bpa In the interests of science, I did some further tests:
Removed the SB from the network, then, using shared folders on the
PC and a laptop (PC cabled to network; laptop wirless to network)...
1. Copied a c. 7 Mb file from PC to laptop. Netstat showed 4912
retransmits
2. Copied the same
Hi Adrian,
I'll try to summarise the situation - with fresh eyes you might see
something.
The problem we're chasing is breakdown of the BBC mms stream on the SB
- the same stream plays with no problem on the PC.
Although SB plays music from PC fine but there are a high number of
retransmits.
Bryan,
Logic seems reasonable - I was only really questioning the NetTest
suggestions. [3000 at 100% is what I get for wireless - to a real
squeezebox, are your higher rates to softsqueeze by any chance?]
NetTest tries to send data at the defined rate into the control TCP
connection and
bpa / triode Update: I just put the SB back in its place downstairs
(PC router are upstairs). SB picked up the wireless network
instantly.
But I got odd results with the Network Test plugin. For the first
time ever, I could not get 100% above 1000kbps; and even at 1000kbps,
there was
bpa;145124 Wrote:
...I suggest
1. Using Softsqueeze or AlienBBC mplayer test to set up a RealAudio
session between PC and BBC (i.e. no WIfi). Check TCP stats at start and
end.
2. With no other internet traffic to/from PC. Play an audio file on SB
and look at TCP stats at the beginning
The Reset statistic is hard to judge but the retransmit number is a sure
sign of data being lost. These tests say that data is lost on your Wifi
link and not your ISP link.
For internet streams this is significant because data will have to be
retransmitted from the source and so you get choppy
I was afraid it would come up with a good figure but it confirms the
signal strength.
I'm not sure how the SB's net test works and how it handles retransmits
but I don't think the result contradicts the retransmit statistics
finding as I can get 5000kb @ 100% on my SB with signal strength 81%.
Assuming wireless, 3000kpbs at 100% seems reasonable to me. Key issue
is whether it drops below this occasionally?
--
Triode
Triode's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=17
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bpa;144409 Wrote:
The significant ones in terms of quality would be connection resets
and packets retransmitted.
A connection is reset usually after timeouts and basically
unrecoverable error in communications.
If a packet is lost due to error, network load etc, then it has to be
bpa;145058 Wrote:
Interesting results but to interpret them correctly I need to know:
1. What version of Slimserver are you running ?
2. The SB uses wireless to the router ?
3. The PC uses wireless or wired to the router ?
bpa
SS = 6.3.1 8468
SB uses wireless to router
PC is wired to
I forgot to say that with 'listen again' streams from AlienBBC Radio4
retransmits are c. 9/sec as compared with 50+/sec with live streams.
--
Diana
--
Diana
Diana's Profile:
Sorry - some more background explanation on how SB works.
With 6.3 mms streams - Slimserver sets up the stream and the SB talks
to the mms stream direct - the PC has no part except to update the
screen/ change volume etc.
In your Winamp mms test - all data is between the PC and BBC so the TCP
bpa Thanks for your helpful reply. As it's a bit late now, I'll try
the tests you suggest tomorrow.
--
Diana
--
Diana
Diana's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=7463
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bpa Thanks for this. I tried the URLs (using Radio Tune In): the
buffer filled up, but the stream did not start (I waited 15 mins at
first!). But putting a URL in Firefox starts Media Player, and the
stream plays beautifully. And I can play them fine in WinAmp. Any
idea why SS/SB won't play
Good news that it works.
The Radio 4 ASX has 4 URLs - usually for load sharing - SB may just be
choosing the first one and the one most heavily used, so try the bottom
ones first and see if it makes a difference.
The other possibility is to go to Server Setting/ Filetypes and uncheck
the
bpa You're a star! The last URL works with the built-in windows
media turned off. I'm going to leave it running for a while to see how
it holds up. Do you have similar URL information for the other BBC
channels? Thanks ever so much for all your help with this.
--
Diana
--
Diana
Warning: I think these ASX URLs are BBC trials - so they may disappear
without notice.
Radio 1
mms://wmlivegeo.bbc.net.uk/wms/radio1/radio1_nb_e1s1
mms://wmlivegeo.bbc.net.uk/wms/radio1/radio1_nb_e1s2
mms://wmlivegeo.bbc.net.uk/wms/radio1/radio1_nb_e2s1
bpa Sadly, the URLs you sent are showing the same phenomena as the
AlienBBC ones. The live streams work fine with media players on the PC
itself - they play for hours; but mplayer shows buffer depletion with
RealPlayer streams; and the wma streams playing through SS/SB also
fall over after no
mplayer is mainly designed to play files and not streams and so its
handling of network errors is minimal. There was a long running bug
with Live RealAudio and it was only fixed when I tracked it down. So
unless there is somebody who can produce the problems and track it down
- mplayer will be
bpa;144367 Wrote:
...In your situation, I think you should monitor your network connectons
for errors and resets... If you have significant number of errors, talk
to your ISP.
bpa Thanks for your advice. I'm afraid I really am a novice at
this, so I hope it won't try your patience after
On Windows open a Cmd prompt window and the command netstat -s -p TCP
will give a snapshot of TCP statistics. To see changes you need to do
the same command and look to see which counters have increased.
The significant ones in terms of quality would be connection resets
and packets
Thanks. Will do as you suggest. Very best wishes
--
Diana
--
Diana
Diana's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=7463
View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=28257
I don't know the numbers very well but I think [EMAIL PROTECTED] is normally
good enough for FLAC so if you selected only MP3 for RTSP streams and
you are getting choppy audio then the problem is probably not simple
signal strength.
A better description of choppy audio would help especially
bpa 'Choppy' covers a few things. First, listening to BBC4FM, there
are little pops and clicks in the stream - tiny breaks that clip off a
consonant or a syllable in a word; but not enough to interfere
seriously with intelligibility.
Then there are much rarer breaks of a few seconds, when the
Part of your problems sounds like a problem with the stream from the BBC
since it affects the live stream much more than Listen Again. You could
test this by using mplayer direct in your PC to the same source.
By their very nature, the live streams cannot buffer data in case of
network errors,
bpa I've done the test as you suggested with mplayer direct, and it
performed just as you described, as the buffer gradually depleted.
This was with BBC Radio 4 at about midnight (so very off-peak!). As I
understand what you said, this is a characteristic of local network
servers, and I guess
If you are based in the UK you could try these URL - they are BBC Live
using WMA not RealAudio streams. WMA will be handled by SB directly
and may handle network problems differently.
As I am outside the UK they do not work for me but I believe they are
very very slow to start up.
If they
bpa;143428 Wrote:
...However before doing that _ I would suggest doing a network test and
find out what the data rate to your player are as I suspect your choppy
BBC may be due to something else.
bpa Thanks for your help, and all the time you're spending on
helping a newbie! I ran the
Re Network test - Easiest way is to navigate via the player (remote
control) interface to Plugins - Network Test.
When in this screen find the highest data rate which shows 100% - this
is the fastest rate that the server is able to send to the player at.
What do you see?
--
Triode
Triode;143598 Wrote:
Re Network test - Easiest way is to navigate via the player (remote
control) interface to Plugins - Network Test.
When in this screen find the highest data rate which shows 100% - this
is the fastest rate that the server is able to send to the player at.
What do you
bpa;143218 Wrote:
...
Under Player Settings/Audio - there is the Bit rate Limiting setting
which will force streams from the Slimserver not to exceed the limit.
bpa Sorry for being thick about this (not very technical, I fear),
but are you saying that setting the bit rate limiting to a
The bit rate limit will affect all streams from slimserver to the
affected player. This means all file type such as MP3, FLAC, WMA would
be transcoded to the lower rate.
Separately, if the BBC is choppy using the default FLAC setting, then
changing the RTSP-MP3 will only affect the BBC stream.
I appreciate your suggestions. Since my SoftSqueeze player (hard wired)
on the PC works perfectly, I think that the problem is most likely, as
you sense, a mediocre signal (38-42%)in one particular room which also,
not coincidentally, has a poor cordless telephone signal. I am told that
this is
Hello again, BPA. I did install LAME and changed the file formats as you
suggested. This is indeed a vast improvement for AlienBBC in my
apartment, although there is the occasional burp (excuse me!) so far.
Since you are a SB guru, can you tell me if the server setting for
streaming radio should
A test and possible cure would be to use MP3 instead of FLAC. Make sure
lame is installed. Go to Server Setting/Filetype and uncheck RTSP-WAV
and RTSP-FLAC and press change. This should only leave RTSP-MP3 as
the only RTSP option checked. Now try to listen to BBC.
bpa More very helpful
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