[mythtv-users] dropped frames on wlan access.

[Simon at the Threshold]

Jason Ferrara wrote:
> My mythtv box is a Dell Dimension 4500 (2Ghz P4) with a Hauppage WinTV 
> 401 tuner card and a
> Prism 2.5 based wireless lan card. If there is any heavy network 
> activity (like copying a file
> with scp), mythtv will end up with LOTS of dropped frames in the recording.
> 
> Does anyone have any idea how to fix this? I'd like to set up a remote 
> front end, but can't if
> network activity is going to mess up recording on the back end. I tried 
> increasing the priority
> of mythbackend, but that didn't help.

Interesting, what's the bandwidth on the wlan card BTW?

Well the thing to wach with the ssh package is its very CPU intensive, 
so your probably better of reducing the priority of your scp process 
than raising that of mythtv. Try testing scp by running at nice -n 18.

Otherthan that you could simply be running out of ethernet bandwidth, 
ethernet (802) starts to degrade at 20 percent and baddly at 40% mark. 
So if you have a 10mbit network (10485760/8 = 1310720 bytes or 1280k per 
second) 40 percent of that is only 512k (20% is only 256k per second).

Basicly if you have a slow network connection (wireless likes LOS (line 
of sight) not going through walls) or you are exceeding the bandwidth 
you either need to upgrade to a decent bandwidth or improve the quality 
of your wireless link (100mbits wire is v.good).

However if your spiking your CPU (e.g. with intensive encyption 
processes) then you can tune your system to reduce this. Remember though 
that its better to raise the priority of your high-intensive processes 
rarther than lower you important once.  Lowering tends to cause bottle 
necks.  Bit of a black art I am afriad..

Regards
Simon


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