[mythtv-users] Remote frontend staccato

Kyle Rose krose+mythtv at krose.org
Wed May 12 13:50:18 EDT 2004


On my desktop remote frontend connected via 100 Mbit UTP 802.3 to the
Mythbox, everything works great.  I haven't had a problem with it in
months.

On my laptop remote frontend connected vi 802.11b to a firewall, and
from there to the Mythbox, I get some very strange performance
characteristics.  In particular, performance seems to get worse as I
turn *down* the bitrate.  For the purposes of this discussion, I'm
referring to viewing recordings, not to LiveTV.

If I set the PVR to record at (say) 3000 Kbits/sec, I get audio and
video that starts and stops about once a second, but only for a very
short time.  I initially thought the stream was overflowing the rather
crappy but expected 802.11b real-life limit of 4 Mbits, but this
appears not to be the case.

When I lowered the bitrate, the problem got even *worse*.  Ultimately,
I got down to 1100 Kbits/sec, at which point the choppiness became
completely unbearable.

Is this some kind of buffer underflow situation exacerbated by the
burstiness of 802.11b?  The processor is more than powerful enough to
handle this (I decode and play DVD's on this laptop all the time), and
MythTV is in fact using Xv.

Any suggestions?

Cheers,
Kyle


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