New Switches...

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GeordieStew

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Nov 19, 2009
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Hi folks.

Just moved into my new house. Got the house wired by a professional network engineer (in his spare time). All of the cat 6 was terminated and tested correctly.

Below is a basic outline of my network.

219tj6b.jpg


I tried to watch an MKV on the streaming box downstairs (from DS211 NAS) and it struggled. Sound was perfect, picture stuttered every couple of seconds. It was barely noticeable to the boss, but I noticed more. I'm just using the DS211 as a standard share rather than streaming. Not using DLNA or anything.

Tried it on the streaming box upstairs and it was better (still stuttery but less so). Tried it on my PC and it played flawlessly.

AVIs appear to work just fine on everything. The MKV wasn't big at all. A couple of gig.

My network engineer friend will come and test the network again this week, but I have a sneaking suspicion that because I skimped on the switches. I'm aware that the Cat 6E cables aren't a "real" standard, but they're fairly well made and I didn't have the will to make a dozen of my own cables up. 100 Mbit/s should be sufficient anyway for HD streaming.

What else is out there which is more capable/reliable/better for a SOHO/Media type setup?

Need a couple of 8 ports and a 5 port. Unmanaged is fine (maybe).

So, what are your recommendations as far as switches go?

Thanks in advance!
 
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What makes you think it's the network? Did you try different .mkvs? Maybe it was encoded with non-standard options that standalone players have problems with (weird key frames, whatever)?

Copy the .mkv to a USB key and try to play it directly on a streaming box. I bet it still stutters.
 
The fact that it stutters noticeably less on the other SMP, I guess. Same firmware (latest). Same box. Slightly different switch (5 port vs 8 port).
 
Still, the network should have no problem with it. When you say a couple of gigs I assume it's 720p so below 10Mbps.

Did you or didn't you try a different .mkv?

Bring the switches between the storage and the Netgear switch and try playing it on your PC again.
 
I'm at work in the UK at the moment so won't be able to try until this evening. But will give it a go when I get home.

Thanks for the suggestions.

And yeah, 720p.
 
Better yet, try to get your PC to where your streamers are, if that's possible. Maybe the wiring is wacky.

But the sound not stuttering hints to a software problem with the video stream on the playback devices.
 
6e is not a real standard. 6 and 6A is. So is 5e. Where is the mkv streaming from, and what other workloads does the streaming server have? I would suspect endpoints before the network.
 
are you streaming the video from the NAS unit, if so I would start there, like TCM said I would move a movie to a USB stick and plug it into tv see how it looks then.
 
Flat network. No VLAN or routing.

Streaming from NAS DS211 (sorry, will update first post). I did a quick test from PC to DS211 just with LAN Speed Test, 430Mbps or something (the stats are at home). Which should be fast enough for 720p if I can get the same on my Streamer.

I'm aware that 6e isn't a real standard. But I also believed it to be equivalent to 6. Am I incorrect?
 
Also, I probably misspoke/typed.

I'm just using the DS211 as a standard share rather than streaming. Not using DLNA or anything.

So the NAS shouldn't have a great deal of work to do.
 
GeordieStew said:
I'm aware that 6e isn't a real standard. But I also believed it to be equivalent to 6. Am I incorrect?
Click to expand...

Since it's not a standard, I could claim wet spaghetti noodles are 6e compliant. The whole point of standards is you know what you are getting. Without standards, you don't know. your 6e cable could very well be equivalent to 6 or 6A or whatever, but unless you check and verify every spec, you don't know.

Is it possible the WD box is choking on the mkv?
 
Eliminate the cheap switches from the equation entirely. Plug one of the WD streaming boxes into the Netgear and see how it handles it.

FWIW, my WD TV Live has trouble with 1080p MKVs.
 
kumquat said:
Eliminate the cheap switches from the equation entirely. Plug one of the WD streaming boxes into the Netgear and see how it handles it.

FWIW, my WD TV Live has trouble with 1080p MKVs.
Click to expand...

I've never had any issues with 10GB+ 1080p MKV files on my WDTVs. They are on gigabit and stream off a Synology DS712+.
 
Weird. I have one of the older ones, maybe that's the problem. Nothing else on my network has an issue, and the WDTV has the same issues on Wifi as well as ethernet, with multiple cables. It could be malformed/nonstandard MKVs too. It never has a problem with anything 720p.

It's really not a big deal for me since the WDTV is just a box for streaming Netflix and MKVs of TV shows in the bedroom. The movie watching is in the living room on the HTPC.
 
I think the older ones had more of an issue with higher bitrates, yeah. I have a Live Hub and a new Live SMP and don't have those issues. I had an older WDTV Live and it was choppy sometimes on higher bitrates. Sounds like OP has a newer Live because he said SMP. The new ones are called WDTV Live SMP.
 
Even if they are not the cause, dump the cheap switches as said before.

My WD NAS I have always choked trying to play anything 720P and above unless it was low bitrate.
 
Well, did you find the problem to be the switches?

I wouldn't listen to people that tell you a standard switch is somehow unable to stream 720p, cause that's a load of BS.
 
TCM said:
Well, did you find the problem to be the switches?

I wouldn't listen to people that tell you a standard switch is somehow unable to stream 720p, cause that's a load of BS.
Click to expand...

So what is "Standard" in your book? What does that even mean? If by standard you mean Cisco Catalyst or HP Procurve then yes you are right, they should and can easily handle that load. However, if you look at a OEM specs page on a switch and there is no mention of throughput, it is likely a POS that can and will choke.

Unmanaged Dell PowerConnect and HP ProCurve Switches can be had used for not too much.
 
With standard I mean unmanaged junk. Even those can handle max throughput between _two_ stations.
 
A 720p stream of "a couple of gigs" (let's say a 2 hour, 9 GB movie just for argument's sake) is about 10 mbps.

That's nowhere close to "max throughput" on a 100 Mbps port, let alone a 1000 Mbps one.
 
Which is just reinforcing my point that all suggestions to even touch these switches are BS, let alone replacing perfectly working hardware.
 
I also would not really trust the TP-Link switches. Had too many cheapo switches develop problems or flat out fail in a short amount of time.

I only get netgear for small switches anymore.

I am also pretty sure that the buffer size is quite a bit smaller on those TP-Link switches compared to the netgear you are using.

Another thing could be a faulty port on one of the switches or on one of the devices hooked up to the network. If that is the case, it may be a pain in the rear to figure out what is causing the slowdown. I've had that happen to me a few times when working on networks.
 
My wdlive can eat up 1080p. But I run also cisco enterprise. Thus stinks of crc error and or your cheap switches are unable to forward data fast enough. See cheap gb switches might hsve gig ports but the asic cant forward frames worth a shit like the realtek nic in mu laptop maxes at 550mbps .
 
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