How to stream via LAN istead of internet?

WD Legacy Products WD TV Live Streaming
21

The designation “100-Mb/s” or “1 Gb/s” on a switch or router only indicates the theoretical maximum speed of the individual ports, not the aggregate throughput of the device’s processor. But the Asus does claim throughput of 1000 Mb/s.

The box on your wall is indeed a modem - a fancy one that uses optical fiber rather than twisted pair or coaxial.

22

There are dozens of folks here who don’t even have these things connected to the internet, and they can still stream fine.

30 meg is pretty fat, most people around here probably only have 3 to 5 megabit per second internet bandwidth, and they aren’t reporting this issue.

These boxes don’t use internet bandwidth to stream content from a non-internet source.

If the box was stealing your bandwidth, lots of people would report it.

23

screenshot of disc usage while streaming - Look at drive E

http://imageshack.us/f/830/nodiscqueueoranything.png/

Ok then, any of you willing to do some search for a cheap switch that can do this then? cuz i am not willing to spend another 200USD on a router just to try and prove my issue

EDIT:

found this :

http://www.broadbandbuyer.co.uk/Shop/ShopDetail.asp?ProductID=795

cheap **bleep** **bleep** switch, good enough ?

24

BeefSkull wrote:

screenshot of disc usage while streaming - Look at drive E

http://imageshack.us/f/830/nodiscqueueoranything.png/

Interesting…  That’s while streaming?  The Disk I/O READ rate is less than a kilobit per second…

25

yes that is while streaming.

here is another screenshot : http://imageshack.us/f/580/morestuff.png/

However right now i am having a new issue where this retard box cant stream more than 1 minute of anything

soz for ugly words, but im starting to get kinda aggitated

26

Where’s it getting the data if it’s not from the disk?   Read rate still shows zero on that screenshot, but lots of WRITE activity…

27

sorry, here is a screenshot where it is actually sorted correctly:

http://imageshack.us/f/46/35687912.png/

This time the WD TV Live decided to use 70% of my network instead of 30% - SAME movie …

I know that by now, your probably thinking that im trying to troll you, but i really am not … this is legit -.- and it is annoying the [Deleted]

EDIT :

Also NOW, the WDTV Live is NOT limiting my internet bandwidth according to speedtest.net

28

@BeefSkull:

You don’t need any more hardware! That Asus router is the bee’s knees, as is your fiber internet.

You don’t need to prove your issue, either.

Your setup is pretty standard - modem to router to SMP/Desktop PC/Laptop PC - although the modem and the router are top-of-the-line.

If you suggest a particular Internet stream (SpeedTest, for example) and a particular video test file (preferably not a commercial movie), as well as Windows tools for measuring CPU and HD performance, we could do some repeatable tests.

I just tried playing two movies simultaneously - one from Netflix in Chrome browser on my desktop PC (at 5 Mb/s from my ADSL router) and the other from the HDD of the same PC to the SMP and my HDTV. They weren’t 1080p, but there was no interaction at all.

You seem to have a problem, it’s just hard to reproduce it elsewhere, let alone diagnose it.

29

Ok, so as it is running now, using a lot of my switch’s bandwidth, and not limiting my interwebs, i have just tested 2 movies.

Austin Powers Goldmember : 1080p. File size : 6.56gb. Bitrate : 9.7mbps. Audio : Dolby Digital ---- this movie will start to lag within the 1st minute (upon analyzing this movie on my PC, it seems that the lag starts pretty much at a point when the bitrate will exceed 10mbps - again leading back to bandwidth, BUT this will also happen with my Asus Router) also, a bitrate of 10mbps is really only 1megabyte per second right ?

Harry Potter 7 The Deathly Hallows Part 1 : 720p. File Size : 7.01gb. Bitrate : 6.7mbps. Audio : DTS — this movie seems to play flawless

Both are MKV files

At this point i am almost willing to let someone watch my setup via teamviewer to prove that the issue is legit -.-

30

The MKV issue using a lot of network bandwidth is known.   I diagnosed that a few weeks ago.

http://community.wdc.com/t5/WD-TV-Live-Streaming-Issue/MKVs-stuttering-due-to-network-exhaustion/idi-p/312872

 So seeing that performance graph up there where it’s already using 70 mbps, that leaves very little room for your YouTube streams…

31

quick question then – a bitrate of 10mbps = 1MB/s yes ? or is it actually 10MB/s ? cuz if its 10MB/s, then it would really seem like it is a bandwidth issue (since i am currently only using a 100mbit switch) - if yes, the question as to why this is also happening when using my Asus Router (which should infact be super fast!) still remains though

32

It’s a factor of 8…

10 megabits per second is roughly 1.2 megabytes per second.

Your ASUS router in this case has nothing to do with it.

It’s limitted at your PC, which is showing only 100 megabits per second total.

You were using 70% of that in the stream itself (which should only be about 10% if the bug wasn’t there…) leaving you only about 20 megabits per second “useful” bandwidth remaining.

33

Okay well, it has now gone back to this. I didnt touch ANY settings, i didnt restart any of the devices:

http://imageshack.us/f/35/72287364.png/

This is the “mode” that “uses some of my internet for streaming” - however in this mode i can watch ANY 1080p movie without any hiccups, as long as i am not using my internet

This is while streaming the same Harry Potter movie as before.

I also found something else interesting, windows is detecting 2 WD TV Live devices, and whenever i remove 1 of them, it will just automatically show up again later

http://imageshack.us/f/4/13061602.png/

EDIT : Gonna try something as weird as turning off network discovery

Unrelated question : On the SMP, under network settings, should “Network Share Server” be enabled or disabled ? does it make a difference for what i wanna use it for ?

Double EDIT:

By removing 1 of the wdtv live devices detected, and restarting both my PC and the WD TV Live, it has now gone back to 70% network usage, - and again i will state that, in this “mode” it cannot play any 1080p movies (not the ones ive tried anyway) - but when running speedtest.net in this “mode” it shows that the WD TV Live is NOT hogging on my internet. Then i just need the SMP to stay this way and then find/wait for a fix for the bandwidth hogging

this is the weirdest shi# evar -.-

34

i give up. have spent more than 20 waking hours troubleshooting this thing.

Prolly gonna send it back this monday, unless i get this fixed -

35

What I really miss, is one picture of your network monitor, which shows a status like this (see the red circle):

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/838/1gba.png/

 This is also Avatar and the little peak the speedtest (yes I know, if i compare with your speed, I’m a very little boy) :cry:

But I have no problem with the movie on the wd tv live.

Are you sure, that your PC is connected with GB-Lan with your Asus router?

36

His screenshot on post 25 shows he’s only 100 meg.

37

From a complete novice perspective, could their be a PC NIC speed at play here?  Just trying to help, so don’t shoot me down too badly if it’s a moronic suggestion - ta.

38

My WD TV Live SMP also won’t use more than 7% of a 1 Gbit LAN, which is at max 8 Megabyte per Sec (or 64 Mbps). This seems to be enough to stream any HD content on 1080p - and actually I have no idea why it even uses that much, since my tested movies are no more than about 12.5 mbps (The Dark Knight for example, Full HD, Dolby True HD).

Here’s a good calculator:

http://web.forret.com/tools/bandwidth.asp

When surfing at the same time my Network monitor in the task manager goes up to max 13%, which is actually the added bandwith going through then downloading at full speed of my 50 Mbs internet connection (0.05 GBit) and the puthrough of the WD Live. No stuttering at all. 

I have no clue whats going with your network there. What about the cables you’re using? I’ve read that damaged cables can cause jittering. And what we need for streaming is a jitter-free and stable connection. Maybe the added bandwidth just can’t be handled by the cables for streaming?

Or a program which filters the network bandwidth…on the router…or a software on the PC (antivir)?

39

Ok so i it seems ppl werent satisfied with my 100mbit connection, so ive replugged the Asus Router (shouldnt make any difference though, since the 100mbit connection wasnt fully saturated while streaming)!

Most 1080p movies will still lag with my now 1gbit connection, even at the same spots as before! - all cables has been tested!

Screenshot :  http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/829/16083372.png/

Honestly to me it just seems like the SMP has problems with certain MKV files, and/or with decoding video files with “high” bitrates

Whenever a movie starts to lag, it will always be at the same spot, which should indicate that it is not a network problem (at least not now, with a 1gbit wired LAN connection)

Im still hoping for someone to find a fix, or at least tell me that this is a known problem, or tell me that i should enable “x” feature to get this **bleep** working :smiley:

EDIT :

A friend of mine has an old Netgear n300, and he can stream 1080p movies just fine (also using a wired connection) - just had him over to troubleshoot my setup, and he cannot find any flaws :frowning: - he has an older WDTV Live though

Double Edit :

I just borrowed my friends Netgear N300 Gigabit bla bla bla to test it, and something weird turned up - the WD TV Live will ONLY connect to his router (wired) with 10/100mbit (indicated by the front panel light on the Router being Amber instead of green) - weird thing, this **bleep** also happens with my Asus Router – so it may in fact be a bandwidth problem after all, but only because the WD TV Live refuses to connect with anything higher than 100mbit … if this is a design choice by Western Digital themselves, well then thats just the most retarded thing ive ever encountered -.-

40

ive reset the SMP now and turned off its internal Media Library ---- everything seems to be working just dandy now, even on 100mbit LAN - it is now also displaying proper network usage according to the actual Bitrate (although still x8 - 10 of what it should be) of the movie, as where before it would pretty much flatline on either 30% usage or 70% usage (100mbit wise).

Dont know whats up with this, but it seems to be working now, and i can stream movies that even hit 25mbps bitrate now without any problems …

Thank you all for all of your help :wink:

I will ofc start whining in this thread again whenever/IF the unit starts to act weird again :stuck_out_tongue: