Help! Streaming Video between 3/4 computers in the house!

[midrigs24]

Okay I will start by describing my setup to you guys....

Networking:
Cisco E3000 High Performance Wireless N Router
location: middle of the house bedroom.
configuration: configured for DHCP but static IP's for the devices that are stationary in the house. UPnP is turned on.
All of my networking is wireless-N with many different devices connected to the network besides computers...

Computers/Devices:
Each computer has a Wireless N network addapter
Media PC:
location: under my TV in the living room
operating system: windows 7 professional
specs: Dual core 2.8ghz, 2gigs of ram, 260 GTX video card(1gig video memory), Hauppauge tuner card
wireless: Rosewill RNX- MiniN1
description: This PC takes cable input video and is a DVR for it and is movie/music central for my entertainment center.... I have started on configuring windows media center and that project is in the works....

Gaming PC:
location: office in the back corner of the house
operating system: windows 7 professional
specs: Q6600 2.4ghz Quad core, 4 gigs of ram, 560 TI Fermi Video card, External HD which holds all of my media.
wireless: Rosewill RNX- MiniN1
description: This PC runs graphic intense video games and has the external hard drive with all of my data stored on it.... This drive is connected via E-Sata and is a 2TB mirrored drive. I would like to stream all of my blu-ray rips, music, pictures, and transfer of software from this drive/computer.

Laptop 1:
location: moves throughout the house but mostly in the office.
operating system: windows 7 home premium
specs: i7 1.7ghz, 6 gigs of ram, 360m nvidia card, 500gb HD
wireless: built in wireless N
description: I use this computer to stream video's sometimes and sync my ipods with music/video's. I also use this computer to remote into the other computers for troubleshooting... using teamviewer.

laptop 2:
mostly unimportant... netbook used for wifes schoolwork and internet usage.
may stream music once everything else is in order.

Work done already:
I have already setup shares to the media drive so that it is accessible without a password from any computer. Setup media PC to auto-login and start WMC. Setup Gaming PC to share all the media and im quite sure this won't affect any performance on the PC when trying to do other things.

Problems: I have tried streaming video from this drive and it takes a minute to buffer and then plays 1080p videos choppy as hell... and when playing a standard definition movie, it takes a few minutes to buffer and only skips a little bit..(once every minute). I have not tried any 3rd party video players... my goal is to have the drive added to WMC on the media pc so the videos are viewable and playable from a touch of the remote. But I am alright with adding a plugin to play the video on a external player like VLC and when the movie has been stopped return to WMC.

I would say this is enough information for the first initial post, let me know if you need any more information... I am pretty tech savvy and I know what I am doing for the most part so don't be afraid to ask technical/complicated question. I am new to the hole streaming/home networking deal.

[midrigs24]

Another Issue that I forgot to mention is just normal transferring files from one computer to another only transfers at like 150kb/s which is outrageous!!! it should be transferring at like 40mb/s... I am unsure as to why my network is slow like this... I feel as if there is some type of option within windows that enables high speed/size file transferring. Please help...

[midrigs24]

bump... help please...

[aedipuss]

as far as file transfers. from a wired pc to a wireless n laptop i get 100mbps on a 300mbps "n" network. wireless both way you are right it should be close to 40mbps. so there is something wrong in your router setup. is it set to wireless "n" only or mixed b/g/n?

as far as streaming 1080p even though i can get the 100mbps it doesn't work. it just barfs. 720p is just fine. i went to all wired connections to and from the dlna nas and blu-ray media players.

[midrigs24]

Yes, I do have mixed g/b/n 2.4 and a 5ghz, its a dual band router. Maybe streaming and the file transfers issues are the same issue...

[aedipuss]

Yes, I do have mixed g/b/n 2.4 and a 5ghz, its a dual band router. Maybe streaming and the file transfers issues are the same issue...

and what are you using for security? wep right? only one that works with all 3, but the router will choke down to "g" speed, that's all that's allowed.

[midrigs24]

I am using WPA-PSK2 I think... I am pretty sure. or maybe it said WPA-PSK/WEP,

[aedipuss]

it doesn't really matter what security you choose if running mixed mode b/g/n, they would all default the router to 54mbps. the only way around it and still maintain a secure network is to use a router that allows rejecting all mac's except those that you "allow", and set the wireless security mode to none or disabled. like how mine is set up.

[midrigs24]

So Security slows down the connection? I thought WPA-PSK was the fastest there is.... So disableing the security and the mixed b/g/n mode and set it to N only will speed things up?

[aedipuss]

all mixed b/g/n modes with any kind of security will slow to 54mbps, it's all that's allowed. you can switch to n only or disable security and only allow your own computers on the wireless network.

[p_l]

the only way around it and still maintain a secure network is to use a router that allows rejecting all mac's except those that you "allow", and set the wireless security mode to none or disabled. like how mine is set up.


[Attachment 7657 - Click to enlarge]

That's how my network is set up, too. I do occasionally get a nagging feeling I should be concerned by mac address spoofing, but meh...

[aedipuss]

the only way around it and still maintain a secure network is to use a router that allows rejecting all mac's except those that you "allow", and set the wireless security mode to none or disabled. like how mine is set up.


[Attachment 7657 - Click to enlarge]

That's how my network is set up, too. I do occasionally get a nagging feeling I should be concerned by mac address spoofing, but meh...

i disable broadcasting of the ssid also. so it's not only exclusive but also unfindable for any normal user.

[p_l]

Good idea. I do the same.

[nic2k4]

150 Kbps is well below what you'd get from a 802.11g only network. One thing I'd look at is replacing those Rosewill miniN1 adapters. They may be cute as hell, but how do you expect to get any kind of performance from something that doesn't even have an antenna.

Using adapters of the same brand as your router will give you the best results as the technologies are matched. Don't bother with USB adapters, if you can, get PCI express or even PCI adapters; preferably with 5GHz capability with SMA antennas. Not much use having a dual band router if all your devices are using the same 2.4GHz band. The PC that's supposed to serve/stream all the media should be using the 5GHz band. The SMA antennas are replaceable, if you need more gain get a better antenna or mount it to a base at the end of a cable and place it in a better location.

If you can get your download speed up to par, you might be better off to transfer the files between PC's, play them locally and delete them when your done. Streaming is just a way to get around slow network transfer, check out what one of the fathers of the internet has to say about it. BTW, that's quite the nice router you've got there, it even has a media server. According to this review it's useless for HD video, but works perfectly for photos and MP3's. You could hook up a USB drive with photos and music to the router for streaming and just download the movies from which ever PC is going to be storing them.

[midrigs24]

150 Kbps is well below what you'd get from a 802.11g only network. One thing I'd look at is replacing those Rosewill miniN1 adapters. They may be cute as hell, but how do you expect to get any kind of performance from something that doesn't even have an antenna.

Using adapters of the same brand as your router will give you the best results as the technologies are matched. Don't bother with USB adapters, if you can, get PCI express or even PCI adapters; preferably with 5GHz capability with SMA antennas. Not much use having a dual band router if all your devices are using the same 2.4GHz band. The PC that's supposed to serve/stream all the media should be using the 5GHz band. The SMA antennas are replaceable, if you need more gain get a better antenna or mount it to a base at the end of a cable and place it in a better location.

If you can get your download speed up to par, you might be better off to transfer the files between PC's, play them locally and delete them when your done. Streaming is just a way to get around slow network transfer, check out what one of the fathers of the internet has to say about it. BTW, that's quite the nice router you've got there, it even has a media server. According to this review it's useless for HD video, but works perfectly for photos and MP3's. You could hook up a USB drive with photos and music to the router for streaming and just download the movies from which ever PC is going to be storing them.

As I can see your point on most of my issues pertaining to transfer speed... I really don't think that these adapters are contributing to the issue at hand (the software that came with it tells you the active connection speed, and it jumps between 45-65 MB/s)... I can stream HD video from youtube and also I have been using Orb to stream media outside of my network(takes a bit but streams pretty decently, although it tones down the quality a bit to adjust to network speeds.).... download from the internet at 1-2MB per second...

I changed my router to N only with no security and added MAC filtering and it increased the network speed from 500KB/s to 1.08 MB/s... Great improvement but still something wrong here and I think its software related... No one knows of any settings in windows that could limit network speed between computers?

Also I want my movies/music/photos all on my backup hard drive(which is mirrored) just for redundancy.... I want my data to be safe + the wife doesn't want this backup hard drive box sitting under the TV. I guess I could transfer all the data to a computer that it is going to be played on and then setup some sort of re-occurring backup plan.... I just don't know what I would use to back everything up at what interval.

[midrigs24]

I know there is something wrong that can be fixed... because back in college I had a shitty netgear router and I could stream HD video to my xbox 360 (media center extender) and transfer large files from one PC to another at 15-20 MB/s... I had windows Vista/xp at the time I believe.

[nic2k4]

Stream a movie and do CTRL-ALT-DEL, open task manager and click the network tab; there you can see the actual network speed. Check both PCs and see how that compares with what the adapter utility says. Apart from the Windows Max MTU setting, I don't see what kind of software issue could cause a network to be so slow. Might be a driver problem; update all your adapters. You didn't say whether all the PCs are affected, the router being the central point that could be a place to look; it could be a dud. You could buy another one from a place with easy return policy (like Walmart), do some tests and return it. Have you thought of calling Cisco support?

[midrigs24]

Good idea monitoring the network bandwidth while streaming, I will do that... I am not sure what Windows Max MTU setting is, but I will google it and make sure that is good when I get home. All PC's are affected I think... at least the video machine, Gaming PC, and My i7 laptop is affected... I will try transfering between the two laptops to tell if its anything to do with the rosewill adapters. I will call CISCO if none of those things work... If they can't help I will go buy a router from walmart.... Thanks for your input.

[dun4cheap]

Well I have been doing a similiar thing in my house for a long time however, even gigalan slows to snail speeds. Especially when I try to transfer data from a windows xp to and from a windows 7 machine. In my testing I found if you turn windows media center off, the transfer rates were of normal high speeds, however if Windows Media Center was running it killed the fileshare speeds. I have since moved all my systems into a windows 7 os, and for the most part the problems have gone away. I have 1 Large Media Server which serves my media to all of my PC's and media players. This setup is also hooked up to my Media Room running Windows Media Center. It is running on a Quad Core Intel Processor Q9600 or something with 4 gig of DDR2. I have another WMC7 setup in the Master bedroom and 2 Asus O!plays in the other rooms. Which all seem to work well either wirelessly or on Giggalan.

Anyhow, try to turn off Windows Media Center and try transfering a file to the server. Then turn WMC on on the File server and try to transfer the file and see if it effects the speeds. The only bad news is that I never found a working solution.

[midrigs24]

I am not sure that you understand... WMC isn't causing this because I do not have it open at the time of transfer... Media Machine is in living room that runs WMC but I am doing all the testing on my W7 laptop and W7 desktop, they both have WMC on them but they are never running due to not watching movies on these devices... I am just using windows explorer to copy/paste files from one folder to another over the network and the traffic is slow... I will try and wire in 2 machines over the LAN(gigabit ports) to see if the transfer is still slow.

[midrigs24]

Ok, so there was a new driver for the Rosewill Adapters... After upgrading them to the latest driver the speed of a 8GB move transfer from my laptop to the gaming PC got bumped up to 1.5 mb/s. In the right Directions but still problems here I believe... I tried streaming a movie now from the gaming pc to my laptop... 1080p movie and it had little to no glitchs... But, from my media PC in the living room with another rosewill adapter the 1080p movie was very glitchy... (also I see that my router has a firmware upgrade...) I started the upgrade.... and it failed right away.

[aedipuss]

are you checking the transfer speed with taskmanager? ctrl/alt/del start task manager. like this?



it averages about 15% of a 2gb connection so the transfer speed is about 300mb/s or 37.5MB/s on this transfer.

[midrigs24]

are you checking the transfer speed with taskmanager? ctrl/alt/del start task manager. like this?


[Attachment 7719 - Click to enlarge]

it averages about 15% of a 2gb connection so the transfer speed is about 300mb/s or 37.5MB/s on this transfer.

Yes I did monitor that when streaming/transfering and its only using about 3-9% of a 45 MB/s connection.

[aedipuss]

MB or mb? they are 2 different things. normally all networking is written as mb or megabit not MegaByte.

[midrigs24]

Mbps is what it says.

[Nelson37]

Sounds like you may have a G adapter in the mix somewhere.

Set up an N only net, you have a dual-band router.

There are way too many variables, eliminate some devices and security, temporarily.

Time file transfer with a standard file, something that takes a minute or two. Use the real-world goal as a testing method, in addition to network specs.

[aedipuss]

Mbps is what it says.

ok. that's megabits. 8 megabits = 1MB. for some reason your usb network dongle is still connecting at less than wireless "g" - 54mb/s speed. a wireless "n" connection would show up at 150mb/s in task manager's window.

[midrigs24]

Nelson... I do have the signal set to N only... on both the 5 GHz and the 2.4GHz. I have all computers off except the 2 transferring the files. I don't know why homegroup was enabled because I never set it up... but that was on, so I disabled that and it boosted the transfer rate from 600kb/s to like 1mb/s with a 700mb file.

[Nelson37]

Switch out one of the computers for a different one, then repeat for the other unit, unless you see a dramatic difference.

Run a LAN cable to the router for two units, repeat above test.

[midrigs24]

okay I will do that... another thing to point out is when I am looking through the wireless settings on the router I can specify what speed I want it to run at... but it goes all the way up to 1gb/s which I thought was weird.... Maybe I should put it at 300MB/s?