I think the assumption that the "internal network is Ok" may be only half true. A lot of the BBC rebuffering / stuttering issues are to do with poorly performing DNS.
I think it is fair to say that most people dont really understand the importance of DNS or how it works (or more accurately doesn't work) in certain situations. A "normal" home network has its DNS settings for all the clients provided by the DHCP server in the router (that was probably provided FOC by your ISP and its ability reflects the cost). Assuming your router is 192.168.1.1. If you bring up a command prompt and do "ipconfig /all" you will probably see that your assigned DNS server is the same IP - 192.168.1.1. So your PC is using your router as its means of resolving IP addresses - except it isn't. The router is acting as a DNS relay and behind the scenes is sending your request to your ISPs DNS servers. Your PC and the router may also be doing some caching. The problem here is a) the Router is usually a low cost device and the DNS relay can often fail or be very slow and b) your ISPs DNS servers may not be the best in terms of speed. Bring up the command prompt again and do "nslookup" and hit enter - if you see 192.168.1.1 or whatever your router's IP address is then you have the above config. Now type at the new > you see - "www.bbc.co.uk" and hit enter. Judge for yourself the response time as the router goes off to your ISP's DNS server and passes on the result. Now type at the > prompt "server 8.8.8.8" and hit enter. What you are doing is switching your PC to temporarily use Google's public DNS server. Type "www.bbc.co.uk" at the > at hit enter. It is highly likely that you will see the speed difference for yourself. Ignore " marks - these are just for emphasis. To exit from nslookup type exit and hit enter and close the command prompt window. The upshot of all this is that you will almost certainly get better results if you use Google's public DNS servers - 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4. You can change the network settings on your PC from "Get DNS servers automatically" to these IPs or you could change the DHCP settings in your router if it allows you to do so. You may be very surprised at just how much faster the "whole internet" becomes just by changing DNS servers. NB Some other DNS servers are as a quick as Google's but don't assume your ISP's ones are. *Vortexbox LMS 7.9 music on QNAP TS419p via NFS* iThingys/iPeng/Tablets *Living Room* - SB3 -> Onkyo TS606 - > Celestion Ditton F20s - Zone 2 -> Sony TA FE 320 -> Sennheiser RS 130 & B&W P7 *Office* - RPi -> Sony TA FE320 -> Celestion F10s / SB3 -> Onkyo CRN 755 -> Wharfedale Modus Cubes *Dining Room* -> SB Boom *Kitchen* -> UE Radio (upgraded to SB Radio) *Bedroom (Bedside)* - SB Touch -> Topping TP21 -> AKG Headphones *Bedroom (TV)* - Amazon Fire TV (SB Player) -> Topping TP20 -> Wharfedale Modus Cubes ------------------------------------------------------------------------ d6jg's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=44051 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=106230 _______________________________________________ plugins mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/plugins
