Streaming has gone to heck

[Crash2009]

I don't follow. I have no problems playing the content on the media center PC itself.

I suggested PS, ram, and MB caps because you said.... "While watching hockey directly on my media center PC, it wasn't all that great either." http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/vie ... 658#p63658

Also, post 57 and 58 suggest an intermittent problem. Here today, gone tomorrow, now its back again.

[IownFIVEechos]

I noticed some Tivo's onsale today at Amazon. Problem solved?

[rldev]

Yeah that was just something happening at that time. It's playing fine on the media center pc. I can't say it is intermittent at this point. Other than a 5 day reprise after removing some stuff from the media center pc, it's as bad as before. It is generally just bad. I can't watch a football game because the it keeps breaking up and/or network issues on extenders. I connected the media center again to the xbox and still the problem persists.


As for the Tivo remark. Tivo is not really a cost effective solution when you do the math. It's one thing to pay for the Roamio and service. It's another to pay a monthly for each and every Roamio extender. Not much cheaper than Fios box rentals at that point. I may just have to build a dedicated htpc for this.

[IownFIVEechos]

Yeah that was just something happening at that time. It's playing fine on the media center PC. I can't say it is intermittent at this point. Other than a 5 day reprise after removing some stuff from the media center PC, it's as bad as before. It is generally just bad. I can't watch a football game because the it keeps breaking up and/or network issues on extenders. I connected the media center again to the xbox and still the problem persists.


As for the Tivo remark. Tivo is not really a cost effective solution when you do the math. It's one thing to pay for the Roamio and service. It's another to pay a monthly for each and every Roamio extender. Not much cheaper than Fios box rentals at that point. I may just have to build a dedicated HTPC for this.

Agreed, except that at some point you want to live like a human being and not have to worry about the tv working right? Especially football!

[rldev]

Yeah that was just something happening at that time. It's playing fine on the media center PC. I can't say it is intermittent at this point. Other than a 5 day reprise after removing some stuff from the media center PC, it's as bad as before. It is generally just bad. I can't watch a football game because the it keeps breaking up and/or network issues on extenders. I connected the media center again to the xbox and still the problem persists.


As for the Tivo remark. Tivo is not really a cost effective solution when you do the math. It's one thing to pay for the Roamio and service. It's another to pay a monthly for each and every Roamio extender. Not much cheaper than Fios box rentals at that point. I may just have to build a dedicated HTPC for this.

Agreed, except that at some point you want to live like a human being and not have to worry about the tv working right? Especially football!

Well you are certainly correct on that front. At some point you say what the hell. A tivo setup would cost me 2K for my home. Then a again a good htpc and a couple of more xboxs would cost me about $700. The two major flaws with tivo are that you are hooked to cable indefinitely and it's app catalog isn't very good. And no android support for streaming is a deal breaker.

[Crash2009]

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.

What about interference?

1-Is it possible for a wifi signal to interfere with a wired connection? maybe not directly, but it can upset the router....http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/vie ... cpu#p40449

2-Got any "electromagnets" rolled up in the electronics cabinate?

[rldev]

I should add these problems only happen with sports or video with a lot of panning. The audio doesn't cut out, just the video is the problem.

[Venom51]

This will take a little work but if you have some non-encrypted source content then drop a hub between the HTPC and the switch. Place a PC with Wireshark in the same hub. Now stream some content to the Xbox and run a packet capture and reproduce the issue.

1. Select the interface on the capture PC connected to the hub and click start.


2. Stop the capture and right click on a packet from the source machine, in your case the HTPC, and select "Follow TCP Stream".


Save it to the desktop of your PC as Stream.mpg




Now play it back with Media Player. If it plays back without any artifacts you'll know the PC interface is sending it out clean. Then you can move the hub and cable it in between the switch and the Xbox. Capture again. Test the playback. If it's clean the problem is either the Xbox or the display. If it's not you'll know the problem is the switch.

This will only work with content that is not being encrypted.

[rldev]

I don't understand the need for all of this, but I will try.

I have 3 xboxes and one HP media extender. They all respond the same way. So it is not the extenders. The problem actually got worse last night and today. Nothing is now what I consider watchable. Everything I watch, live or recorded stutters, halts and is pixelated. God forbid I fast forward on a program.

[IownFIVEechos]

I don't understand the need for all of this, but I will try.

I have 3 xboxes and one HP media extender. They all respond the same way. So it is not the extenders. The problem actually got worse last night and today. Nothing is now what I consider watchable. Everything I watch, live or recorded stutters, halts and is pixelated. God forbid I fast forward on a program.

And your sure this is still mpeg2 video not a new mpeg4 codec broadcast?

[Venom51]

I don't understand.

Perhaps that's the problem.

You keep coming here with just a general description of the problem. We are trying to isolate the issue for you. You say it plays fine locally on the HTPC but goes to pot on the extenders. Suggestions were given.

You uninstalled software on the local HPTC and proclaimed things got better. Then days later said it's worse than it was before. I'm working with your information that claims local playback to be fine. Without managed switches I'm giving you a way to look at the streaming traffic on the network before it is played back at the extender.

We can stop making suggestions and leave you to your own methods.

[rldev]

Thanks, but you make it seem like I haven't tried anything and have ignored people's suggestions. I have done just about everything else suggested on this forum. I have eliminated all switches smart and dumb in the setup so I can rule the switches out. I have connected an xbox directly to the media center pc. It would seem to me all signs point to the media center pc, of which I tried 3 different nics with the same result. I will try your suggestion when I a have a few extra minutes to do it.

[Venom51]

And at the point you feel you have proven everything outside the HTPC is working properly then the only solution is to try a different HTPC.

[Crash2009]

Thanks for the Wireshark lesson Venom. I have always been intimidated by that one. I havn't used a hub since Win98, is/are there any special configurations that need to be done to the hub? I think I have a.....Barricade out in the garage that used to be used for ICS.

I thought you guys were done with this one when I jumped in and started to pick on the HTPC, and the cabinate.

[Venom51]

It's a puzzle...I like to solve puzzles. No need to be intimidated by Wireshark. Cost you nothing but time to play with it and learn. It's a great tool to have around. If I recall you have a managed switch so no need for a hub. Just set up a port mirror and capture away. Just know you'll need multiple connections to the switch as you'll not be able to communicate with over the mirrored port.

It's a little harder to get access to the stream in the extender model as all the video is passed a host to client unicast steam. You have to be able to inject yourself somewhere in the communication path. It's easier with multicast video as you can grab a copy from anywhere in the network that the content is available. Of course that brings with it other complications.

[Crash2009]

If I recall you have a managed switch

You recall correctly. The Powerconnect5324 that you recomended, hasn't missed a beat in all this time, 18 months running 24/7.

[koberhol]

I'm definately not the expert here but I have a thought. Were you running Showanaylzer with DVRMST?? I recently had very simular issues and found that it looked like Showanalyzer had become corrupt (of my doing I'm sure)? After removing, for what I thought I did, the problem still existed. I found that showanalyzer was still running in the background as I hadn't uninstalled it without first shutting down WMC. After realizng that I decided to remove DVRMST to remove all remnants of the two to do a fresh install. When I then tried to uninstall DVRMST i got half-way through that process and then got the Error 1001. ie... I'm screwed 1/2 way through the uninstall. After 2 days of reading many posts I was able to manually uninstall DVSMST and then reinstall... and voila!! everthing now running smoothly.

I'm only thowing this out there as you said you had Showanalyzer. One other thought. During this problem what does your CPU usage say in Task Manager? My thought would be... are you maxing out your CPU with some other application that now streaming to an extender is secondary in CPU usage!

Lastly, I think the biggest lesson I have learned with having an HTPC is after everyting is running smoothly back-up your system! Especially before adding hardware or even doing a simple firmware update. It's much easier to go backwards than fix what becomes broken. IMO. Have you tried the option of restoring your system to when things worked?