Network enhancement recommendations

[rtrski]

Hi all. Wasn't entirely sure where to put this, but this seems to be the most general forum. Will try to flesh out background for the question as best I can (probably to the point of pain...I do go on (and on...and on...))

Current Sage Server: Vista machine (Q660 CPU, 3 1 TB HDDs, all Caviar 'green' type speeds, 4 GB RAM). Tuner is HDHomeRun Dual. Running Sage v7 (love it!) with 'service' mode, tuning OTA HD from an antenna (reasonably good one on second floor - all signals in the 85% or higher average strength rating and 65% or higher average 'quality' rating per the HDHomerun software; I live less than 20 miles from the primary tower broadcast site in the DFW area, TX).

Networking hardware: DLink dual-band DIR-825 wireless. 2.4 GHz channel reserved for A/B/G (laptops and smartphones, not used often). 5 GHz channel reserved for N to a Buffalo Nfiniti Ethernet Converter (basically one end of a 'bridge') that is connected only to my HD300. Nothing else gets on the 5 GHz channel.

Interconnect layout: HDHomeRun is networked to the DLink router directly via a short Cat5e (< 3 feet), as is the SageTV server. There is another computer (gaming machine) plugged into the router as well, but I rarely game while trying to watch and rarely online (more single-player strategy and FPS). Fourth port on router is open. SageTV server has only a single built-in ethernet connex to the motherboard....which means this one cable is handling both incoming recording streams from the HDHomeRun and serving outputs to the HD300.

Symptoms: Have noticed I can't reliably (sometimes it works, more often it stutters or has audio dropouts) watch one OTA HD channel on the HD300 while recording two simultaneously on the HDHomeRun dual. Of course the incoming and outgoing recordings are going to the same drives on the server, and each uncompressed OTA HD stream will take about 20MB of bandwidth, so this COULD be a network saturation or a disk access issue. It could also be wirelesss N not up to snuff, but watching a single OTA HD show on the HD300 from the drive while NOT actively recording anything else seems to work beautifully. I can also reliably watch a ripped DVD while recording 2 channels. When it happens, stuttering on playback doesn't seem to be at exactly the same time, so I think I've ruled out the recordings themselves being spotty due to either disk access or signal strength. (Not 100% sure, but enough to be willing to try a network tweak first before diving into logs and looking for more elusive culprits).

Assuming it's network saturation...what would be people's suggestion for the best bang for the buck?

a) Upgrade the router (don't think there's much better to be had, but there may be some)

b) Add a NIC to the computer on the PCIe bus, so I can separate the HDHomerun to be on a direct network connection to the Sage TV server and use the existing built-in ethernet connection (the only one - my mobo does not have dual GB) for the network traffic 'out' (internet and sage outputs)

c) Add a second router to offload A/B/G traffic off the dual-N (deactivating the 2.4 GHz band on the dual N as well so I don't have a conflict with side-by-side wireless routers) and also share some of the routing traffic? Not sure when you daisy-chain two routers how they end up 'sharing' the load, but could play around also with moving connection to the gaming computer to the other router backplane as well.

Seems to me the bottleneck would be the single ethernet to the computer, but wanted to see if that makes sense to those who regularly talk about having 3 and 4 tuners as well....

TIA for any advice!

[rtrski]

heh, I really have reading comprehension issues...I just now found the 'general' forum at the bottom of the main list.

"before posting, SCROLL, idiot!!" If mods want to move this, be my guest. Sorry....

[KeithAbbott]

I'm able to record 3-4 HD shows simultaneously, without any issues. Of course that's from a combination of HDHRs and 2250s, but still. My first thought is that the rotational speed of the green drive might not be able to keep up with recording two HD shows to the drive, plus watch one of them. You said you are able to watch a ripped DVD while recording two shows without problems, is the ripped DVD located on one of your other drives? I would swap out one of your green drives with a 7200rpm drive, and see if that helps.

Also, I'm not a big fan of DLink equipment, I have a DIR-655 sitting unused after having problems with the lan ports on the back. I tend to prefer Netgear routers, but thats just me. I also have everything that can be connected via gigabit, even though the extenders and HDHR is only 10/100.

Also, if that is your primary television, I think I would try to hardwire a network connection, rather than using wireless.

[KeithAbbott]

One other thought: can you watch an OTA show on the server while recording two shows? If you are still getting dropouts and stuttering, then you've ruled out the wireless connection to the HD300. Since you can record two shows without problems simultaneously (while watching a ripped DVD), it seems like the problem is not the bandwidth from the HDHR to your server.

[rtrski]

Thanks for the replies.

I'll test watching one on the server while recording two - good thought. Would definitely rule out the wireless and/or network bottleneck vs. disk bottleneck.

To your other diagnostic questions, most of the DVD rips are on a different drive than the PVR folders (split between two drives...not sure if Sage is smart enough to optimize where it chooses to put recordings other than by available space??), but I also have all 'episodic TV DVDs' on the same drive as is used for one of the PVR folders, and watching them (on the HD300) while recording 2 OTA still works.

I'd love to go wired, but given my home setup it's not going to happen. The server is in a 'game room/loft' area right above the living room where the primary TV is, and there's no common wall that goes from the 2nd floor down to the first, unless I used an exterior wall. And that's going to have firebreaks (horizontal studs between floors) by code. So going wired means either a huge hole in the drywall to get access to drill thru the break, or punching out thru the brick and running the wiring on the outside of the house. I did think about trying to use the in-house TV cabling for ethernet, but it's junk. House was built about 18 yrs ago and I recall that cabling didn't even work when we had satellite; I had to do a custom (external) run to get sat to the TV back then.

[MattHelm]

Originally Posted by rtrski

b) Add a NIC to the computer on the PCIe bus, so I can separate the HDHomerun to be on a direct network connection to the Sage TV server and use the existing built-in ethernet connection (the only one - my mobo does not have dual GB) for the network traffic 'out' (internet and sage outputs)

This is my setup on all 3 systems I work with. I also use green drives, and even when I had only 1, I could record 4 feeds from the HDHR's, and play back 2 (one SD) shows.

If you are using Version 7 of SageTV, you can also set the:
Setup -> General -> Video Recording Path Optimization Path
to Bandwidth, if you think it's your drives. This records to a different drive if something is already recording on a drive, even if it has the most room.

[rtrski]

Thanks for the reply, Matt. I like the NIC solution as it is one of the cheapest, but some potential confirmation is nice.

Will report back after I try the watch on server test. Think I have to ditch the computer right now though and pay attention to family for the holiday today (noooo...let me geek out in my man cave!!!)

[KeithAbbott]

Originally Posted by rtrski

Think I have to ditch the computer right now though and pay attention to family for the holiday today (noooo...let me geek out in my man cave!!!)

Damn those pilgrims!

[Polypro]

Vista? Network Throttling Index / MMCSS Service?

http://www.google.com/search?q=vista...ient=firefox-a

Also check each NIC and set any offloading to disabled.

Finally, try different Auto Tuning levels

http://www.google.com/search?q=vista...ient=firefox-a

P

[rtrski]

Thanks for those links. I'd already disabled indexing on all disks (not just the PVR or movie disks, but the OS as well). Didn't turn Windows Search off entirely as I do use some of the GUI features (hover over a file icon details).

Tried some of the other settings as well. My computer auto tuning did seem to be in "highlyrestricted" mode, so we'll see if dropping it back to "normal" sticks and helps a bit.

Also going to go ahead and try the NIC method. The playback I watched with 2 shows reocrding did seem jerky...but I'm still unsure if the recording itself was a bit iffy. Basically I decided to toss $30 at the problem. Can't imagine it hurting.

[Polypro]

That "indexing" has nothing to do with disks or search.

P

[rtrski]

Sorry, yes the throttling index has nothing do to with disks/search. The first search link you gave me brought up as one of the better looking links a grab-bag of other Vista 'tweaks' that included turning off disk indexing and search.

My mistake for associating that with your suggestion directly.

[rtrski]

Well, did the switchover this morning (waited for the weekend so I'd have time to fiddle if it goes wrong somehow). Installed a PCI-e bus NIC, made sure to configure it to turn on Jumbo frames, etc, and moved the HDHomeRun dual's network connection over to it instead of thru the Dlink network hub that also carries the wireless traffic down to the HD300.

Got 2 test recordings set to start in half an hour, and once they're going plan to go downstairs to the TV and watch another recording thru the HD300 that I know to be 'good' (not recorded with any dropouts, as I've watched it before and it was clean). Will see how it goes.

One thing that really impressed me: Sage didn't give me the slightest bit of guff about the tuners having moved to a different network connection - it doesn't even seem to know or care. After plugging in the HDHomerun to the new jack and letting it power back on I tested it using the provided software just to make sure it could be tuned directly, and it could, then went into Sage and just went to Live TV. Popped right up. Was expecting that I might need to re-setup the tuners through the Sage configuration menus but seems like I didn't.

I've made a few other changes here and there per Polypro's suggestions, also set Sage's recording to optimize via Bandwidth as I do have 2 PVR folders on 2 different physical HDDs with about the same amount of free space (so I shouldn't get into unexpected trouble with early show deletions relative to priority), and only two tuners. In the end I may not know exactly what step provided the fix, if it does indeed dual record and stream more reliably now. But I'm certainly hopeful regardless that it's been a good step to take.

Thanks again for the responses in this thread. The Sage community is great even to leeches like me (since I'm never going to be a significant contributor - my coding skills are "teh suXX0r" - I definitely qualify for leechdom!)

[gplasky]

You're going to find out if every device on your network doesn't support jumbo frames (and if you have extenders and HDHomeruns they don't. And cheaper switches usually don't either.) turning on jumbo frames is going to cause you more problems than just leaving them off. They are off by default and usally the default NIC setting working well in +95% of most home networks.

Gerry

[rtrski]

Thanks - didn't realize the HDHomerun didn't support them - thought it did.

I only turned that on on the new NIC to which the HDHomerun is plugged directly, so I don't think that will influence anything else. The NIC should be smart enough to down-negotiate, but if I notice any issues I'll try disabling it again.

Test this a.m. went pretty well. Actually had some skipping in the show I was watching but a glance at the clock showed me it was more than 10 minutes after my recording test had ended, and when I rewound it recurred in the same place so it was clearly in the recording. Both newly test-recorded files on the other hand were perfect when watched after, so I'm definitely getting better thruput on the writes even while watching an OTA HD from one of the same directories while recording.

Hopefully this will further improve the WAF (which is already fairly good, frankly, although I'm still looking forward to Ortus).

[rtrski]

Hmm...one irritant, but may not be an issue.

Did a restart and the HDHR network light just kept blinking, and blinking.... Opening the HDHomeRun GUI got a solid network light immediately.

Restarted, same thing. HDHR manual says network light will just blink until it's been contacted by the connected computer or network. Seems like even with Sage set to start on Windows startup, it doesn't "ping" the available tuners or anything to validate they're present.

I did (while the thing was still just blinking) use Sage to go to the guide screen and set a show to record manually, starting a few minutes later, and the light did go solid and the recording began. Have a couple of halt notices but not sure if that's just the channel I happened to pick being a weaker one.

I do have the NIC to which the HDHR is connected set to a fixed IP address in the range specified in Silicon Dust's sticky FAQ about direct connection. Should I just not worry that it won't seem to 'connect' until it needs to actually start tuning? Is that the way it works on restarts for the rest of you who have the HDHR direct-cabled to your server? (e.g. MattHelm)

[Polypro]

Jumbo frames was one hour of my life that I will never get back.

You should have 2 green lights on, even when not recording.

When I "Direct Connected", it was before SD supported it, and I had to run tftp32 to assign an address. IIRC, I could never get the SD method to work, and just stuck them into the router, which always works fine.

Are the HDHR's showing up in Windows' "Network" area? If you right click on them and choose properties...what IP address do they have?

P