'm viewing to jump to specific spots.

Also, you say you'd go to the ends of the earth to get it working. If at all possible, go wired! Here on Sage, and on the Roku site a large portion of the problems with playing Mpegs are from people trying to use the various flavors of wireless.
What quality level are your recordings in? If you're using a hub with how I think your setup is running it looks like the media has to stream over the network several times and with a hub (especially forced to 10 half duplex) you might just be filling up the "pipe" since it has to go from the server to the client, then from the client to the MVP. That's 3 trips for the stream to get from your video directory to your MVP. I've got the client running on the Sage machine so it just makes one trip from Sage Client to the MVP.

[pawn]

Thanks for the response (embedded comments):

I would also look at getting a SWITCH instead of a hub. For the price difference a switch will give you better performance especially when loads are high.
I know that I have had problems with hubs in the past. Myself and several friends get together every month or so to do network gaming via a local net at my house or one of their houses. We would have problems from time to time using hubs, especially when trying to use the uplink feature to link more than one hub together.
Once we moved to switches our problems disappeared although I have to admit we alll got switches with enough ports on them to eliminate the need for linking multiple switches together


I'll try that tonight.

From your description of your setups (2 and 3 specifically) I can't really picture your layout, nor the need for the crossover cable. (uplink to a second hub?)


I only have one ethernet drop for my entire upstairs. Not a problem in the past, but now with the new MVP, I need a hub (or switch) to share that connection between the two machines. The SageTV server is in the basement.

Also, is there some reason you are using the client software on a second machine? I'm running the client right on my Sage machine. Personally I would try that to eliminate the possibility of there being some issue with the machine your running the client on.


There is no reason I can't try this setup, I'll try it out tonight.


I have a wired network with a 16 port Dlink switch in the basement at the router/cable modem. I've got 11 wired ports around the house. I have Sage and Sage Client (no service mode) running on my HTPC (megabit onboard network) in the computer room/den with the MVP in the bedroom and a Roku HD 1000 (Photobridge) in the living room. I have had 0 problems running SageMVP in the bedroom on recorded files. Running live TV is another issue and I've had mixed success with that, but don't really use that option at all since I see no advantage to doing that in my setup (also have 2 ReplayTV's for live PVR functions if needed)


For the record, my problems do not appear to be live TV related, since the problem is identical when viewing recorded content.

I only recently moved the MVP to the bedroom and put the Roku in the living room. There were lip synch issues with the Roku on the previous firmware that (imho) made it unuseable. Starting with the 2.0 firmware for the Roku the lip synch issue is gone and it works great which is why I pulled it out of the closet and put it in the living room and moved the MVP to the bedroom.


I have checked Hauppage's site, and there do not appear to be firmware upgrades for the MVP.


Also, you say you'd go to the ends of the earth to get it working. If at all possible, go wired! Here on Sage, and on the Roku site a large portion of the problems with playing Mpegs are from people trying to use the various flavors of wireless.


I have given up on the wireless for now. I am testing the system all wired in the same room. I will likely go wired in the end.


What quality level are your recordings in?

DVD Extra Long Play (1.8GB/hr)

If you're using a hub with how I think your setup is running it looks like the media has to stream over the network several times and with a hub (especially forced to 10 half duplex) you might just be filling up the "pipe" since it has to go from the server to the client, then from the client to the MVP. That's 3 trips for the stream to get from your video directory to your MVP. I've got the client running on the Sage machine so it just makes one trip from Sage Client to the MVP.


Like I said, I'll try connecting directly to the server box, as well as play with a switch I have. The 10BaseT half duplex was one of sevreral trials, I've tried them all. But, again, the client works flawlessly though a hub. We'll see tonight.

Thanks again.

[DIBU]

Originally Posted by pawn

Thanks for the response (embedded comments):

I would also look at getting a SWITCH instead of a hub. For the price difference a switch will give you better performance especially when loads are high.
I know that I have had problems with hubs in the past. Myself and several friends get together every month or so to do network gaming via a local net at my house or one of their houses. We would have problems from time to time using hubs, especially when trying to use the uplink feature to link more than one hub together.
Once we moved to switches our problems disappeared although I have to admit we alll got switches with enough ports on them to eliminate the need for linking multiple switches together


I'll try that tonight.

From your description of your setups (2 and 3 specifically) I can't really picture your layout, nor the need for the crossover cable. (uplink to a second hub?)


I only have one ethernet drop for my entire upstairs. Not a problem in the past, but now with the new MVP, I need a hub (or switch) to share that connection between the two machines. The SageTV server is in the basement.

Also, is there some reason you are using the client software on a second machine? I'm running the client right on my Sage machine. Personally I would try that to eliminate the possibility of there being some issue with the machine your running the client on.


There is no reason I can't try this setup, I'll try it out tonight.


I have a wired network with a 16 port Dlink switch in the basement at the router/cable modem. I've got 11 wired ports around the house. I have Sage and Sage Client (no service mode) running on my HTPC (megabit onboard network) in the computer room/den with the MVP in the bedroom and a Roku HD 1000 (Photobridge) in the living room. I have had 0 problems running SageMVP in the bedroom on recorded files. Running live TV is another issue and I've had mixed success with that, but don't really use that option at all since I see no advantage to doing that in my setup (also have 2 ReplayTV's for live PVR functions if needed)


For the record, my problems do not appear to be live TV related, since the problem is identical when viewing recorded content.

I only recently moved the MVP to the bedroom and put the Roku in the living room. There were lip synch issues with the Roku on the previous firmware that (imho) made it unuseable. Starting with the 2.0 firmware for the Roku the lip synch issue is gone and it works great which is why I pulled it out of the closet and put it in the living room and moved the MVP to the bedroom.


I have checked Hauppage's site, and there do not appear to be firmware upgrades for the MVP.


Also, you say you'd go to the ends of the earth to get it working. If at all possible, go wired! Here on Sage, and on the Roku site a large portion of the problems with playing Mpegs are from people trying to use the various flavors of wireless.


I have given up on the wireless for now. I am testing the system all wired in the same room. I will likely go wired in the end.


What quality level are your recordings in?

DVD Extra Long Play (1.8GB/hr)

If you're using a hub with how I think your setup is running it looks like the media has to stream over the network several times and with a hub (especially forced to 10 half duplex) you might just be filling up the "pipe" since it has to go from the server to the client, then from the client to the MVP. That's 3 trips for the stream to get from your video directory to your MVP. I've got the client running on the Sage machine so it just makes one trip from Sage Client to the MVP.


Like I said, I'll try connecting directly to the server box, as well as play with a switch I have. The 10BaseT half duplex was one of sevreral trials, I've tried them all. But, again, the client works flawlessly though a hub. We'll see tonight.

Thanks again.

i have no problems with the mvp and wireless. i have one mvp in bedroom, one in the kitchen and one more in my livingroom. and all with wireless without problems.

i play my files with dvd stndt. without problems. the quali. is very good and i have no dropouts or other problems with the new sage and the new mvp client.
cu

[cmaffia]

Curious, your MVP's are wired how?

Originally Posted by DIBU

i have no problems with the mvp and wireless. i have one mvp in bedroom, one in the kitchen and one more in my livingroom. and all with wireless without problems.

i play my files with dvd stndt. without problems. the quali. is very good and i have no dropouts or other problems with the new sage and the new mvp client.
cu

[waynedunham]

Pawn,

I don't see any problem with the recording quality setting you're using. I was wondering if you had been using some ultra high bit rate that was pushing the wireless bandwidth, but that doesn't look like the case.

I guess that if a switch doesn't work for you then I'm at a loss for any other answers. It looks like there are some other people getting wireless working acceptibly. There are just so many variables when you go wireless ranging from the brands of equipment, to interference, etc. Just part of the reason I went the extra mile and wired my house. I know that's not an option for everyone, be they renters, or just having no access to where they need to wire, uncomfortable doing the wiring, etc.

[pawn]

Originally Posted by waynedunham

Pawn,

I don't see any problem with the recording quality setting you're using. I was wondering if you had been using some ultra high bit rate that was pushing the wireless bandwidth, but that doesn't look like the case.

I guess that if a switch doesn't work for you then I'm at a loss for any other answers. It looks like there are some other people getting wireless working acceptibly. There are just so many variables when you go wireless ranging from the brands of equipment, to interference, etc. Just part of the reason I went the extra mile and wired my house. I know that's not an option for everyone, be they renters, or just having no access to where they need to wire, uncomfortable doing the wiring, etc.

Problem solved, thanks to you.

I changed my main hub in the basement with a friggin' $30 Linksys switch and boom! Problem over. I had no idea whatsoever a switch was superior to a hub, in fact, I thought the opposite. Furthermore, apparently it's not a good idea to stack hubs over a long distance cable. Live and learn I guess.

If I notice any other issues, I'll change the remaining hub with another switch

Thanks for your very helpful suggestion. If things go as well as I'm hoping, the plugin author will be receiving a well earned donation.

[David Lawrance]

Let us know if it worked for you

It did, I think. At least I was able to watch for about an hour with a lot of stuttering. But no loss of connection.

Somewhere in this house is a switch to try out. It'd be nice to see less stuttering. But that might be partly because of my neighborhood, full of techy university employees like me with overlapping wireless networks and channels.

I think the new Belkin Pre-N router helps out a lot.

[waynedunham]

Originally Posted by pawn

Problem solved, thanks to you.

I changed my main hub in the basement with a friggin' $30 Linksys switch and boom! Problem over. I had no idea whatsoever a switch was superior to a hub, in fact, I thought the opposite. Furthermore, apparently it's not a good idea to stack hubs over a long distance cable. Live and learn I guess.

If I notice any other issues, I'll change the remaining hub with another switch

Thanks for your very helpful suggestion. If things go as well as I'm hoping, the plugin author will be receiving a well earned donation.

Excellant!! Glad that worked for you.

As I understand it, all the connections on a hub SHARE the bandwidth so the total through the hub over all the lines cannot exceed the rated speed. (i.e. 100mbs) whereas on a switch each line can get up to the maximum rated speed. The more devices you have on your network the more important that can become.
There are other differences too, but that's one of the most significant to me.

Switches are much better at extending the reach of your network and hubs can do ok for giving you more connections at an end point of the network. Kind of counter-intuitive IMHO. When you think of "hub" you think of it being in the center with your lines radiating outward. <shrug>

[DIBU]

Originally Posted by cmaffia

Curious, your MVP's are wired how?

DSL-Router/5x Switch/Belkin g--nitro

MVP's on Belkin GameAdapter g--nitro

[cmaffia]

Possibly it is a problem with Linksys hardware (wireless router and game adapter) that others can directly hook their MVP's directly to another brand's wireless game adapter.

Originally Posted by DIBU

DSL-Router/5x Switch/Belkin g--nitro

MVP's on Belkin GameAdapter g--nitro

[David Lawrance]

By the way, changing from a hub to a switch helped, just as you all suggested. Less skipping, now, than with the hub.

MVP -- D-Link Switch -- Linksys Wireless G Game Adaptor

Belkin Pre-N Router-- Cable Modem

P4 Sage Server -- DLink 811.02g PCI Adaptor

[waynedunham]

Great David! It's beginning to look like hubs and video, especially over wireless, are pushing the limits of a 10/100 hub.

[Pegleg]

Originally Posted by jptaz

I setup my SageTV Server instance and my 2 SageTVClient instances using the MediaMVP on my server to start automatically at High priority via batch files. This has made the MediaMVPs much more responsive.

John

I'm sorry, but would you mind explaining this a bit for a noobie?

I know that there is SageTV Server ....do we turn it on? Enable it? I'm not sure what you mean by start auto at high priority via batch files....I use my MVP via SageTV Client option, so I don't turn on the server. Are you talking improving speed for the other, non-SageTV Client option?

I would love to make my one MediaMVP more responsive.

Thanks a lot!

Stuart

[thborchert]

Hi,

I have the following problem with the new version of the MVP client:

My MVP is connected via crossover cable to a PC which also has a dial-up connection to the internet, running Sage as a service and the MVP client. BTW, I have activated network sharing for that dial-up connection, which activates Window XP's built-in DHCP server for the LAN connection. This way, the MVP connects flawlessly. That is, it did, until the updated version came.

Now, it does connect after starting the MVP client freshly. Then, after I finished watched, my PC is set up to go into standby after some period of time. If I then wake it up again, the MVP will not connect. The MVP.log, which I will post here on request, seems to indicate that all servers/services get shut down after the MVP goes off for the first time, but only the GUIServer gets restarted on wake-up, not the BOOTP or the TFTP. Could that be the problem?

Thanks!

Thomas

[DIBU]

ftp://ftp.shspvr.com/download/mediam..._2.4.23104.exe

After installing, and reset (power off) the mvp, the new firmware is loading in the mvp.

before u use the mvp with sage, please deinstall the hauppauge software.

what's new:

i don't know, but my mvp's are working better and faster with the new firmware.

greetings

[Matt]

Originally Posted by thborchert

Now, it does connect after starting the MVP client freshly. Then, after I finished watched, my PC is set up to go into standby after some period of time. If I then wake it up again, the MVP will not connect.

Looks like I broke wakeup from standby in 1.2.

I'll try to fix this for the next version.

-Matt

[Matt]

Originally Posted by DIBU

ftp://ftp.shspvr.com/download/mediam..._2.4.23104.exe

After installing, and reset (power off) the mvp, the new firmware is loading in the mvp.

before u use the mvp with sage, please deinstall the hauppauge software.

what's new:

i don't know, but my mvp's are working better and faster with the new firmware.

I regularly try later MVP device software (dongle.bin) with the MVP Client, but I haven't noticed any improvements with the letest Hauppauge versions myself.

Anyway, you can copy dongle.bin from later Hauppauge versions ("Hauppauge MediaMVP\Hardware" directory) to the mvp directory of the MVP Client (backup the existing dongle.bin!) and after power cycling the MVP, this new MVP device software will be used.

So, if you do see improvements with later versions of dongle.bin, please let me know. But if you have problems with the MVP Client, make sure you use the dongle.bin shippling with the MVP Client.

-Matt