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rikardo1979 · (This post was last modified: 2013-05-31, 13:31 by rikardo1979.)

(2013-05-31, 13:14)Banyailaci Wrote: I suppose You are right, but : where and how to search for the source of the problem?

not straight answer for this tbh
Would you mind to try different XBMC Distro? Not sure which oner you using but give a try to other two if you havent just yet Wink

I'm on XBian and do not have any issues at all but it is really hard to tell what causing your issues

edit:
- what is the power rating of your PSU ?
- details of your SD card
- anything plugged into RPi USB ports directly ?

more info better Wink

Banyailaci · 2013-05-31, 15:29

I am on Raspbmc
-5V/1000mA
-8 GB Kingston SDHC
-nothing besides Edimax EW-7811UN Wireless USB-Adapter

Milhouse · (This post was last modified: 2013-05-31, 17:01 by Milhouse.)

I would suggest running an iperf test between the Pi and your NAS/PC to confirm the quality of your network connection - at the very least it would allow you to quantify the kind of bandwidth the network should be able to handle.

It may be that your network connection is sufficient for internet streaming - possibly the internet codecs are optimised for high latency/buffering/lower bitrates - whereas when playing media over the LAN the expectation is for lower latency, minimal buffer required and if this isn't the case you experience the problems you describe.

Given that we're talking about a Pi, you should expect to be able to max out the 100Mbit connection on your LAN, and iPerf should confirm figures similar to the following (rpi512 is running OpenELEC 3.0.3, 192.168.0.3 is my N36L-based FreeNAS 8.3 NAS, connected to the Pi via a GigE switch - "iperf -s" is running on the NAS waiting for the Pi to connect):

Code:
rpi512:~ # iperf -c 192.168.0.3 -t60 -i10

------------------------------------------------------------

Client connecting to 192.168.0.3, TCP port 5001

TCP window size: 20.7 KByte (default)

------------------------------------------------------------

[  3] local 192.168.0.8 port 40336 connected with 192.168.0.3 port 5001

[ ID] Interval       Transfer     Bandwidth

[  3]  0.0-10.0 sec  96.2 MBytes  80.7 Mbits/sec

[  3] 10.0-20.0 sec  95.8 MBytes  80.3 Mbits/sec

[  3] 20.0-30.0 sec  96.9 MBytes  81.3 Mbits/sec

[  3] 30.0-40.0 sec  96.4 MBytes  80.8 Mbits/sec

[  3] 40.0-50.0 sec  96.2 MBytes  80.7 Mbits/sec

[  3] 50.0-60.0 sec  95.9 MBytes  80.4 Mbits/sec

[  3]  0.0-60.0 sec   578 MBytes  80.7 Mbits/sec

Banyailaci · 2013-05-31, 17:30

I have only a 25 MBits/sec connection to the internet and probably lower within the LAN.
The maximal speed in Germany today is 100 MBit/sec and in our town we sall have 50 MBit/sec only next year.
I will try to check it with "iperf" as you suggest. As I understand "iperf" is like "ping" and supposedly it is installed on Pi. However I do not understand your remark about "iperf-s" running on the NAS. I have to connect to a Win7 PC.
If your suggestion occurs to be true, then any further trial is redundant and I shall further bring my short videos on an USB stick to the Raspberry.

Milhouse · 2013-05-31, 17:46

(2013-05-31, 17:30)Banyailaci Wrote: I have only a 25 MBits/sec connection to the internet and probably lower within the LAN.
The maximal speed in Germany today is 100 MBit/sec and in our town we sall have 50 MBit/sec only next year.

I'd be very surprised if you have lower than 100Mbit/s on a wired LAN (ie. CAT5 cable between your Pi and your Win7 PC), but it's possible that a weak or unstable WiFi connection might result in low bandwidth (less than 25Mbit) and could explain your problems.

(2013-05-31, 17:30)Banyailaci Wrote: I will try to check it with "iperf" as you suggest. As I understand "iperf" is like "ping" and supposedly it is installed on Pi. However I do not understand your remark about "iperf-s" running on the NAS. I have to connect to a Win7 PC.

You need to run iperf on both the Pi (the "client") and a machine at the "other end" of your network (the "server", running iperf using the command "iperf -s"). In my case the iperf "server" is a NAS but in your case it will be your Win7 PC. You can read more about iperf on Windows here.

If iperf is not installed by default on Raspbmc, you may be able to install it using "sudo apt-get install iperf". See the above link to download iperf for Windows.

(2013-05-31, 17:30)Banyailaci Wrote: If your suggestion occurs to be true, then any further trial is redundant and I shall further bring my short videos on an USB stick to the Raspberry.

I would suggest running iperf with both a wired and WiFi connection, if nothing else it will give you a numerical baseline for your wired and WiFi networks. If you have good network performance then it's something that can be ruled out as being part of the problem (one less variable etc.).

Banyailaci · 2013-05-31, 18:00

I cannot connect the Pi directly to the router by a CAT5 cable. I have two posibilities: either WLAN, or DEVOLO (through the electric network of the flat). I checked both and had similar results.
Thanks for the information about iperf. I will use it. (However my wife is looking TV and therefore I can do it only morning!)

Milhouse · 2013-05-31, 18:13

OK, no problem.

I currently have a 500-AV Powerline (just two devices) and get about 130Mbit/s bandwidth, and before that I had a 200-AV Powerline setup (again, two devices) which managed 60Mbit/s but enough to stream HD video/audio - much less than that and it might be a struggle. Obviously every property is different so it will be interesting to see what results you get.

I gave up on WiFi a long time ago - living in a suburban area, the congestion from other WiFi networks just makes it impossible to use a WiFi connection for anything more demanding than email and web browsing.

If your Powerline connection isn't stable or doesn't provide enough bandwidth there's probably not much you can do about it. However if your Powerline kit is the older 85Mbps version, upgrading to 200-AV or 500-AV might be worth a shot.

Banyailaci · 2013-05-31, 18:31

With my 25 Mbit connection I can stream HD-films from the web without any problems. Already with 16 Mbit (that I had formerly) it was possible. The same is true also over WLAN or Devolo. (I rent a decoder box with a 300 GB hard drive for looking TV through internet.) The connection is very stable. My router is a Speedport W 723V rent from the german Telekom, on which I can change nothing.

Milhouse · 2013-05-31, 18:55

It may well be that your network connection is stable, and not the problem - running iperf will provide empirical evidence of that, and allow the network to be eliminated as a possible cause.

mayoman · 2013-05-31, 19:18

I personally think it's more likely a windows 7 issue rather than the pi or the network, given that internet streaming is ok and playing the files locally is ok. Having recently "upgraded" my work PC from Xp to Windows 7, I am not impressed with its response time on network access.I also found the Pi is a lot more sensitive to a poor or intermittent stream than a PC.
Awaiting results of the iperf test with interest Smile

Banyailaci · 2013-05-31, 23:55

I tested the performance with "ping" from a Linux laptop to the PC within the home network (WLAN and DEVOLO) and to my University and thereafter from my PC (wired) to the University. The results are very disappointing for WLAN in home network.

"ping" from laptop to PC: 64 bytes
WLAN:
min/avg/max/mdev = 1.647/5.879/179.583/18.908 ms
DEVOLO:
min/avg/max/mdev = 3.476/3.961/8.119/0.685 ms

"ping" from laptop to University: 64 bytes
WLAN:
min/avg/max/mdev = 24.762/26.678/36.015/2.072 ms
DEVOLO:
min/avg/max/mdev = 26.539/27.564/33.635/1.049 ms

and

"ping" from PC (wired) to University: 32 bytes
min/avg/max/ = 23/23/24 ms

No hope for Raspberry to do it better!

nickr · 2013-06-01, 08:07

Ping is pretty irrelevant. Run the iperf test.

Banyailaci · 2013-06-01, 15:23

I run the ipertest:

[3] local 192.168.2.107 port 37628 connected with 192.168.2.103 port 5001
[ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth
[3] 0.0-10.2 sec 6.88 MBytes 5.61 Mbits/s

How do You think about ?

Milhouse · (This post was last modified: 2013-06-01, 15:30 by Milhouse.)

(2013-06-01, 15:23)Banyailaci Wrote: I run the ipertest:

[3] local 192.168.2.107 port 37628 connected with 192.168.2.103 port 5001
[ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth
[3] 0.0-10.2 sec 6.88 MBytes 5.61 Mbits/s

How do You think about ?

Run it for longer, add "-t60 -i10" to the "client" command line, to give an indication of how stable it is. And how does DEVOLO (which standard - 85Mbps, 200-AV, 500-AV?) compare with WiFi? But on the basis of the above sample I'd say that's a pretty bad network connection - just over 0.6MBytes/second.

Banyailaci · 2013-06-01, 15:54

I will do also these checks, however it is a rather uncomfortable task. I have to take my only keyboard from the PC to Raspberry and back. ( Besides, I have to bring a small table to put it on ... And of course I shall not disturb TV -looking.) Therefore I will not do it today.

On the other hand I see it also as a bad performance, which resembles to the ping tests.

The DEVOLO is 200-AV , therefore also not very efficient. The buffering problem persists by this kind of connection.