BeyondTV Link 3.x LAG

[twiddler]

Ok, I just purchased BeyondTV 3.x and downloaded the trial version of BeyondTV Link. I setup live tv streaming and everything seems to work fine for about 1 min. After that the live stream lags and pauses consistantly. I am streaming the video over wireless G and have set the video quality to "Dsl medium". Why can I not stream video at less then 400k over my wireless connection? I get excellent wireless signals on my PVR and my laptop. I checked the cpu usages on my PVR at it falls around 20%. I think its an issue with the software.

[HomeyFour]

Definitely an issue with your wireless lan setup. Interference most likely. Test with ethernet and you'll be set.

[twiddler]

I changed the wireless channel on my router which helped a little. Is there a way to increase the buffer stream on beyondTV to reduce lag?

[Bigbird999]

twiddler
Am I missing something? How are you streaming live tv in window media DSL medium format? Are you capturing wmv with a software card?

Have you tested the actual transfer rate of your wireless network by copying a large file from your server to your laptop and timing how long it takes?

BB

[twiddler]

I'm using BeyondTV Link, I adjusted the compression using the web interface to 400k. I've done a transfer test on my wireless and I get around 2-3mb, far more than the 400k that BTV Link is using. I'm not sure why it stutters. It will play fine for about 1-2 min. then pause a few seconds and then continue playing again for another 1-2 min, over and over.

[Kilrsat]

There's no extra compression for Link. It plays the file at the bitrate of the actual recording. If you're recording in mpeg2 its sending an mpeg2 file to the Link client.

[twiddler]

Under streaming server settings you can adjust the streaming quality. I'm sure these settings must have some effect on how BTV Link streams live tv.

[Kilrsat]

They don't. They are for the live tv streaming via web admin (for software encoders).

[fmharr]

I am using BTV 4.4RC1 & BTV4.4RC1 Link and my link playback is much more stable then playback on my server.

My laptop (Link) is wired but my server is 54G. I get occasional stuttering on my server but never get stuttering on my link machine.

I think the difference is the crappy video card in my server (FX5600) verses the 7300 in my link machine.

Before my 9800 Pro card blew its guts, I never had a stuttering problem on my server.

Mike

[twiddler]

Is there a way to stream live tv on the web with a WinTV 250 card? I know it's a hardware encoder card, but I'm wondering if there is someway to encode using software.

[Rich A]

Why jump through hoops? Your PVR-x50 records to MPEG-2 in excellent quality. BTV-Link is designed to playback that format.

I have a wireless LAN here also, and my link (notebook) plays the recorded (and live) Mpeg-2 wonderfully. There could be a problem if you are trying to play back digital HD stuff however. But the native mpeg-2 program streams out of the Hauppauge tuner cards using analog TV are about as good as you are going to get.

Why recompress a nice quality mpeg down to a lesser quality when you don't have to? Is it disk space you are worried about ??

[Rich A]

Originally Posted by twiddler

Is there a way to stream live tv on the web with a WinTV 250 card? I know it's a hardware encoder card, but I'm wondering if there is someway to encode using software.

You can use BTV's ShowSqueeze option to compress the recorded mpeg-2 to Windows media or Divx etc. Then stream that.

Are you trying to get playback of recorded shows across the WEB and not your in-house LAN? If so, I guess I understand now, why you are trying to "steam" something instead of just playing back the shows with BTV-Link.

[twiddler]

My biggest problem is stutter when watching live streaming tv in beyondTV Link on my wireless lan. I've checked everything I could think of that could be causing interference. I've used Orb with MCE 2005 but the quality was not very good. I know that when I watch live tv streaming on my network and it starts to stutter, I have to pause the tv for about 30 sec. to smoothen things out. My laptop has a gig of memory and my PVR has 512mb.

[Bigbird999]

twiddler
A hardware encoder converts the analog tv input to an mpeg 2 file at a bit rate of 4 - 8 Mbps (depending on your quality setting. It does this with little CPU usage because the conversion to mpeg2 is performed by the hardware tuner. When you are watching "Live TV" you are actually watching the recorded file a few seconds later. If you stream this on wifi you are trying to stream 4 - 8 Mbps but you measured rate is only 2 - 3 Mbps, so it stutters. If you showsqueeze (BTV's word for compress) the file to another lower bit rate format after the recording is completed, you can stream the compressed file at a much lower bit rate.

OTOH, a software encoder can record the file to many different formats (divx, xvid, wmv, Mp4, h264, mpeg1, mpeg2, etc.), but it consumes considerable CPU cycles. Many of these formats have much lower bit rates (400 - 1000 Kbps) with excellent quality. The recordings can be streamed "Live" at these low bitrates.

BB