Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2006 12:12 Post subject: Streaming video freeze on wireless
Hi all you clever people out there!
I am experiencing a problem, that I have no idea how to solve, so I hope you can guide me to a solution.
I have tried to search the forum, but since i am not sure what the problem is, I have not found anything useful.
My problem is that when I'm watching a video streamed from my media server to my laptop, the video occasionally freezes.
Setup is as follows:
Media server (synology diskstation)--[LAN]--WRT54GL v. 1.1 (DD-WRT v23 SP2)--[wireless]--Laptop
Wireless connection: 128bit WEP.
The video freezes when the laptop is connected wirelessly to the router.
If i connect the laptop to the wired network instead of wireless, videoplayback works fine.
the video-freeze is not connected to signal quality/strength, as it happens both when the laptop is right next to the router, and when it is 3 rooms away.
It must have something to do with the wireless connection in some way.
I have tried to solve it by reinstalling windows XP on the laptop, as I thought it was a weird M$ problem! (didn't help!)
Any help would be greatly appreciated. _________________ There's no place like 127.0.0.1
Do you happen to be using an 802.11b card? At 11mbps, with 128 wep enable, i don't think that there's enough available bandwidth to support much med-high bitrate video streaming....
If you're not, then perhaps someone smarter than I can shed some light...
Nope, the error ratio is ok.
The problem seems to be that your do not get enough constant througput.
Try to optizime reception be repositioning the atenna or the router or if that does not help using better antennas or turing up the transmit power.
The client should connect with stable 18mbit or more for good video performance. For HD video even more.
What playback SW are you using? I have similar problems using Quicktime on my Mac mini connected over wifi. If I use VLC instead, it has options to set the amount of buffering for files. If I increase this, I get perfect playback. The problem isn't the overall bitrate, but the occasional flakiness (i'm in an apartment building with probably 20 different wireless networks so there's all kinds of interference). Most playback software will only buffer for network streaming, but VLC will let you specify buffers for files as well.
On a side note, I do prefer quicktime, and if anyone knows how to get it to buffer when it's playing back from a file, I'd like to hear about it.
donkthemagicllama:
I'm using Bsplayer, as I like the UI of the player. I have had a look around in the settings for that player, but can't seem to find anything about buffer-size settings.
As you say, donkthemagicllama, I have also considered using VLC to play the videos.
-Will return later with the results.
Chuck D
I might have a look in that direction, although it is not distributed video as such. Just video stored on a Samba share on a embedded linux server. Accessing the video from a laptop running windows XP.
-but I will definately test it... anything that might help is great! :)
blabla2
OK, good to know about the error ratio.
The video freeze occurs regardless of the signal strength. The laptop can be right next to the router, and the "freeze" will still happen.
-so I don't think the signal strength is the "baddie!!"
Thanks fo all your replies _________________ There's no place like 127.0.0.1
exact same trouble... I seem to be getting freezing on videos.. any ideas?
wwm on, wwm of, 54, 24, 11, auto multicast, increase the signal, decrease... whatever i do it always sputters in the first few seconds and then freezes.
Can anyone help or ay least help me figure out what I need to get help?
thank you
sj