Placeshifter (server) streaming performance

[sharpxmen]

Hi,
I have SageTV Media Center and Placeshifter - both v5.0.4
I experience issues with the stream bandwidth and it seems to be lower than the set bitrate even after i lower it. So for example if i set the bitrate at 700kbs the actual stream bitrate is about 650. if I go ahead and lower it at let's say 600 then i get about 550 and so on. It only happens when the resolution is set at 720x480 - on the lower resolution seems to work ok but the quality is pretty bad. I did set the video_buffer_size to 4MB so i get about 30+ seconds of buffering but looking at the statistics window you can actually see the downtrend of the buffer going slowly towards zero. All this is over the internet from my computer at home to work, i have enough bw on both ends to stream at higher rates than that. Same thing happens at home over a wireless network from the desktop to my laptop - i noticed that is more obvious when i record or watch hdtv (world cup games). On the home network it happens when the rates are higher but the result is the same. Both cases the channel bandwidth appears higher than the target b/w - looks like the server is not streaming at the required rate. I attached a screenshot from the stats window on my laptop at home. Any tips on how to overcome this issues?
Thank you.
PS: on the laptop i also have another issue - i only get image when the placeshifter is in full screen - it used to work but i adjusted the window size and now the video does not render anymore when not in full screen.

[mayamaniac]

I remember the full screen problem only happened in the older placeshifter versions, the last few releases fixed it. Make sure you are using 32bit color in your video driver settings.

As for the resolution thing, I have no idea what would cause that. Sounds like something for SageTV tech support to answer. But try 640x480 instead, see if it helps.

[sharpxmen]

Thanks for your response. To clarify:
The color depth it is at 32bit and it is working fine in full screen. I should also mntion that the resolution i was talking about is the setting in placeshifter streaming settings and it is actually 704x480 vs 352x240. Using the latter works ok and the buffer does not decrease, using the higher one the buffer will go slowly towards zero and then starts studdering. I am also wondering if anybody from support is monitoring these forums or hould i contact support directly regarding this - seems like a bug as it does the same on 2 different systems. The server has enough resources so i am not sure where the bottleneck is. I will wait till tomorrow and then contact support regarding this (will send the link of this thread). Thank you.