Stuttering playback on PS3

[Prydonian]

Hello! I'm hoping you guys can help me as this problem is driving me insane.

I'm having serious playback issues. On a great number of files the playback stutters to the point of unwatchability. It It'll run perfectly for a minute or two, then the video begins to stop and start. If we pause during this process it seems to give us another couple of minutes of playback, then it happens again. I have a million theories but no reason to believe any of them... Can anyone recommend a solution? Any help would be enormously appreciated.

Thanks!

[Prydonian]

Here's the log. Please, please, please help me out?

[Nadahar]

I run UMS on Windows and have a PS3 just like you, but haven't noticed any such problems (but it should be said that I haven't watched that many movies on it either). From a quick look at your log file I see some things that's different from my setup though.

• You don't runt UMS as an administrator. That shouldn't matter, but I've found that not everything functions as well without administrator permissions - probably because the devs that tested whatever feature run it as administrator. I could be worth a try.
• You have the network setting set to wireless. Please make sure to only use that if you're actually streaming via wireless. Wireless networks have a narrow bandwidth and can't carry quality streams. This shouldn't lead to stuttering, but I see that it's different from my setup.
• You're running a custom version of ffmpeg: C:\Program Files\Universal Media Server\win32\dvrms\ffmpeg_MPGMUX.exe which seem to be quite old (2010?). This could be the culprit, is there a reason why you do this? According to the author of ffmpeg_MPGMUX:

  It was built specifically to mux dvr-ms files into the MPG container. It really shouldn't be used for anything else (that's why I changed the name so it was specific to MPG muxing).

I can also see from the log that UMS loose the connection with UMS quite often. Is your network working properly? Wireless networks often have high packet loss due to poor coverage or interference with other radio devices. If it's at all possible, I would test with a cable connection from the server to the PS3 to see if your network is the culprit.

[Prydonian]

Hi, Nadahar! Thanks very much for your reply!

I should point out that my expertise in this area is extremely limited. UMS is running more or less as it installed, with no changes from me. I don't actually know how to set it to run as an administrator - I looked around, but couldn't find a setting to alter. I am running wirelessly, with my router in another room. For that reason I'm not really able to test it with a cable as it would have to be a very long cable indeed, but I don't have connection issues with any of my other wireless devices that I'm aware of. I do occasionally experience lag when running Netflix through the PS3, but connection tests always yield satisfactory results. If that is the issue I wouldn't know how to go about improving it...

As for ffmpeg, I can honestly say I don't know what that is! It wasn't something I consciously installed. Can you perhaps assist me in updating it? I've just downloaded the latest version from ffmpeg.org, but having unzipped it I have absolutely no idea what to do with it. If you could talk me through the process I'd be very grateful.

Thanks again, very much, for the help!

[Nadahar]

Running a program as an Administrator is done from Windows, it's not UMS specific. Simply right click on the UMS icon when starting it and click "Run as Administrator". In some instances you have to hold SHIFT while right clicking for the option to show, but I'm not exactly sure what criterias decide this.

Debugging a wireless network isn't easy, that's why I always install cables and network outlets in every room You could however make sure that you have good signal strength, the lower signal quality the more packet loss you and packet errors you will experience. TCP packets will resend on error, making it just seem slow while UDP packets will simply be dropped or be received with corrupt content. There are some obvious things with wireless networks everyone should be aware of though:

• Babycalls, walkie-talkies, garage openers or pretty much any other radio device operating on the unlicensed (that is, you don't need a license to use it) bands can intefer. These rules will vary from country to country though, but almost all "consumer" radio devices use the non-licensed bands to be able to sell to as many countries as possible. Wifi uses the very same frequencies.
• Think or massive walls can severly interrupt the signals.
• You could be using the same band/frequency as neighbours do on their Wifi, creating interference. Most routers allow you to choose between a handful "channels"/frequencies. If you have an unreliable connection, try another channel.

For more advanced diagnostics you'd have to read up on it, since I stay clear of Wifi if I can and haven't really studied it much.

As for Netflix I would think that a Netflix stream is of a much lower bitrate than one from UMS, so a limited bandwidth could manage to handle Netflix but not being able to handle higher bitrate streams. There are many Wifi standards, but the most common one today is probably IEEE 802.11g. That gives 54 mbps theoretical bandwidth, which could easily be saturated while streaming local media content. Netflix can't use anything like that, or they would have a very small customer base (not many people have 54 mbps internet connections).

When it comes to ffmpeg, it should be installed when you install UMS. The problem is that your configuration file points to an alternative version than that installed by UMS. You could just comment out this line in your UMS.conf file:

Code: Select all

alternativeffmpegpath =C:\\Program Files\\Universal Media Server\\win32\\dvrms\\ffmpeg_MPGMUX.exe

Comment out means addind a # at the start of the line, making UMS think it's just a comment and not to read it:

Code: Select all

#alternativeffmpegpath =C:\\Program Files\\Universal Media Server\\win32\\dvrms\\ffmpeg_MPGMUX.exe

Your config file can be found at "C:\ProgramData\UMS\UMS.conf" or you can edit it from within UMS clicking "Edit UMS configuration manually" on the General Settings tab.

[ExSport]

@Nadahar: As path says, this special build is used for "dvrms" files. So if UMS detects such files, special build is used as general one didn't work on them.
Maybe time changed and latest general builds supports "dvrms" files natively without problems. Then it will be useless to use this old build and can be removed.
But it is probably question on @Subjunk as if I remember right, he was the person who coded this hack/workaround in past.

[Nadahar]

@ExSport No, I discovered that it's like you say after I wrote this. The alternative FFmpeg path is a standard UMS setting set by UMS, but I've never seen it before and thought that it was non-standard. As long as it's just a "backup transcoder" is shouldn't to any harm, but I interpreted it like it would replace ffmpeg.

[Prydonian]

Darn, I was really hoping the ffmpeg avenue was going to be the way to go.

I have no idea what to do... If it's a network problem, the only one on that list of possibilities it could be would be interference from a neighbor's frequency, but I don't know how to change that. I've poked around the settings for my router and found no options...

I did try adjusting the UMS bandwidth to 30, as suggested in another thread, but to no avail.

What I don't understand is why this would be a greater problem on some files, mostly older ones, and not others. Any thoughts?

By way of additional helpful information, I also had this problem with TVersity, which is why I upgraded to UMS. I had hoped the former program was the problem. Weirdly, when I first installed it, UMS was able to play the first file I tried that had been stuttering on TVersity, but each subsequent file has had the problem.

Thanks again, guys.

[Nadahar]

I don't know how much work it would be, but I'd try to temporary move either the computer or the PS3 to the other room just to try a cable connection to see if the problem is network related.

Another possibility is that the computer hardware is simply to weak to do the transcoding, or that you have too many other programs running. It doesn't take a lot, but transcoding requires some "power" to be delivered in real time. This would actually make sense from your sympthoms, since UMS builds up a buffer when it starts transcoding (that is, transcodes some seconds and keeps it in memory before starting to send it). This is to assure smooth playback even if the transcoding computer have limited resources for a brief moment. It could be that your computer manages to transcode a little bit slower than playback rate only, and it goes well in the beginning because the buffer is full. Slowly the buffer empties, and then the computer simply can't deliver fast enough and you get stuttering.

I don't know how much CPU you'd need to transcode a typical file live, but it's no more than what "normal" computers can do. If it's very starved of memory causing it to swap memory to disk, that could also be a factor and ofcourse a very slow harddrive or harddrive connection could pose a problem (like runnin a hardrive via USB). I don't know anything about your setup, so this is just general speculation, but you could have a simple lack of power.

[Prydonian]

Sorry for the late reply; for some reason the forum's not notifying me when there are posts!

Nadahar, that is exactly what I had been thinking. But then this next thing happened!

Here's an interesting wrinkle: working on a theory that the PS3 itself might be the problem, I tried downloading Plex and streaming to my Roku. It worked! Worked like a charm, nary a stutter. I have no idea why and would love to solve it, but somehow the PS3 is the weak link in this chain.

Assuming I can't fix it, I don't mind streaming to the Roku... the only problem being, of course, that I hate Plex. Is there any way to stream from UMS to my Roku?