Trying to Salvage an Old PC for Streaming on new LCD TV

[wild4trv30]

I have an old PIII (Win 98, 128 RAM, Nvidia MX-400 64 MB), that I connected to an LCD TV in our family room. In general, it is fine as a basic HTPC. However, I have been using it to stream live video from various links found on wwitv.com with some choppy streaming. The PC has a wireless (802.11g) connection to my router with a DSL connection. The wirless signal is strong, and the bandwidth test shows about 1 MB. However, streaming bandwidth above 500 Kbps gets real choppy. I do not have any problems with the same content using a newer PIV, Win ME desktop (ethernet connection), or a Win XP, PIV laptop (wireless) on the same network.

Does anyone know why I am not getting a good/consistent stream? Could it be the OS, or processor? Would installing ME on the older machine solve it?

Thanks in advance.

[SCDVD]

Wireless is bad for video streaming. Even though you may have a 1MB bandwidth, the full bandwidth is not uniformly available and that is why you get the choppiness. Your computer should work fine with your streaming requirements. It doesn't take a workhorse computer to stream the video. But you could have a top end computer and you would still have a choppy video stream with wireless.

[wild4trv30]

I thought that might be the case, but when I used my laptop with the same brand wireless USB (in the same proximity of the desktop), I got a steady stream??? Maybe I'll swap cards to see if that makes a difference (shouldn't though since they are the same make/model adapters).

Thanks for the input.

P.S. I was considering a hard-wire with an ethernet connection, but it would be a pain due to distance/location.

[edDV]

I thought that might be the case, but when I used my laptop with the same brand wireless USB (in the same proximity of the desktop), I got a steady stream??? Maybe I'll swap cards to see if that makes a difference (shouldn't though since they are the same make/model adapters).

Thanks for the input.

P.S. I was considering a hard-wire with an ethernet connection, but it would be a pain due to distance/location.

You need to separate the "wireless" issues from the computer issues. If a different computer plays the stream with the same connection, the problem is probably the Nvidia MX-400 64 MB card or weakness in the PIII. Monitor CPU activity in task manager.

Newer higher compressed streaming formats like wmv or MPeg4 probably get no decode help from the old MX-400. That places the load on the CPU.

[wild4trv30]

I just thought I would give a quick follow-up. I solved my problem! With your advice and a little investigation on my part, I figured out that the video card was the bottle neck. I upgraded my video card on my primary desktop PC, and put the old GeForce2 Ultra (which was streaming fine on the main desktop) in the PC connected to the TV (removing the GeForce2 MX 400).

After reading a Wiki article regarding Nvidia cards, I realized that even though the MX card was newer than the Ultra, the Ultra was still a better card. I also noticed with forced anti-aliasiasing, the streaming video seems to have a smoother picture.

I am now able to stream video to the LCD TV via Wi-Fi smoothly and pretty consistently.

Thanks again!

[greymalkin]

you might want to try out specialized software for HTPC's..there's a linux distro called geexbox that is very small (8.6mb!) and is supposed to be great for watching/capturing tv shows/etc. Removing some of the software overhead may give you a slightly better experience. You can even try a "live" cd before installing.