Login at Kodi Home

sampson · 2016-03-30, 06:40

(2016-03-29, 10:27)nooryani84 Wrote: Once you go gigabit... you'll never be able to look at fast ethernet/100mbit the same again. I was thinking more along the lines of how well your HTPC plays back movies in Kodi tho?

I gave it a 5 minute test as soon as I hooked it up, but honestly, I work a lot and haven't had time to properly watch anything. I'll get to it in the coming weeks tho.

noggin · 2016-03-30, 10:48

(2016-03-29, 10:27)nooryani84 Wrote: Once you go gigabit... you'll never be able to look at fast ethernet/100mbit the same again. I was thinking more along the lines of how well your HTPC plays back movies in Kodi tho?

Yes I agree if you also use the network connection for transferring files between locations. However for core media playback of content like un-recompressed Blu-ray rips and below, there is no major advantage in media playback terms to GigE that I've found. 100Mbs is fine for all the content I have.

I currently use a GigE cabled set-up with a GigE Chromebox and a 100Mbs Raspberry Pi 2 and 3, and a GigE C2. The 100Mbs connection on the Pis is no limiting factor in playback terms, though if i were transferring files from a device to my unRAID server, I'd use a box with GigE (probably the Chromebox)!

**nooryani84** · 2016-03-30, 10:52

Yes i doubt GigE has any effect on playback, but for transferring files I would certainly say 100mbit is painfully slow.

sampson · 2016-05-02, 05:59

(2016-03-29, 09:27)nooryani84 Wrote: How well is your old HTPC performing now that it has a wired connection?

Not any better. Going to give this a bump since my prob isn't resolved. :/

I'm really confused so looking for input. I currently have the same PC as mentioned in my original post (the Zotac ZBox).

Now that I'm hard wired to the ethernet, I can run speed tests that show 120 Mbps but that is NOT reflected in my Kodi use. My PC is still almost unusable for streaming. When selecting a show to stream, there are long waits for loading (60 seconds-ish) and half the time those time out with errors. When it does load, I can't build up enough of a buffer to make anything watchable. I don't believe this is an issue with PC location bc I've had this problem at several homes in the past few years. All this while my bedroom PC working over wifi continues to work flawlessly.

Is it just time for a new PC/Kodi machine? :/

noggin · (This post was last modified: 2016-05-02, 11:33 by noggin.)

(2016-05-02, 05:59)sampson Wrote:
(2016-03-29, 09:27)nooryani84 Wrote: How well is your old HTPC performing now that it has a wired connection?

Not any better. Going to give this a bump since my prob isn't resolved. :/

I'm really confused so looking for input. I currently have the same PC as mentioned in my original post (the Zotac ZBox).

Now that I'm hard wired to the ethernet, I can run speed tests that show 120 Mbps but that is NOT reflected in my Kodi use. My PC is still almost unusable for streaming. When selecting a show to stream, there are long waits for loading (60 seconds-ish) and half the time those time out with errors. When it does load, I can't build up enough of a buffer to make anything watchable. I don't believe this is an issue with PC location bc I've had this problem at several homes in the past few years. All this while my bedroom PC working over wifi continues to work flawlessly.

Is it just time for a new PC/Kodi machine? :/

Where is your content being streamed from? If it's from a local source (NAS, Server) over your home network then we can help diagnose the issue.

However if you are using Kodi with piracy add-ons to watch content you would normally expect to pay for, guess what - you're getting what you pay for. These add ons are poor quality and have no guarantees. Chances are if the YouTube add-on works at a reasonable quality, then the problem is not with your HTPC or with your network connectivity (internet or local) and is instead an issue caused by the rubbish quality of the add-ons and their sources.

Companies like Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Video etc. spend lots of money engineering content delivery to ensure consistent streaming quality. Providers of illegal piracy add-ons don't... This forum is full of people asking why they have problems 'streaming' when they have fast internet connections and good quality Kodi boxes. Problem is entirely at the source...

sampson · 2016-05-03, 01:04

That really doesn't hold any weight. I am indeed getting some tv shows from 1channel, etc. but I also stream Netflix, Amazon Prime and other sources on the same machine and they're all the exact same. And again, the PC in the next room over that is on wifi, streams it all just flawlessly.

noggin · 2016-05-03, 01:20

Right - so you are having problems with Netflix, Amazon Prime and Youtube on your machine. I'll ignore the banned add-on.

So cabled connection. Have you done a browser based speed-test on both machines (Ookla.com is not bad in my experience)? Have you done the Netflix diagnostic test ("Example Short 23.976" I think it is called) which shows you what bitrate stream you are watching, and compared it with your good PC in the next room?

Have you done a local connectivity test between machines - say timing how long it takes to copy a file from one PC to another and analysed the transfer speed?

**nooryani84** · 2016-05-03, 16:23

How much memory does your PC have and what version of Windows are you running? What web browser? You could always try OpenElec, though that won't really solve your Netflix issue. On the other hand, if you're having issues with Netflix it may be time to either reinstall/format the PC or upgrade to newer hardware.

Sorry if this isn't all that helpful... but I would also like to save you from spending unecessary money if I can.