Help needed with nasty streaming problem

Forums › Online streaming services › Help needed with nasty streaming problem - Pipo X7

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#1286590 17-Apr-2015 21:59

Have you tried streaming something to your Pipo from your desktop? You can do this using something like Plex. That way you can try a large file that is only limited by the speed of your home network - it takes your internet speed out of the equation. If the video still stutters then the issue resides somewhere in the Pipo.

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Rikkitic

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#1286659 18-Apr-2015 08:40

This is a good idea. I'm just not sure how to go about it. I tried Plex before I had the Pipo and it made a complete mess of my media files so I uninstalled it. I don't really want to go through that again. If I could find something that would just stream files without touching anything else I would give it a go.

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robjg63

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#1286706 18-Apr-2015 09:48

Just create a folder on your main PC and share it in windows.
Drop a couple of test video files in the folder.

If your pipo and PC are on the same network/group you should be able to 'see' the shared folder and open it and play the media files.

Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself - A. H. Weiler

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#1286945 18-Apr-2015 19:33

Internet Connection Speed Recommendations

Below are the Internet download speed recommendations per stream for playing movies and TV shows through Netflix.

    0.5 Megabits per second - Minimum broadband connection speed
    1.5 Megabits per second - Recommended broadband connection speed
    3.0 Megabits per second - Recommended for SD quality
    5.0 Megabits per second - Recommended for HD quality

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Rikkitic

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#1286951 18-Apr-2015 19:56

Thanks heaps for that. It is very useful. Because my connection is slow, I have it set to display KB/s. When I convert that, HD works out to 625 KB/s, which is well within my range. The speed varies a lot, but when streaming or downloading it can easily hit 600+ KB/s and sometimes goes over 1,000 KB/s, which equals 8 Mb/s. That is within the stated limit of my connection, which is 8-10 Mb/s.

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Rikkitic

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#1287174 19-Apr-2015 13:19

Okay, I have a little more insight into my problem, though I’m no closer to a solution. I get very frustrated by my lack of in-depth technical knowledge when it comes to something like this. I keep feeling the clues are shouting at me but I just can’t make sense of them.

I have finally moved far enough past my disappointment to be able to think a little more clearly about this. I had the bright idea to install Netlimiter on the Pipo. It has the advantage over other speed monitors that it shows you all the individual traffic under each process. I was wondering, as others have suggested, if background processes or automatic updates were causing my issue. What I immediately learned from Netlimiter is that this is not happening. There are no other hidden processes eating my bandwidth.

What does happen, about 30 minutes into the video, is that all data transfer stops completely for a very long time. Everything drops to zero. The video continues to play with no noticeable difference, either good or bad, but by this time it is already very choppy and constantly freezing every few frames. There seems to be no connection between this behaviour and the download speed.

Average download speed for the first 20 minutes or so of the video was normal, between 200-300 kB/s until it dropped to zero. Even so, the video was choppy and freezing.

After this test I immediately repeated it with my desktop computer. Same connection, through a LAN switch, both computers side by side. The desktop shows the same continuous download speed as the Pipo, between 300-400 kB/s on average. Picture is generally smooth with almost no stutters or choppiness. Late in the video I do notice very occasional brief freezing for just a frame or two but it recovers almost immediately and then continues normally. I assume this has to do with dropped frames or not quite being able to keep up with the data but it is nothing at all like what is happening with the Pipo. For consistency I have been using the same video on all tests, which is the first episode of Poldark on ABC iview.

On the basis of these results, I think this has to have something to do with a buffering or memory issue on the Pipo but I don’t know how to take this any further. One thing I notice is that the Pipo has a version of Adobe player integrated into the OS, while it is a separate download that can be updated on my desktop. I don’t know if this makes any difference.

Apart from the hardware differences between the computers, the desktop is running Win7 and the Pipo 8.1. The Pipo is my first experience with 8.1 and I know little about this OS. Could this problem have anything to do with the way this Windows version works, or is likely to be a hardware issue? I just don’t know and I’m not sure what to try next.

Edit: Average download speed was a little higher overall on the desktop, but I don't think the difference is great enough to be significant.

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robjg63

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#1287558 20-Apr-2015 10:00

Hmm - did you confirm that you have installed all the latest windows updates - including any 'optional' drivers - network for example?

Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself - A. H. Weiler

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#1287578 20-Apr-2015 10:28

Just doing that now. When the problem first occurred, I was so freaked I just rushed around switching off everything I could think of that might be involved. I also turned off Windows updates without bothering to download them first. Then I forgot about it. This morning I finally remembered and the Pipo is rebooting as I write this. Don't know if it will make any difference but I will try the tests again. Yesterday I let the browser keep running after it froze for the last time just to see what would happen and the computer eventually slowed way down, to the point where it would take several minutes to respond to a mouse click. Several days ago when I was running diagnostics, Task Manager reported the CPU as only running at about 2% or 3% load. Same thing when the computer slowed way down, but fortunately I had the core temperature program running. It said temperatures were normal but did report that all four cpu cores were at 100%. Something strange is certainly going on here.

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#1288361 21-Apr-2015 11:31

The Pipo seems to be working better now. I installed every Windows update I could find, including some driver updates, and I also disabled some unnecessary services to minimise CPU load. Don’t which helped, if any, don’t care. All I do care about is that we were finally able to stream a film last night and it worked the way it was supposed to! Hallelujah.

I cannot yet say if this is the end of the story. I hope so but I will have to see how this works over time. At the moment it seems to be working. If it carries on like this, I will probably fall in love with it all over again. I have been through digital hell trying to figure out what the problem with this was but when it does work, it is a neat little box. On that basis I would still recommend it, but make sure you download all Windows updates before doing anything else.

I really, really hope this is the end of the story. Thank you to everyone who tried to help me with this. I am very grateful for your efforts. It always helps hugely, at least psychologically, when a burden like this can be shared.

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SepticSceptic

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#1288558 21-Apr-2015 14:59

Don't forget to advise the supplier :-)

littleheaven

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#1288940 22-Apr-2015 09:15

Hopefully it was just a graphics driver and now it's up to date, your woes will be over. I'm very interested in how these perform, being in the market for a Windows TV box myself, so please do keep us updated on how it's going.

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#1289073 22-Apr-2015 11:13

littleheaven: Hopefully it was just a graphics driver and now it's up to date, your woes will be over. I'm very interested in how these perform, being in the market for a Windows TV box myself, so please do keep us updated on how it's going.

What has made this so difficult for me to get a handle on is the number of variables involved. We have a slow internet connection and I have no prior experience with Windows 8.1 and the hardware of the Pipo is also unknown to me since it is all 'integrated' so it was bewildering to try to pin down what was actually going on. I also seemed to get conflicting results from different diagnostic software. Trying to communicate with the Chinese suppliers also hasn't been easy. Last night we had some choppiness issues with certain YouTube videos and Arte, though nowhere nearly as bad as before. Was our connection just overloaded that time of the evening? How do you tell? I tried reducing video quality but it didn't seem to make any difference. I had a guest who used her phone on our wi-fi connection at the same time and that seemed okay so I'm still not sure what is actually going on. From the reading I have done different people do seem to have different issues with the Pipo, but it's hard to get a clear picture. Apparently the Ethernet port is not supposed to be very well designed. I did not previously see any difference between that and the wi-fi but I will try the wi-fi again tonight. Stay tuned.

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robjg63

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#1289114 22-Apr-2015 11:42

Thats why it would be a good idea if you could take the internet issue out of the picture while trying to isolate the problem.
Either stream a video from a USB stick - test that the graphics etc are ok and that it runs smooth
And/Or try streaming over your internal network (off another PC) - makes sure there is no way your internet connection is causing issues.

It seems the PIPO X7 ethernet port shares the USB ports and is not super fast.
Some people have stopped using the built in ethernet port and used a USB to ethernet converter (~$20)
http://www.pbtech.co.nz/index.php?z=p&p=ADPSTL24877&name=STLab-U-660-USB-2.0-to-Fast-Ethernet-AdapterBlack-
Seems to have sorted the ethernet port problem for those that had it.

Apparently the Wifi doesnt share the USB ports and is known to be able to perform better than the ethernet connection - which is of course the opposite of most computing devices.

Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself - A. H. Weiler

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#1289130 22-Apr-2015 11:48

The PIPO has some interesting quirks. Put it down to the likely shortcuts in its design and manufacture.

I struck Ethernet issues last night trying to use my PIPO to encode shoutcast streams. Trying to encode three different formats causes packet loss to listeners. The CPU is not taxed in any way. Drop it back to two encode formats and it's fine.

There's reports that WiFi works better. Some others on forums have had success with external USB network cards.

The inbuilt Ethernet itself is a USB one (you can even 'eject' it via the taskbar in Windows.

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#1289180 22-Apr-2015 12:13

robjg63: Thats why it would be a good idea if you could take the internet issue out of the picture while trying to isolate the problem.
Either stream a video from a USB stick - test that the graphics etc are ok and that it runs smooth
And/Or try streaming over your internal network (off another PC) - makes sure there is no way your internet connection is causing issues.

You have suggested this before and it is a good idea. I just haven't got to it yet. Our computers at home are not networked. Because of the layout of our house and the way we use computers (no gaming) we have never seen the need. Now we do have some ethernet cabling to different parts of the house (wi-fi won't reach) so in principle we could do this. What I did do early on was just play a recorded video off a usb stick to make sure the internal graphics were working properly and that was fine.

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