Streaming follies

[philh]

Currently have a D-Link 520(?) in the main room. It drives me crazy with the sometimes audio - video disconnects. Never have a problem with a computer doing that, on the same files.

Anyway, I'm looking for a better solution.

Current
Media Player D-Link 520
Receiver Sony 995 (please stop laughing, it works )
Windows home server (v1), with 6 SATA 1T drives
Samsung Blu-Ray player that likes to overheat and get choppy in play back
Samsung 46" LCD TV

Needs
Playback system that can stream off the server without this irritating delayed audio

Future wants
Box containing WHS is literally out of space, physical and digital.
Obviously 3D
Modern receiver.

I'm partially leaning to building a PC that will take over WHS, and simultaneously feed the entertainment unit. Or possibly the WD Live TV Sever to buy some time. With the WD unit, I have to make sure I have a HDMI port available, been two years since I installed it in the new house, and all the wires are in in the wall. One other option is to build a PC that will essentially work as a media player and put off having it take over WHS duties until a later date.

What I really want is a receiver that will stream audio AND VIDEO from WHS... But apparently it's not being made yet, or I haven't found it.

 

[jonnythan]

There are a lot of players that will stream audio and video over a network from WHS. I do this on my WD TV Live. It's OK, but not great. I hear Popcorn Hour and Dune make some fantastic boxes.

 

[jinjuku]

One other option is to build a PC that will essentially work as a media player and put off having it take over WHS duties until a later date.

What I really want is a receiver that will stream audio AND VIDEO from WHS... But apparently it's not being made yet, or I haven't found it.

I played around with the WD Live + and the Asus Oplay! I dumped both. They were simply not comparison when it was all said and done with my Windows Media Center PC.

I also tried MythTV on a system with Ubuntu. MS has done a good job with MCE especially the ability for third parties to extend the functionality. MyMovies being my favorite add on along with the built in Netflix.

 

[sholling]

I gave up on DLNA because it's overly complex and too limiting. I guess it makes sense if your media player isn't capable of accessing network shares or you have bandwidth issues on your home network. Not only do you have to get the media player working and deal with its limitations and quirks, you also have to deal with the limitations and quirks of the DLNA server. Been there done that and it's like trying to play bug Whack-A-Mole because there is no single point of failure. You have three potential sources of problems - bandwidth, the DLNA server, and the player and any 1, 2, or all 3 could be contributing.

I created network shares and my players simply access music and video files stored on those shares. "300Mb" 808.11N wireless networking will easily handle 480P video but may be marginal or insufficient for 1080P (Blu-Ray quality). For Blu-Ray quality I recommend some form of wired network. Ideally that would be a 100Mb or better better yet gigabit Ethernet setup but one of the "200Mb" or higher powerline networking solutions may work if you can get it working right. I put the wireless and powerline speeds in quotes because in the real world people rarely see anything close to rated speeds, especially with wireless, which may explain your choppiness.

What I use is wired gigabit Ethernet to connect Netgear NeoTV550 media players to network shares (thread) and it works flawlessly. It's not an internet streamer, it's simply a network media player. Another possibility is the latest version of the Western Digital TV Live but I have not tested the new version. In the end the combination of a stable wired network, a NeoTV550 for network media, and a Roku for internet streaming was enough to get me to dump my home theater PC (HTPC).

 

[sholling]

I just looked up the long (6/2010) discontinued DSM-520 and it appears to be very outdated and very limited. I would for sure look into something a lot more modern and if possible run cabling.

Specifications
Standards
• 802.11g
• TCP/IP
• UPnP AV 1.0
• USB 2.0
Media Streaming Protocol
• HTTP
Network
• 802.11g Wireless
• Wired LAN: 10/100Mbps Ethernet
• DHCP or Static IP Address
Wireless Security
• WPA™ and WPA2™
• Hardware-based WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy)
Antenna
• Type: 2.4 GHz Swivel-Type
• Frequency: 2.4G to 2.5 GHz
• Impedance: 50 Ohms
• Gain: 2 dBi Supported
Supported Audio Formats*
• MP3 (Up to 320kbps)
• WMA
• WAV & AIFF (PCM Only)
• Ogg Vorbis
Supported Image Formats*
• JPEG (Grayscale, RGB & YCbCy Only)
• JPEG2000
• TIFF (RGB Only)
• PNG
• GIF
• BMP (Non-compressed)
Supported Video Formats*
• WMV9
• MPEG 1
• MPEG 2
• MPEG 4**
• Xvid
• AVI (MPEG-4 Layer Only)
• DVR-MS
Audio Playlist Formats
• M3U
• PLS
Supported Subtitle Format
• SRT
Outputs
• HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface)

 

[philh]

The choppiness came out of the Samsung 1500 BluRay player about 3/4 of the way through the movie. I had to pause the movie anyway, so pulled the DVD out and kept the drawer open until I returned about 10 minutes later and finished the movie... hence my guess of a heat issue.

I'm surprised to need that much bandwidth. I typically rip movie files to 700-1,000 MB file size. I noticed zero difference between wired (CAT5) or wireless (G). Some movies the sound gets as much as 10 seconds off from the video. Sometimes fast fwd will link them back up, but usually it doesn't. If I use one of our laptops, I have not seen the issue.

 

[sholling]

I'm surprised to need that much bandwidth. I typically rip movie files to 700-1,000 MB file size. I noticed zero difference between wired (CAT5) or wireless (G). Some movies the sound gets as much as 10 seconds off from the video. Sometimes fast fwd will link them back up, but usually it doesn't. If I use one of our laptops, I have not seen the issue.

You might see much difference with a tiny video file. I use ISOs files with from from 6GB to in theory 50GB.

 

[jinjuku]

I'm surprised to need that much bandwidth. I typically rip movie files to 700-1,000 MB file size. I noticed zero difference between wired (CAT5) or wireless (G). Some movies the sound gets as much as 10 seconds off from the video. Sometimes fast fwd will link them back up, but usually it doesn't. If I use one of our laptops, I have not seen the issue.

DVD's are even fine over good G. 1GB of data in 90-120 minutes not a problem, 18,19, 22GB? Now that's another story.

 

[philh]

Just for grins, I started streaming a file tonight and logged on to the server to check how hard the network (100M) was getting hit. Typically it was 1-2% with a couple of spikes to 3.5%. The OLD processor (486) saw at most 12% and that's when I did something else too.