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Lag when streaming movies to PS3...

post #1 of 45
1/5/11 at 5:01am
Thread Starter 
I have tried TVersity and PS3 Media Server. I have a 6.0 Meg connection that has pretty decent upload speed (can't remember the exact #) and I get Lag about 75-100% of the time. I have even played with different settings. My computer is powerful enough to stream the movies and No I'm not running other software at the same time. I guess it back to burning DVD's for me.

I don't want to pay for a media server if it's just going to give me the same grief that the free ones give.

In the past it has worked pretty good.

Any ideas or input would be greatly appreciated!
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post #2 of 45
1/5/11 at 6:35am
Are you using a wired connection or wireless from the PC?

When streaming from within your own home network your internet connection speed doesnt really matter. It depends on the speed of the connection between the two devices.

Wired ethernet will be best, followed by wireless n, then G.
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post #3 of 45
1/5/11 at 7:06am
You don't need to pay for a streamer. I use PMS with no issues, even on wireless surprisingly (my dang wired went down for some reason, still haven't had time to diagnose, hoping it's just a patch cable issue). Give us more details, what are you considering "lag"? It takes a long time to start? Stuttering? Audio/video out of sync?
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post #4 of 45
1/5/11 at 7:47am
its not the media player its your network. is anyone else on the network when u have these issues? any internet activity can cause lag in streaming
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post #5 of 45
1/5/11 at 8:03am
Thread Starter 
I'm sorry. I should have given more information on my rant. lol. I am considering "lag" as stuttering. Sometimes the video will play seamlessly. But other times it will play for a second, then stop for a second, then play for another second. And it goes on and on. Sometimes pausing it will help it but after a minute or two it will start back. There is never anyone else on my network other than my PS3 and laptop. I do however have an ooma telo connected to the router. But I have unplugged it and tested without the phone. Still get the "stuttering".

It is a wireless connection to my router and the signal strength between the PS3 and PC is 100%.

Are you guys saying that hardwiring the PS3 to the router will help with my problem? Will my media server still work with a wired connection? Also is the PS3 compatible with Wireless N?

Thanks for the feedback.
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post #6 of 45
1/5/11 at 8:20am
Ok, now let's dig into the details.

Your internet speed won't have anything to do with local streaming, so you can count that out right away.

What type of files are you trying to stream? DVDs are easy, getting up to full 1080p rips with lossless audio gets REALLY hard. There's no way you are going to stream full 1080p / lossless audio over wifi. It simply isn't going to happen. Hardwiring will certainly help in this respect.
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post #7 of 45
1/5/11 at 8:30am
PS3 is wireless G, Sony did not upgrade to N with the slim, either ..

what TornadoTJ said ..
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post #8 of 45
1/5/11 at 11:00am
Thread Starter 
I'm not really worried about streaming HD. I have a lot of my dvd's ripped to my hard drive from back before HD existed. All of the movies I want to stream are around 1 gig and most are even 2CH audio. I don't have that great of a TV right now. I will rip them to higher quality eventually. Right now I am limited on HDD space.

I just don't understand why I am getting this "stuttering". Everything seems to check out fine.
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post #9 of 45
1/5/11 at 11:05am
Wifi can be really finicky. Keep in mind your signal strength will affect your data rate on wifi as well. If you have a weak signal, the rate will be cut way back and will affect your ability to stream.

Have you tried it hardwired at all? That would tell you whether the issue is the computer you are serving from or the wifi. It takes some horsepower to stream to the PS3, it is not the same as streaming to another computer.
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post #10 of 45
1/5/11 at 11:18am
Is your computer transcoding?

I get the same effect if I try to transcode sometimes. Albeit I have an old crappy computer.

Make sure you files a natively supported by the PS3 so the PC does not have to do it.

Just another thing to look into.
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post #11 of 45
1/5/11 at 11:33am
I would definitely try a hard wired ethernet connection if possible, as Tornado mentioned.
I stream from an old Pentium M laptop with ethernet and it works like a dream, even with high def 5.1 content.

ALthough I know that potentially running long cables can be annoying.
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post #12 of 45
1/5/11 at 11:38am
Once you go CAT, you'll never go back ..
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post #13 of 45
1/5/11 at 1:32pm
I spent half a day in my attic and fishing wires through walls. It was worth it.
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post #14 of 45
1/5/11 at 1:39pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by TornadoTJ View Post
I spent half a day in my attic and fishing wires through walls. It was worth it.
and it's not just the speed boost and consistency .. it's the best secure connection ..
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post #15 of 45
1/5/11 at 2:59pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by juke_box View Post

I just don't understand why I am getting this "stuttering". Everything seems to check out fine.

Sometimes that's normal with WiFi. Unlike a wired connection, the speed of WiFi can fluctuate due to interference and other issues. Also the built in WiFi in the PS3 isn't the strongest from what I've seen.

Having a wired connection to your router would give you the best performance.

If that isn't an option then there are other choices like one of those ethernet power line adapters. Maybe even a wireless ethernet bridge that support wireless n might give you better performance.
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post #16 of 45
1/5/11 at 3:52pm
Not to thread hijack (okay, maybe a little), but I get stuttering from ps3mediaserver over wired gige network. Source file codec/bitrate doesn't seem to matter. Dual opteron server, although I tried a higher GHz quadcore as well with the same issue. 3 seconds of play, choke for a bit, 3 seconds, choke, etc
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post #17 of 45
1/6/11 at 4:27am
Thread Starter 
I think I may just try unplugging the router for a few minutes and plug it back in. Something has changed...In the past it worked pretty decent. But never this horrible.
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post #18 of 45
1/6/11 at 7:28am
Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkV View Post

Not to thread hijack (okay, maybe a little), but I get stuttering from ps3mediaserver over wired gige network. Source file codec/bitrate doesn't seem to matter. Dual opteron server, although I tried a higher GHz quadcore as well with the same issue. 3 seconds of play, choke for a bit, 3 seconds, choke, etc

That happened to me when the boot drive on my server was flaking out. I spent weeks trying to figure out the problem and finally decided to try a different boot drive. Problem solved. There are other things you can try, what are you using as your server?
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post #19 of 45
1/6/11 at 9:37am
Quote:
Originally Posted by juke_box View Post

I think I may just try unplugging the router for a few minutes and plug it back in. Something has changed...In the past it worked pretty decent. But never this horrible.

u mean u didnt already try that? i would also double check to make sure your wifi is password protected. you may have a neighbor stealing your signal.

its funny cause i goto my moms apartment and she doesnt have the internet, but i never worry about getting on with my ipod because there are 3 neighbors with un-secure wifi signals
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post #20 of 45
1/6/11 at 3:12pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by lifestyle View Post

Sometimes that's normal with WiFi. Unlike a wired connection, the speed of WiFi can fluctuate due to interference and other issues. Also the built in WiFi in the PS3 isn't the strongest from what I've seen.

Having a wired connection to your router would give you the best performance.

If that isn't an option then there are other choices like one of those ethernet power line adapters. Maybe even a wireless ethernet bridge that support wireless n might give you better performance.

All PS3's are wireless G .. an N router will not change that and will offer no improvement .. Power Line Adapters are a much more tricky install than a CAT cable .. you are dealing with fuse box issues, where the power flows to, etc ..

It's usually not a good idea to give advice unless you know what you're talking about .. after all, we don't want to needlessly cause folks to go thru additional headaches ..
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post #21 of 45
1/6/11 at 8:13pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by lifestyle View Post

Sometimes that's normal with WiFi. Unlike a wired connection, the speed of WiFi can fluctuate due to interference and other issues. Also the built in WiFi in the PS3 isn't the strongest from what I've seen.

Having a wired connection to your router would give you the best performance.

If that isn't an option then there are other choices like one of those ethernet power line adapters. Maybe even a wireless ethernet bridge that support wireless n might give you better performance.

Like life said...I had issues streaming with the PS3 media server and Netflix. Since I got a etherline powerline adapter, all is well. No more buffering or delays with movies with Netflix or Vudu, and have not had any issues streaming from PC. It may not work for everone, but it really helped me out, and I did not have to run a CAT wire from one side of the room to the other. I like it so much, I may get another powerline for the PS3 fat down the hall for the girls...
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post #22 of 45
1/7/11 at 5:27am
Thread Starter 
Ok....stupid question time. When you say the best way to go is "hardwired ethernet", so what you mean is to hardwire the PS3 to the Router...and not hardwire it to the PC, right?

Thanks.
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post #23 of 45
1/7/11 at 6:27am
Yes thats correct. Hardwire the ps3 to the router. It should also be noted that the pc should be hardwired to the router too if possible. An all ethernet connection is best for streaming.

If the PC is still wireless, then the stream may still be bottlenecked by that connection if it is weak enough.

Just to put it in terms of numbers, a wireless g signal can travel 54 mbps, which is theroetical and optimal. Most likely you arent close to that due to interference etc. An ethernet connection is a steady 100 mbps.
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post #24 of 45
1/7/11 at 8:52am
I'm having a similar issue, too. I have a wireless N connection to computer, router, then a wireless N bridge to my PS3. I stream a movie, the video is fine, streams at 8-10Mbits/sec, but the audio is constantly dropping out, starts high at 200kbps/sec, but over the course of about 5-10 sec, it slowly drops to 0, then jumps to 15-20kbs and plays, then stutters out again. connection is fine because video seems to stream ok. I also can't play any mp3/audio streaming, which is not bandwidth intensive.

This also happened while I was completely hardwired. I've tried all differnt codecs and bitrates, and all the same problem. Anyone else have this happen?
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post #25 of 45
1/7/11 at 1:31pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by EKBSRK View Post

An ethernet connection is a steady 100 mbps.

Mine's 1000 mbps.
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post #26 of 45
1/7/11 at 1:32pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by burkett375 View Post

Anyone else have this happen?

Yes, it can be caused by various things. Read through the thread. Mine was the boot drive of the server. You might run task manager or resource monitor on the server side too to see if you see any obvious bottlenecks.
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post #27 of 45
1/7/11 at 1:40pm
Ha Ha mine too. gotta love the gigabit.
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post #28 of 45
1/7/11 at 6:11pm
after you do the wired connection the the ps3, be sure to go into the network setting on the PS3 and change it from wireless to wired
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post #29 of 45
1/7/11 at 7:48pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by TornadoTJ View Post

Yes, it can be caused by various things. Read through the thread. Mine was the boot drive of the server. You might run task manager or resource monitor on the server side too to see if you see any obvious bottlenecks.

Well, my machine is more than capable, so I've narrowed that down. I think i've got it down to the AP, so i'm playing with that now...
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post #30 of 45
1/7/11 at 8:02pm
The built in PS3 wireless pretty much sucks. I bought a WRT54GL and bridged it to my WRT54GS (using Tomato firmware), and my wireless speed from my PC to PS3 increased dramatically (from ~10Mbps to 30+Mbps.) Still, with HD some things will stutter if I stream (using PMS.) If I want to watch HD I'll copy it to the PS3 first so I don't have to worry about lag during streaming.
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