Streaming has gone to heck

[rldev]

I don't know what happened in the last week, but my media center streaming has gone to hell. I have tested everything I could and am at my losing my mind.I can't watch live tv for a minute without pixelation, stuttering, network error popups, etc. Recorded tv is not as bad, but still very bad. Fast forwarding and rewinding locks up. Forget about watching something fast like hockey. The entire stream is jerky. I have tested all of my switches, cables, nics and drives. They all check out good. I have bypassed of all these items in one fashion or another. Nothing changes the problem. I have tried disabling network throttling to no avail. I have disabled backup software, anti-virus, firewall, etc. The problem doesn't improve. I have no trouble watching live tv or recordings directly on the media center pc. I don't know where to look at this point.

Windows 7 media Center
Quad core Phenom
8GB of ram
Intel pcie gigabit card

[IownFIVEechos]

If you have another PC around with windows media center I would attach the extenders to it and see if you get the same result. Then it would be network. Otherwise the machine has something going on. What extenders are you using? Windows 7? or 8, did you do the 8.1 update?

[rldev]

If you have another PC around with windows media center I would attach the extenders to it and see if you get the same result. Then it would be network. Otherwise the machine has something going on. What extenders are you using? Windows 7? or 8, did you do the 8.1 update?

I am usin win 7 64 bit. I use xbox 360 extenders. The problem is not the network as I stream media other ways. This has to be a win 7 configuration issue.

[IownFIVEechos]

Other people have gone into the media center and removed the extenders and then reinstalled them. May want to do that. Also the Xbox's aren't using the wireless adapter now for some odd reason?

[rldev]

Other people have gone into the media center and removed the extenders and then reinstalled them. May want to do that. Also the Xbox's aren't using the wireless adapter now for some odd reason?

I have them wired to a gigabit network. I don't use wireless. I will try to uninstall and reinstall the xboxes. I will also test wireless since I have a wifi roter right there with a strong signal.

[Venom51]

I don't know what happened in the last week, but my media center streaming has gone to heck. I have tested everything I could and am at my losing my mind.I can't watch live tv for a minute without pixelation, stuttering, network error popups, etc. Recorded tv is not as bad, but still very bad. Fast forwarding and rewinding locks up. Forget about watching something fast like hockey. The entire stream is jerky. I have tested all of my switches, cables, nics and drives. They all check out good. I have bypassed of all these items in one fashion or another. Nothing changes the problem. I have tried disabling network throttling to no avail. I have disabled backup software, anti-virus, firewall, etc. The problem doesn't improve. I have no trouble watching live tv or recordings directly on the media center PC. I don't know where to look at this point.

Windows 7 media Center
Quad core Phenom
8GB of ram
Intel pcie gigabit card

Defined tested. Do you have a managed switch? Can you look at the snmp statistics on each port to see if there is a problem in the switch? How about comparing a couple wire shark captures at each location over the same time span? Things don't go from working fine to not working on a network without some change happening.

[IownFIVEechos]

Echo users may say differently.

[Venom51]

Echo users may say differently.

That's an Echo problem. Not a network problem.

[IownFIVEechos]

Echo users may say differently.

That's an Echo problem. Not a network problem.

Very true. On a side note I have had to change my habits on how I watch tv. Use to be you goto the frig grab a beer, turn on the tv, watch a game. Now I have to first make sure the tv tunes into the channel before I take that first sip. No one wants to trouble shoot after that first sip.

[rldev]

I don't know what happened in the last week, but my media center streaming has gone to heck. I have tested everything I could and am at my losing my mind.I can't watch live tv for a minute without pixelation, stuttering, network error popups, etc. Recorded tv is not as bad, but still very bad. Fast forwarding and rewinding locks up. Forget about watching something fast like hockey. The entire stream is jerky. I have tested all of my switches, cables, nics and drives. They all check out good. I have bypassed of all these items in one fashion or another. Nothing changes the problem. I have tried disabling network throttling to no avail. I have disabled backup software, anti-virus, firewall, etc. The problem doesn't improve. I have no trouble watching live tv or recordings directly on the media center PC. I don't know where to look at this point.

Windows 7 media Center
Quad core Phenom
8GB of ram
Intel pcie gigabit card

Defined tested. Do you have a managed switch? Can you look at the snmp statistics on each port to see if there is a problem in the switch? How about comparing a couple wire shark captures at each location over the same time span? Things don't go from working fine to not working on a network without some change happening.

By Tested I mean I have bypassed every switch going straight from the media center pc directly to the xbox 360(crossover cable). This eliminates any issues with the switches. I have used two different NIC cards. I have tested the cables with the cisco smart switch and the intel nic software. They all check out good. All extenders reproduce the same behavior.

I have run wireshark, but I don't know what I should be looking for.

[IownFIVEechos]

Do you know if the cable company switched formats? Run the over the air version and see if it stops? Can you try a recording that you made months back. That may help to know if the format is now changed?

[Venom51]

I don't know what happened in the last week, but my media center streaming has gone to heck. I have tested everything I could and am at my losing my mind.I can't watch live tv for a minute without pixelation, stuttering, network error popups, etc. Recorded tv is not as bad, but still very bad. Fast forwarding and rewinding locks up. Forget about watching something fast like hockey. The entire stream is jerky. I have tested all of my switches, cables, nics and drives. They all check out good. I have bypassed of all these items in one fashion or another. Nothing changes the problem. I have tried disabling network throttling to no avail. I have disabled backup software, anti-virus, firewall, etc. The problem doesn't improve. I have no trouble watching live tv or recordings directly on the media center PC. I don't know where to look at this point.

Windows 7 media Center
Quad core Phenom
8GB of ram
Intel pcie gigabit card

Defined tested. Do you have a managed switch? Can you look at the snmp statistics on each port to see if there is a problem in the switch? How about comparing a couple wire shark captures at each location over the same time span? Things don't go from working fine to not working on a network without some change happening.

By Tested I mean I have bypassed every switch going straight from the media center PC directly to the xbox 360(crossover cable). This eliminates any issues with the switches. I have used two different NIC cards. I have tested the cables with the cisco smart switch and the intel nic software. They all check out good. All extenders reproduce the same behavior.

I have run wireshark, but I don't know what I should be looking for.

Good. I just wanted to make sure we don't go around in circles chasing the wrong issue. Since I don't use the extender I have to ask an odd question. Do the same buffers used for watching locally on the Media center get used when watching from an extender? Any pixilation when watching on the Media center itself?

[rldev]

Do the same buffers used for watching locally on the Media center get used when watching from an extender? Any pixilation when watching on the Media center itself?


I don't understand this. I have no issues when watching directly on the media center pc. Thanks for trying to help me.

[barnabas1969]

Go watch a problem show. On the remote, press 411, followed (quickly) by pressing the Info button. To do this on a keyboard, type 411, followed (quickly) by CTRL+D.

This will display more information about the video. Use the right/left arrows to display different info. Look for the video "codec". Is it MPEG-2, MPEG-4, or H.264? Let us know which one.

[Venom51]

Do the same buffers used for watching locally on the Media center get used when watching from an extender? Any pixilation when watching on the Media center itself?


I don't understand this. I have no issues when watching directly on the media center PC. Thanks for trying to help me.

Someone else here will answer my question. I'm trying to find out if there is local HD buffering in the Xbox that could be the cause of the issue.

I don't use extenders in my system so my knowledge of what happens at the extender that may be different from viewing locally on the Media center is limited.

[barnabas1969]

Venom51, I don't think it buffers locally in the extender. The XBox is the only extender that even has a hard drive, and the 4GB version doesn't have one either. It definitely uses the same buffer files on the PC's hard drive as it does when watching directly on the PC.

There must be something wrong with the OP's network interface, or possibly something weird about the video content itself. That's why I asked about the 411-Info screen.

[rldev]

Go watch a problem show. On the remote, press 411, followed (quickly) by pressing the Info button. To do this on a keyboard, type 411, followed (quickly) by CTRL+D.

This will display more information about the video. Use the right/left arrows to display different info. Look for the video "codec". Is it MPEG-2, MPEG-4, or H.264? Let us know which one.

I will do tihs and report back.

[barnabas1969]

One more question: Who is your cable TV provider?

[IownFIVEechos]

Also try a recorded file that worked before you noticed this change in behavior.

[barnabas1969]

I agree with post #19. Also, if you try to watch Live TV on the XBox, does the stuttering happen on all channels, or only some channels?