[Dudeman]

This is going to serve as a continuation of the discussion regarding network speeds required for video playback.  It started with the comment that 100Mbit intnerface that some devices have, such as the FireCube are inadequate for KODI playback. 

The entire thread can be found here:   https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=371832

So in one of the last posts I made on that thread, I had about to test playback of the full 4K BluRay of Wakanda Forver as well as a Remux of the movie into a single MKV.  I haven't had the chance to do that on the Fire Cube, but I did test playing it back on my main PC from the server, just to check the networks transfer data rate as well as the playback bitrate in real time. The Network transfer rate got as high as 100 ~ 109Mbit in a few places, but those were momentary spikes, the average data transfer rate was  55~65Mbit/sec. 

Later this afternoon, I'll try to play back the movie from my FireCube and see how it behaves

[Dudeman]

First, I did play the ripped BluRay on my Fire Cube this afternoon, and while I didn't play the whole movie front to back, I did play quite a few scenes where the bitrate goes up.  This movies has quite a bit of dark, night scenes, and those scenes are the ones that have the highest bit rate.  In those scenes, it averaged 55 ~ 65Mbps as shown in the debug screen information.  Most other scenes were in the 35 ~ 45Mbps.  I only saw a couple of scenes in which the bitrate went near 100Mbps, but only momentarily.  There were no playback hiccups or freezes or audio de-sync.

Here is another interesting bit of information.  This comes from the main stream of the movie:

General
ID                                                  : 0 (0x0)
Complete name                         : P:\test\MARVEL_STUDIOS'_BLACK_PANTHER__WAKANDA_FOREVER_-_ULTRA_HD\BDMV\STREAM\00059.m2ts
Format                                        : BDAV
Format/Info                               : Blu-ray Video
File size                                       : 58.4 GiB
Duration                                     : 2 h 41 min
Overall bit rate mode              : Variable
Overall bit rate                         : 51.8 Mb/s
Maximum Overall bit rate    : 109 Mb/s

Notice that unlike the MKV Remux, this actually spells out the maximum bit rate, which is consistent with what I saw before.

I also did a rip of Black Adam, which is slightly bigger.  It has a higher overall bitrate, but the maximum bitrate is 109Mbps as well.  It too plays without any issues

General
ID                                               : 0 (0x0)
Complete name                      : P:\test\BLACK_ADAM\BDMV\STREAM\00075.m2ts
Format                                      : BDAV
Format/Info                             : Blu-ray Video
File size                                     : 59.7 GiB
Duration                                   : 2 h 4 min
Overall bit rate mode             : Variable
Overall bit rate                        : 68.4 Mb/s
Maximum Overall bit rate   : 109 Mb/s

I'm in the process of Getting John Wick 2, and will post my findings after I run my tests

[TheBuz]

I'll do some testing later as well, but I really think it's intentional to make streaming of local media more difficult.

The price difference for 100mbs Vs 1Gb for manufacturers it's literally pennies.

The other problem is background services, if we are staturating 100mbs with media, then the device decides to download an update or refresh some cached app data, it's not going to be a good time.

[jbinkley60]

I'm in the process of Getting John Wick 2, and will post my findings after I run my tests

I just tested John Wick 2 on my PC running Kodi on Windows 10.  I changed my LAN adapter speed from 1Gig to 100mbps.  I was getting audio dropouts and similar on some of the car chase scenes.  Mine is an MKV rip of the UHD disc.  I changed  it back to 1Gig and it worked fine.  I saw peak speeds of around 110Mbps.  It also plays fine over WiFi to a Raspberry Pi 4  and a Vero 4K+.  There is always an option for 100mbps connections to rip the problematic videos to a slightly lower bit rate.  Of course us purists would call that blasphemy and how would I justify my 1PB of storage for media


Thanks,

Jeff

[Dudeman]

A petabyte..... must be rich.  I thought I was doing good with my 57TB or so.

[TheBuz]

anyway, more so on topic, im planning on some testing but i need to reduce my setup down to "core" only so i dont have extra variables affecting my results

But I would argue this is half the battle, if we want to use the devices other features or let it do background things, that also has to taken into account.

It might be worth it including whether the videos you are testing with include Dolby Vision and/or Atmos.

[jbinkley60]

A petabyte..... must be rich.  I thought I was doing good with my 57TB or so.

I slightly exaggerated.  I have 960TB spinning with 448TB for my media server and an upgrades planned which will add 112TB, taking me over 1PB total and > 500TB for my media server.  Just need to find the time


Jeff

[Dudeman]

@jepsizofye

Can you point me to the sections where you see the bit rate the highest?  I played quite a few sections of the movie, including the aforementioned car chases and the highest bit rate I saw it hit was 102Mbit, so maybe I'm not looking in the right place.

Also, how do you determine the bit playback bit rate?  I use the debug information overlay in KODI

[AIR80]

I am afraid a little because I am not too confident to these tech stuffs. I even don't know the difference between Mbit and Mbps. 

I also do not know the speed difference in Ethernet and air connection.

If someone can help, I would learn here. 

However, having seen the thread heading, I googled and I found that Forbes website suggest that anything more than 25 Mbps is adequate for gaming. Please correct, if it is wrong.

[TheBuz]

@TheBuz i checked especially for you, the bluray insert indicates it is in fact Dolby ATMOS
as the link i gave you states, atmos is packed into truehd so thats why ffmpeg doesnt show it as such

Ah Thank you, it really is borderline at 100Mbs

I am afraid a little because I am not too confident to these tech stuffs. I even don't know the difference between Mbit and Mbps. 

I also do not know the speed difference in Ethernet and air connection.

If someone can help, I would learn here. 

However, having seen the thread heading, I googled and I found that Forbes website suggest that anything more than 25 Mbps is adequate for gaming. Please correct, if it is wrong.

Megabits per second (Mbps) is a unit of measurement for data transfer speed over a network. It represents the number of millions of bits of data that can be transmitted in one second.

Gigabit (Gbps) is another unit of measurement for data transfer speed over a network, which is equal to 1000 Mbps.
Ethernet is a wired technology for local area networks (LANs) that uses cables to connect devices to each other and to the Internet. Ethernet provides fast, reliable connections.

Wi-Fi, on the other hand, is a wireless technology that allows devices to connect to a LAN or the Internet using radio waves. It provides more flexibility than Ethernet, as it does not require physical cables, but it may have lower speeds, less reliability, and higher latency than Ethernet.
Ethernet is a wired technology that offers fast and reliable connections, while Wi-Fi is a wireless technology that provides greater flexibility but may have lower speeds and reliability.

25 Mbps is sufficient for streaming online media, such as video and music, because the data is being transmitted in real-time over the Internet and is usually compressed. Online gaming can also be performed with 25 Mbps, although higher speeds may provide a smoother experience with lower latency.

However, when it comes to playing a 60 GB 4K movie from local storage over a local network, 25 Mbps is not fast enough because the amount of data being transferred is very large and it needs to be transferred quickly in order to avoid buffering

Some UHD Blu-Ray Rips exceed 100Mbs, Most streaming sticks (or Cubes) have 100Mbs ethernet, which is borderline for uncompressed movie rips. However there Wifi is often much better, but then you have the downsides of Wifi.

[Dudeman]

in the off chance @AIR80 is not a bot...     

[Dudeman]

i cant believe i wasted my time on this.
please delete all my waste of time posts here thanks

And you believe you wasted your time here because?

I thought your input was quite informative.  Do you think I wasted all my time as well by doing all those tests I did, just as you have?  What about the other guys that posted (AIR80 not withstanding)?

[TheBuz]

i cant believe i wasted my time on this.
please delete all my waste of time posts here thanks

And you believe you wasted your time here because?

I thought your input was quite informative.  Do you think I wasted all my time as well by doing all those tests I did, just as you have?  What about the other guys that posted (AIR80 not withstanding)?

I don't get either I found it interesting and useful, but I'm still of the opinion that there's no excuse for manufacturers not to include a gigabit port.

[Dudeman]

I'm at a loss, as to why he would think he wasted his time.  Why would he think that just because he's new here his input wouldn't matter?  I don't know, but whatever he wants to do.

Anyway, I agree with you totally that Gigabit should be a given, but I think that the way they look at it, even a dollar savings matters.  More often than not, devices such as the FireTV or Fire Cube are being sold at such low prices that the profit margin on the hardware itself is non-existent.  The money comes from the subscriptions and other services that they hope to sell you.  So any chance they get to save money they'll do it.  Yes, the price difference may only be $1  or $2,  but when you multiply that by a few hundred thousand , it adds up.

For what it's worth, I tried the John Wick clip he kept mentioning, and it's so far the only one that won't play for very long before it starts to stutter and pause for buffering.  Then again, it's an insane data rate.most other movies I tried don't come close to that rate.

So if you're well off enough to be able to afford the sheer magnitude of storage that full BluRay rips require, then perhaps, using a $100 playback device shouldn't be your player of choice.  You can certainly spend a few hundred buck for a nice Intel NUC and all these issues would disappear, but for most other folks, 100Mbit LAN shouldn't be a stumbling block.

FWIW, I just bought a USB 3.0 to Gbit LAN adapter which should get here today, and I'll do some tests with it, and see if the John Wick movie playback improves.

[TheBuz]

Well the Sheild is closer too $200 but Dolby Vision doesn't work on Windows or Linux Kodi. it has to be android. So if I want to make the most of uncompressed rips, I can't use a NUC.

I've just received my Sheild pro and it looks good so far. Coming from windows.

I'm at 70TB of media now, I understand I am fortunate but it has been built up over several years, and it's my hobby.

Now I want to use all of features of the video formats and have a low powered device (European energy prices are crazy)