Hello all,
I just recently upgraded my entire arrangement with my WD TV Live, going from a direct-connected HDD to running through my home network. I’ve my media files stored on a Ubuntu box, in a shared directory that it seems to have no problems accessing. The fileserver is connected to a Trendnet gigabit router, wireless-n, which is then broadcasting to a similar Trendnet-N access point, which is then hard-lined into the WDTV box.
My trouble is that when playing some files, every 5-8 minutes, audio and video will halt for a good 15-45 seconds, at which point video will speed forward to where it should be, and then audio resumes. I have no idea what might be causing this. I definitely know it’s not network congestion, as I’ve tested it with nothing else running on said network save the fileserver and the WD box.
So, yeah, no clue… any idea where I could start, or what might be a cause of this issue? Thanks!
~ Matt
This behavior happens when the WDTV runs out of buffer from the stream. It is typical of a bandwidth limitation. In your case though, since you say you get 5 minutes of video first, it’s probably an intermittant stalling of the smooth streaming data from the share. The best way to measure throughput is to go to the file management section of the WDTV (within the settings menus). Select the same file you are trying to stream from the source and run a file copy to a USB drive attatched to the WDTV. you can watch the progress bar and see exactly how fast data is arriving and of it stalls out.
In my case, I had severe bottlnecking from my Vista share unless I initiated a file transfer on my PC from the attached USB drive to any of my networked machines. As soon as the copy began, whooosh, streaming to the WDTV was smooth and steady. Use the above measurement method above to see if that fixes your problem. Weird fix, but it’s better than nothing. Although nobody can explain why, apparenty a path through the router is establised that the stream sneaks through on.
