Stuttering Video with a Twist Options

[Mike P]

Hello

I'm new to this forum and find it very useful. I really like the WDTV Live Plus box. I started with using wired network to a windows 7 share drive. I wanted to go wireless so I used a wireless g bridge. I could play divx and learned that I needed wireless n to play .mkv and .vob files. I bought 2 Belkin N USB cards of the same model and a wireless n router. Its a DLink DIR-601 I believe.

Here is the scenario. The videos pretty much anything now stutter after a few seconds. I have one pc with a share drive, one router, and the WDTV. When I go wireless on the PC and the WDTV using the same two type of USB adapters, I get stuttering. When I go wireless to PC, but wired to WDTV, the video plays flawless. The speed of the USB adapter would seem to be fast enough. Below is a table.

PC wireless, WDTV wireless = stuttering.
PC wireless, WDTV wired = perfect
PC wired, WDTV wireless = stuttering.

When I first go the N USB, everything worked great. It seems like I upgraded the firmware and things went downhill. I've tried downgrading with the official firmware as well as b-rads firmware. Any ideas?

Mike

[Rev Drew]

wireless N 150 here will stream anything I try without issue, 34GB Avatar even FF or RW at 4x without issue.
using WDLXTV custom firmware and using NFS shares, windows shares work for 720p content at best, anything over that or even some high bitrate 720p files will have issue.

use custom firmware, use NFS and mount the shares so they appear as local drives to the media player

http://mrlazy.wordpress.com/2009/08/04/how...-using-hanewin/

[Mike P]

Thanks for the reply.

Can you clear something for me. At work, I installed NFS Client for Windows 3.5 for an XP machine. It allows me to share a NFS folder on XP. There are two sharing tabs for folders. The windows tabs "Sharing" and "NFS Share".

I can't seem to find any information to share a folder on Windows 7 as a NFS share. All information tells me how to map a drive to a NAS. I'm needing to know how to take one WDTV and one Windows 7 Ultimate x64 box and share with NFS. Everyone raves that its faster for this type of thing.

Another question, when I stream wirelessly from PC to router, and wired from router to WDTV its fine. This tells me the speed of my PC with wireless has enough bandwidth to work. Its only when the WDTV uses wireless that there are problems. It seems like WDTV doesn't work with wireless well.

[Rev Drew]

I couldn't get the NFS client for windows to work so I bought hanewin instead

CODE

http://www.hanewin.net/nfs-e.htm

it seems to work well for most even after the 30 day trial is up but it is pretty lightweight and fast as hell.

as for sharing another WD media player, if you are using current firmware you can configure it through the web frontend easily enough.

my live+ is wireless and my computer wired, I think a lot depends on the wireless adapter you use and the wireless network MUST be N only, if it rolls back to G you will have stuttering and poor performance.
That's why I have at least 2 wireless networks here all the time, 1 just for wireless media streaming and another for PC and wireless device access, sometimes a 3rd for when I am out in the yard.

[Mike P]

Thanks for the help. I didn't realize you posted the guide. I did all that still no go. My adapter is Belkin F7D1101 V1. Here is the thing. I put a bandwidth monitor on my sharing PC and copied the file to another PC's share folder. I got 46mbs. When I'm playing a mkv file like Avatar, the bandwidth says 6.2mbs. The same F7D1101 v1 is on the sharing PC. It is as if my USB adapter is NOT compatible even though WD's website says it is.

It will recognize it but there isn't any speed. So my problem is, WD's website said this would work and its not. I want to buy another one to try, but will another one that is "compatible" work.

Any suggestions. I want to buy something that is tried and true.

[Rev Drew]

I have a dlink dwa-140, actually a pair of them, they work perfectly.
I got both of them from ebay (2 separate auctions) for less than $25.00 to my house.

[Mike P]

Here is my fix. Aparently WDTV didn't like my adapter. I took a gamble and went to Staples and bought a AE1000 Cisco/Linksys for $39 in person. It is working perfectly and my bandwidth is back where it should.

The website said my old was would work. It will detect it but not work well with it. So live and learn. The WDTV box is amazing.

[Rev Drew]

right on, sometimes biting the bullet and paying for something can be the best medicine!

glad you got it sorted and are happy!

[Mike P]

Update:

I played Avatar 10Gig .mkv completely with no problem using NFS. Then I tried using a Windows 7 share on the same folder and I received the same stuttering.

So I can get video to play with my new Adapter, but its only through NFS.

Now part two is I moved the box upstairs almost directly above the router. The NFS share works great but with the box upstairs is causing the router to lock up. No wireless device will connect after a few minutes of playing a movie using NFS. Something about my DIR-601 doesn't handle the traffic well.

Any settings you can think of? I'm ready to run a network hardwire to every room in the entire house including the bathrooms, closets, kitchen, patio.

[Rev Drew]

nothing, I have an Asus RT-N16 and it seems to be rock solid, some routers just aren't able to stream high bit rates for extended periods, it is very taxing on the router, I put dd-wrt firmware on mine and it is very stable and fast, I also put a USB laptop cooler under it so the fan blows constantly on it, however this is an N only router and it's only purpose is to serve media to my media players, no computers are allowed to connect to it at all.