Benefit of a streamer?

[BigH]

Well as I say you have some issues with your PC.

Why do you need 40 pages open at same time that does not make any sense to me, I just have my favourites at the top of page and I can just open with 1 click when I want no need to keep them open all the time.

As you do not have the disk I would consider saving your Windows program either to to a disk or ext. HD in case you lose it for any reason, I lost mine twice, one due to a virus and once to a HD failure, OK first time I got it back with specialist software but it was a pain without the disk to restore.

With other companies you can buy the software and you get the program disk, you don't jhav eto have Windows. As I say its where Dell cuts corners to make money and it you want the disk it will cost £60? which is a con I think.

 

[The_Lhc]

Well as I say you have some issues with your PC.

800MB USED BY STANDBY? I NEVER USE STANDBY!!!! HOW DO I TURN THAT OFF?

grrrrrr....

Why do you need 40 pages open at same time that does not make any sense to me, I just have my favourites at the top of page and I can just open with 1 click when I want no need to keep them open all the time.

Because I'm constantly flicking from one page to another (usually whilst waiting for this place to refresh, grind, croak, clunk, wheeze...) and it's way quicker just to go from one tab to another instead of waiting for each page to load everytime.

With other companies you can buy the software and you get the program disk, you don't jhav eto have Windows. As I say its where Dell cuts corners to make money and it you want the disk it will cost £60? which is a con I think.

Yup, not disagreeing with that...

 

[cheeseboy]

You'd think so wouldn't you but the sound card driver is 4 years old and completely up to date apparently! That was the first thing I looked at!

I meant the motherboard chipset, not the soundcard. Intel or AMD. It's the ones that deal with all the i/o. If they are not right or up to date, can cause problems with hard drive access, which in turn can cause stuttering.

apologies if you've already done them!

 

[BigH]

Well as I say you have some issues with your PC.

800MB USED BY STANDBY? I NEVER USE STANDBY!!!! HOW DO I TURN THAT OFF?

grrrrrr....

Why do you need 40 pages open at same time that does not make any sense to me, I just have my favourites at the top of page and I can just open with 1 click when I want no need to keep them open all the time.

Because I'm constantly flicking from one page to another (usually whilst waiting for this place to refresh, grind, croak, clunk, wheeze...) and it's way quicker just to go from one tab to another instead of waiting for each page to load everytime.

With other companies you can buy the software and you get the program disk, you don't jhav eto have Windows. As I say its where Dell cuts corners to make money and it you want the disk it will cost £60? which is a con I think.

Yup, not disagreeing with that...

Well I don't think it is as its slowing your whole system down, having 2GB of memory open is alot, my pages load in about 1 sec apart from this site which takes longer. So I can access about 20 sites in 1 minute while it seems you can access only about 2?

 

[The_Lhc]

You'd think so wouldn't you but the sound card driver is 4 years old and completely up to date apparently! That was the first thing I looked at!

I meant the motherboard chipset, not the soundcard. Intel or AMD. It's the ones that deal with all the i/o. If they are not right or up to date, can cause problems with hard drive access, which in turn can cause stuttering.

apologies if you've already done them!

No, you're good, I'm not sure about those to be honest, I didn't notice them listed under the Dell driver selection thingy, it's Intel though. I'll see what I can find.

 

[The_Lhc]

Why do you need 40 pages open at same time that does not make any sense to me, I just have my favourites at the top of page and I can just open with 1 click when I want no need to keep them open all the time.

Because I'm constantly flicking from one page to another (usually whilst waiting for this place to refresh, grind, croak, clunk, wheeze...) and it's way quicker just to go from one tab to another instead of waiting for each page to load everytime.

Well I don't think it is as its slowing your whole system down, having 2GB of memory open is alot, my pages load in about 1 sec apart from this site which takes longer. So I can access about 20 sites in 1 minute while it seems you can access only about 2?

Err, no, there's no issue with going from one tab to another, that's instant, as I would expect (waiting a whole second for a page? How 20th Century!), the ONLY issue I have is the stuttering audio, everything else works fine and at a decent pace.

That's what makes it so irritating, if I thought it was simply a lack of resources I'd bung some more RAM in there but I don't think it'll make any difference.

 

[steve_1979]

No but you miss the point (more on that in a second), it is however the fault of the PC that with 4GB of RAM and a quad-core processor it still isn't capable of playing simple audio without stuttering just because I happen to have a number of webpages open in Chrome, that's just pathetic!

your pc sounds utterly screwed to be honest!

Of course, it's a PC, that's the default state. I mentioned it to the windows expert here at work the other day, he suggested it needs a complete rebuild. What a load of nonsense! I don't mean he's wrong, I mean it's nonsense that something like that should be necessary.

Neither my three year old desktop PC or my eight year old laptop PC stutters when streaming music. Even the cheap Dell PCs at work never stutter when playing music.

If your computers audio is stuttering just because you have a few web pages open in Chrome then there is something obviously wrong with it. But you are wrong to assume that this is a problem that all PCs suffer from.

 

[The_Lhc]

If your computers audio is stuttering just because you have a few web pages open in Chrome then there is something obviously wrong with it. But you are wrong to assume that this is a problem that all PCs suffer from.

I know that, my point is I'm not wrong to assume that this is a problem I will NEVER have with my Sonos system. Which is the point I was making when I entered this conversation.

 

[BigH]

Whats your broadband speed?

 

[steve_1979]

It sounds like it's probably just something wrong with the audio driver.

Remember to uninstall the old driver and reboot your computer first before you reinstall the new driver.

 

[BigH]

Why do you need 40 pages open at same time that does not make any sense to me, I just have my favourites at the top of page and I can just open with 1 click when I want no need to keep them open all the time.

Because I'm constantly flicking from one page to another (usually whilst waiting for this place to refresh, grind, croak, clunk, wheeze...) and it's way quicker just to go from one tab to another instead of waiting for each page to load everytime.

Well I don't think it is as its slowing your whole system down, having 2GB of memory open is alot, my pages load in about 1 sec apart from this site which takes longer. So I can access about 20 sites in 1 minute while it seems you can access only about 2?

Err, no, there's no issue with going from one tab to another, that's instant, as I would expect (waiting a whole second for a page? How 20th Century!), the ONLY issue I have is the stuttering audio, everything else works fine and at a decent pace.

That's what makes it so irritating, if I thought it was simply a lack of resources I'd bung some more RAM in there but I don't think it'll make any difference.

By page I meant accessing each site. As your sonus works try shutting down all your internet sites and see if you have problems using spotify or wahtever. It may pay you to get someone from work to have a look at your PC as you seem to have some issues that need sorting out, 800mb for idle? More Ram may help, as so cheap worth a punt, check your motherboard can take it.

 

[The_Lhc]

Whats your broadband speed?

At home about 4Mb/s, here, I haven't a clue (faster than that though). Don't think it makes any difference when I'm playing files from the internal HDD though.

 

[The_Lhc]

It sounds like it's probably just something wrong with the audio driver.

Remember to uninstall the old driver and reboot your computer first before you reinstall the new driver.

That's the problem, according to Dell there hasn't been a new driver for about 4 years.

 

[The_Lhc]

Why do you need 40 pages open at same time that does not make any sense to me, I just have my favourites at the top of page and I can just open with 1 click when I want no need to keep them open all the time.

Because I'm constantly flicking from one page to another (usually whilst waiting for this place to refresh, grind, croak, clunk, wheeze...) and it's way quicker just to go from one tab to another instead of waiting for each page to load everytime.

Well I don't think it is as its slowing your whole system down, having 2GB of memory open is alot, my pages load in about 1 sec apart from this site which takes longer. So I can access about 20 sites in 1 minute while it seems you can access only about 2?

Err, no, there's no issue with going from one tab to another, that's instant, as I would expect (waiting a whole second for a page? How 20th Century!), the ONLY issue I have is the stuttering audio, everything else works fine and at a decent pace.

That's what makes it so irritating, if I thought it was simply a lack of resources I'd bung some more RAM in there but I don't think it'll make any difference.

By page I meant accessing each site.

Again, there's no issues with that, I have no speed issues with anything, no issues at all, other than playing audio, whether it's local or internet based.

 

[BigH]

Well there is something wrong with your PC or broadband connection, I don't have any of these issues apart from BBC iplayer sometimes drops out and this site is slow but that is this site and has been reported numerous times.

Also if you read about streamers you see loads of problems so don't assume that streamers are better than pcs or macs but they have their own problems.

 

[steve_1979]

It sounds like it's probably just something wrong with the audio driver.

Remember to uninstall the old driver and reboot your computer first before you reinstall the new driver.

That's the problem, according to Dell there hasn't been a new driver for about 4 years.

The driver may have become corrupted. It'd be worth reinstalling it just to see if it fixes the problem.

 

[The_Lhc]

It sounds like it's probably just something wrong with the audio driver.

Remember to uninstall the old driver and reboot your computer first before you reinstall the new driver.

That's the problem, according to Dell there hasn't been a new driver for about 4 years.

The driver may have become corrupted. It'd be worth reinstalling it just to see if it fixes the problem.

I'll give it a go.

 

[The_Lhc]

Well there is something wrong with your PC or broadband connection, I don't have any of these issues apart from BBC iplayer sometimes drops out and this site is slow but that is this site and has been reported numerous times.

Yes, that's what I was saying, there's no problems with the broadband connection, when the audio on streaming video stutters, the video doesn't! That carries on regardless and the audio has to jump to catch up after the stutter, so there's no issue with bandwidth or anything like that.

Also if you read about streamers you see loads of problems so don't assume that streamers are better than pcs or macs but they have their own problems.

I can only comment on my own streamer, which has been flawless, although I'm aware there can be issues, they're almost always traced back to the users own network (IP address conflicts) however, or wireless interference (which no device, PC or otherwise, is immune from).

 

[bigboss]

+2

-1

I've been using iTunes since version 1.0. With the improvement over the years I have come to the conclusion that it's a very useful tool to build a music library. Since we have an Airport Express, a DAC and an iPad listening to music on the stereo system is extremely convenient and the SQ with ALAC files is great. Just rip everything in iTunes with error correction on. It couldn't be much easier. The iPad works great as remote control for the iTunes library.

And then there's a service like Spotify. That also works great on our Mac and iPad and gets streamed through the DAC.

All our music is on an external HD so we can even take all our music with us when travelling.

I don't understand how a dedicated streamer could improve on this. Where is the control over your music files? And how flexible is a streamer when a new service or a new codec arrives? What if the hard drive in your streamer with hard drives goes belly up? How do you make backups? Our entire music collection is on an external drive and I have a full backup in a different location.

IMHO a dedicated streamer system made by a specialized audio company could work. But then it needs to have at least the same or better features than my Mac. Otherwise I'm not interested.

Looks like you've misunderstood me. For me, a dedicated streamer is a Sonos. And "not having to faff around with a PC" means a NAS drive.

 

[The_Lhc]

For me, a dedicated streamer is a Sonos.

Apparently not, Sonos isn't a dedicate streamer or so they tell me.

No, didn't make any sense to me either...

 

[bigboss]

For me, a dedicated streamer is a Sonos.

Apparently not, Sonos isn't a dedicate streamer or so they tell me.

No, didn't make any sense to me either...

I would like to know what else it can do, if not exclusively dedicated to streaming. Have I been missing some other important functions? :?

 

[Andrew Everard]

For me, a dedicated streamer is a Sonos.

Apparently not, Sonos isn't a dedicate streamer or so they tell me.

No, didn't make any sense to me either...

I would like to know what else it can do, if not exclusively dedicated to streaming. Have I been missing some other important functions? :?

Well, (adopts Pete & Dud voice) it's more of a network content distribution system really: I mean it isn't a streamer as such because it doesn't have internal storage or a direct internet connection to access content, but needs to be used with other equipment.

(Not that any of that is stopping Sonos dominating this sector of the market and becoming mahoosive at the same time.)

 

[The_Lhc]

it isn't a streamer as such because it doesn't have ... a direct internet connection to access content,

(adopts I.N.T.E.L.L.I.G.E.N.C.E. voice) Uh, yes it does.

It's plugged into your router, same as any other streamer.

 

[BenLaw]

For me, a dedicated streamer is a Sonos.

Apparently not, Sonos isn't a dedicate streamer or so they tell me.

No, didn't make any sense to me either...

I would like to know what else it can do, if not exclusively dedicated to streaming. Have I been missing some other important functions? :?

Well, (adopts Pete & Dud voice) it's more of a network content distribution system really: I mean it isn't a streamer as such because it doesn't have internal storage or a direct internet connection to access content, but needs to be used with other equipment.

(Not that any of that is stopping Sonos dominating this sector of the market and becoming mahoosive at the same time.)

Sounds like a snappy title for a new category in the WHF awards: 'best network content distribution system'

 

[Andrew Everard]

It's plugged into your router, same as any other streamer.

Exactly: it

needs to be used with other equipment.