True Gigabit Media Streamer?

[admin_exported]

Hey I have a AC RYAN at the moment connected via ethernet 10/100, but it has problems streaming True Hi-def stuff.

I seen the popcorn hour has gigabit ethernet but from other forums they say the chip inside cant handle gigabit and its just a marketing tool.

I can convert things fine and it plays normal stuff, but once you try stream a 20gb file which has master audio, it sutters like mad.

Is there a true 10/1000, or is a HTPC my best bet, I really dont want one as they are a pain to turn on ect.. and they use so much power.

Thanks

 

[Anonymous]

Have a look at this

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1tb-wd-tv-live-hub-wdbaca0010bbk-uesn-14v-hdmi-1080p-mkv-gigabit-network-media-streamer-inc-usb

I have an extreamer and the popcorn hour A-110 now play 1080p the avhomeplug 200mbps, the extreamer plays them quite well where the popcorn jitter too much. Few things to consider, how fast the data throughput and the chipset!!

I am now looking at the WD above has the gigabit and built in HD so i can place movies for kids on the actual drive or place the best 1080p 24p films direct to play from then put back on my nas!! This can also be done on the extreamer if you aplce in a small 2.5HD inside!!

 

[Anonymous]

Hey was looking at that, but some concerns:

I dont think it supports Blu-ray Iso. files also it doesnt bit stream HD audio and my AC Ryan does.

I honestly, from my searches I cant see a true gigabit media player that does it all, looks like a HTCP, but would rather buy an external hdd and copy the files from my PC and plug into the ac ryan, would prob be faster than starting up a HTCP and the electricity

 

[cram]

You could always put the HTPC in sleep mode when not in use. That will ensure fast start up and minimal electricity usage.

 

[Anonymous]

The revo looks interesting, do you think that has a TRUE gigabit lan? or is that just what is says on the paper?

 

[cram]

Not used a revo myself but they are popular amongst the HTPC crowd

 

[Anonymous]

The problem is I have a NAS drive which has CPU of 800Mhz and that cant only read at about 40MB/s. a DualCore NAS drive such as Synology 411+ can stream at a true GigaBit but its CPU is like 1.6GHz or something

The shear volume required to process video and a Gigabit stream just isnt going to be available main stream due to the costs and cooling required

I have a Popcorn Hour A200 and Synology DS210j with 2 x 2TB drives and over Ethernet cables it will stream a BD25 with DTS-HD audio just fine and can deal with most BD50 files too (if they contain several audio files other than DTS-HD Eng it can struggle)

I recently purchased some 200mbit Powerline Adaptors and they struggle to stream 1080p MKV files at times and never cope with BD ISO.

Its not just an issue with Bandwidth but latency as a 100mbit switch can technically keep up with BD25 (and to an extent bd50).

Say the movie is 90 mins long and each second contains 8MB/s thats 8 x 60 = 480MB/m x 90 = 43,200MB (43.2GB)

Most Blu-Ray movies on a BD50 disc will probably be no more than 35GB in size a large portion when just the English Audio is near the near 27-31GB.

If your transfering your discs to hard drive then id remove all un-used audio and subtitles to help streaming

Ideally if the Popcorn Hour a200 could buffer about 200-500mb to either RAM or SATA drive then it would help things for those actions scenes where bitrate goes above 100mbit/s

Its also more stable streaming using the 10/100 option than the AUTO

Also an NFS share is a lot faster than a SAMBA/CIFS/WINDOWS share

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the help craig

I think I solved the problem switched it to MPEG TS instead of avchd and it works a dream.

File size is about the same 19gb, but streaming master audio and showing 1080p on the streamer, and not one stutter.

And terminator salvation is quite a high bit rate movie.

I was showing between 15- 30 mbps so should be within 10/100 ethernet?

And dont worry mods this is my disc as just a test purpose, it wont be sold and has already been deleted.

 

[The_Lhc]

canada16:I was showing between 15- 30 mbps so should be within 10/100 ethernet?

Only if it's connected at 100Mb/s and not 10Mb/s obviously.

BTW there's not much point worrying about if the streamer is gigabit if the rest of your network appliances are only 100Mb/s.

 

[Anonymous]

Very true, I would need a new motherboard as thats only 10/100.

Also a gigabit switch as well, It seems to be working ok now that its mpeg-ts, streaming HD audio without any problems.

Only took me 2 weeks to get it right

 

[Anonymous]

canada16:
Thanks for the help craig

I think I solved the problem switched it to MPEG TS instead of avchd and it works a dream.

File size is about the same 19gb, but streaming master audio and showing 1080p on the streamer, and not one stutter.

And terminator salvation is quite a high bit rate movie.

I was showing between 15- 30 mbps so should be within 10/100 ethernet?

And dont worry mods this is my disc as just a test purpose, it wont be sold and has already been deleted.

TSmuxer i use and set it to Blu-Ray as Popcorn sometimes has issue with m2ts files if you havent already try and have a NFS share it makes a lot of difference on the performance of the share.

Terminator Salvation plays fine in my Blu-Ray player but as soon as i put it on the Popcorn Hour it keeps freezing and jerking even though its on Internal Hard Disk. Its several files instead of 1 big movie file though which i think is the issue

Has anyone seen the new Network Media Jukebox feature on the c200 and a200 popcorn hour boxes? its still in beta at the moment but its very good still. It needs a few tweaks on artwork and cover resolutions downloaded from IMDB API but its a good sign of things to come! Plenty of good videos of it in action on the youtube

 

[The_Lhc]

An 8-port gigabit switch isn't expensive (I wouldn't have bought one otherwise!), it's useful to put all your streaming stuff and storage onto there, it gets the traffic off your router's backbone.

 

[Anonymous]

Yes that would help, but my streamer is only 10/100 lan, so a gigbit switch wont help if its bottlenecking with the streamer, as I will only ever get 10/100 not 1000

 

[Anonymous]

the_lhc:An 8-port gigabit switch isn't expensive (I wouldn't have bought one otherwise!), it's useful to put all your streaming stuff and storage onto there, it gets the traffic off your router's backbone.

I got a 4 switch gigabit port for under £20 from amazon about 5 months ago. just plugs in and doesnt have any firewalls or anything. was a bit hit and miss with 360 though

 

[The_Lhc]

canada16:
Yes that would help, but my streamer is only 10/100 lan, so a gigbit switch wont help if its bottlenecking with the streamer, as I will only ever get 10/100 not 1000

Yes that was kind of the point I was making.

 

[Anonymous]

I might be dumb here, but whats a NFS share.

I have my workgroup on my ac ryan, but whats the NFS share, does this work better and how do I set it up.

Thanks

 

[cram]

It's a protocol used for file sharing.

 

[Anonymous]

See I have my ac ryan set up via workgroup, so not sure if your way will be better, or even if its possible, or even how to do it.

LOL, I am not overly technical with these things

 

[Anonymous]

How are you sharing over a network? its the protocol that your receiving files to the AC Ryan which needs to be NFS.

Are you sharing off a PC or a NAS?

 

[Anonymous]

Soon to be NAS as mate putting a 1tb drive in my linkstation, but will be both, PC and NAS.

 

[The_Lhc]

NFS is found on UNIX servers, typically, so a Linux machine may use an NFS share (if it isn't running Samba). I don't know Apple Macs very well but that's based on UNIX now so may be a variant of NFS. PC servers don't offer it though.

 

[Anonymous]

Yeh I have no idea, I run Windows 7, so if that is a linux based program, looks like im stuck

 

[Anonymous]

hannfs or hanenfs can create a NFS share in windows 7. but id just wait til you get NAS

My Popcorn Hour jerks over Windows share but runs just fine when using a NFS share from my NAS