Networking Tweaks for Video Streaming

[wwaag]

I am trying to stream video files from one of my hard drives (Raid 0) to a networked DVD player (Zensonic Z500). The files are HDV which are MPG's with a constant bit rate of 25MB/s--pretty demanding. I can use either Windows Media Connect or Twonkyvision. I've got these two servers installed in a "clean" XP PRO installation--nothing else on the OS. The network is hardwired.

All in all, it works pretty well. However, there are occasional "stutters". Using task manager, I've displayed the networking graphs indicating a very low CPU usage (2%) with an average network usage of around 25MB/s--as expected. Periodically, there occurs an increase in net activity (some windows process I suppose), which I would suspect correspond to the occasional "stutters".

I initially disabled the QOS service and that seemed to help. Any other suggestions for how I might "tweak" my network settings? Thanks in advance.

wwaag

[redwudz]

No specific networking tweaks, but I went to a gigabit LAN system for my video server. I use a D-link DGS -2205 gigabit switch. (About $35US) My HTPC already had a gigabit LAN setup. I picked up a couple of gigabit LAN cards for the other computers for about $10US each.

I had no problems with streaming, but I wanted to transfer large files faster. It made my transfers about four times faster than with a 100Mb/s LAN. The switch plugs into the router for internet access, but operates independently of the existing 100Mb/s LAN system. One nice thing about it is it's auto configuring and no software or adjustments are needed. Just plug it in and it works.