Serviio

Hi all,

I just encountered and successfully tested a major improvement for the built-in DLNA streaming on LG OLED TVs - you can buy a specific CableMatters USB Gigabit Ethernet adapter which Web OS apparently contains integrated driver support for, and you simply use this instead of the disappointing built-in wired 100Mb network connection. You won't get the full gigabit throughput, but you will notice a significant improvement: around 250Mb is achievable which is more than enough to play 1:1 UHD disc rips without issue. With this there's basically no need to buy an nVidia Shield, removing a lot of AV setup complexity for the rest of the family.

I can play the 140Mb Jelly Fish test clip fine on the TV's Photo & Video DLNA client app served from Serviio for instance with no buffering nor dropouts. Bear in mind that the UHD Bluray disc spec is up to 128Mb so in theory all UHD rips now ought to be playable. Another bonus of this external NIC is that I noticed I could also scan through some high bitrate MKV files that previously could only be stopped or started.

I did find that even with this fix some of the store UHD demos still stutter a little bit (itself a big improvement, yet these play fine off USB mass storage) so I presume that these particular clips contain very high but transient bandwidth peaks which likely exceed the disc spec (e.g. Sony Mont Blanc demo stutters consistently at the point the helicopter enters frame, whether using Plex Media Server plus Plex app, or Serviio and Photo & Video app).

Oddly this discovery has highlighted that 2017 and earlier models have a single USB 3.0 port (side) and two USB 2.0 ports (rear), but sadly the 2018 or newer models are limited to USB 2.0 only for all three ports. USB 2.0 has a 480Mb overall bus speed, and other components like the wifi controller reportedly share this bus, hence a real world network bandwidth much lower than this. I have a 2018 B8 so it's possible the benefit may be even greater on a 2017 TV for instance.

When you use the external NIC the TV doesn't show any status for it (Internal NIC shows as disabled) but all of the TV's WebOS apps (e.g. Netflix, Amazon, BBC iPlayer) continue to work fine.

And the beauty is that this NIC only costs £10.99 from Amazon!

I found the info on the WebOS forum here. Details of retailers in other countries for confirmed working products, and availability of the white external NIC can be found there (Amazon Europe only seems to have black - no such a good match for the white plastics of the 2017 TV rear).

There is of course a danger that this driver support and secret functionality could be removed from future WebOS firmware versions, so be cautious updating until continued support is confirmed.

Enjoy!

That's a super find. It would be nice if I could do that with my Roku TV, as it too maxes out at Fast Ethernet and buffers with my UHD rips. They seem to top out around 120-140 Mbps.

That said, there's still plenty of reasons to go with a Shield. It plays everything I have in every container without transcoding, it supports embedded EIA closed captions (as well as all other sort of captions), and most importantly supports lossless audio, including TrueHD/Atmos and DTS:X. Using either MrMC or Kodi, it's not too difficult for the family to figure out how to use it. Once I do all the hard work configuring it, there's really no problem for others to use it.

The LG OLEDs play everything natively, support subs even external SRTs, and support TrueHD and Atmos over DLNA - so the bandwidth was the only constraint. I don't have a receiver, but I've checked the audio tracks in FFMpeg and they do play. It's definitely not skipping them and selecting an inferior quality track, it shows the Atmos logo. For instance sometimes the lossy 5.1 tracks are in another language and I can see that the Atmos one is the only English one.

It may play the TrueHD track, but my guess is all it's doing is extracting the lossy DD signal from within it. Many devices do that for DTS Master Audio, but I've never heard of one doing it with TrueHD. Neat that it shows the Atmos logo, but without an AVR with Atmos support, or if the TV somehow processes a height channel, I'm not sure what it's doing with it. But that is impressive that it plays everything natively. My Nvidia Shield is the only player I have that does that.

That's really interesting. You say you don't have a home cinema reciever? So is atmos playing over the telly's internal speakers? I'm guessing so, as in your setup there's no way of getting lossless audio to a reciever from the TV (as there's no HDMI 2.1 and optical only does up to DTS)...also...subtitles. What format are the subtitles in in your files? in a 1:1 rip mine come are Vob Graphics and have trouble playing....the only other trouble I get is when the file is HDR10+ (which LG TVs spit at at the moment I think)

Thanks for the information.

Hi all,

Do you think that the bandwidth constraint is also present on LG B9 models ?
Thanks

I have a B9 and I think it does. I bought the adapter mentioned here and I can see improvements on the loading time. I was able to play UHD HDR Dolby Vision with the stock NIC, but it loads faster now. The down side of using the adapter is that you can't control your TV with the app.

On my LG OLED 55B6T, connecting via a gigabit Ethernet<>USB adapter in the USB 3 port won't play the 140Mbps jellyfish file from my media server via the built-in DLNA client without stuttering every couple of seconds. The switch reports that the adapter is connected at gigabit speed, so the bottleneck is presumably in the TV itself. I can stream the same file from the media server to my PC, and get no stuttering, which would also seem to point to the circuitry on the TV as the problem, and I also tested the gigabit Ethernet<>USB adapter with my laptop, where I can measure throughput, and although the laptop only has USB2 ports, it still achieved around 300Mbps on a large file copy, which again points the finger at the TV as being the bottleneck.

If you have media that can't be handled by Fast Ethernet (such as UHD movie rips), my personal opinion is you need to use a player with a Gigabit Ethernet connection. Since it has that fast of a network connection, it's likely also going to have a processor that can handle the bitrate as well. I have used the Nvidia Shield for several years, and it can play my UHD rips without issue. I get TrueHD Atmos/DTS:X height channels in the room with a compatible AVR, and whatever caption track my media has is displayed. I realize we all have Smart TVs that are supposed to handle all our playback, but I've never been satisfied with any brand's user interface. So even on my non-4K sets I have Roku players, which handle everything but my UHD rips.

My UHD movies have sustained bitrates under 100 Mbps, but many have peaks that exceed 150 Mbps, and that's where the Fast Ethernet chokes. But I honestly feel the higher quality TVs, especially the OLEDs, deserve a higher quality player than the TV itself has. Besides, a TV like that deserves a full surround sound audio system that supports lossless audio. Yes, the new eARC standard will stream the lossless audio back to a supporting AVR, but those AVRs are just now coming to market. And you still don't have the flexibility of an external player.

Folks,
I got that Cablematters USB to gigabit, and I am not seeing any improvement at all. It feels like USB adapter is stuck in 100Mbps state; full power cycle, rebooting the router, etc. - did not help.
However, when I connected the same adapter to my Windows 10 laptop, it easily clocked gigabit speeds. So the issue is not on the router or internet side... and performance measurements on PC are absolutely atrocious:
- all wired clients on the same network are clocking 920-1GBs internet speed, this damn thing get only 44MBps (instead of expected 200+)

The TV has to have drivers that support it at full speed. Sounds like it's lacking that, and unlike a computer you can't just add a new driver.

I will try to do a full reset of the TV, and lets see if that helps somehow. Man I feel I should register on LG forums and petition LG to add USB gigabit adapter proper support into WebOS (so for example it does not say it is not connected, etc.)
I am wondering if I should try another OEM version of the same Realtek USB to gigabit - could be a slight difference in FW settings... (LG, why the heck you could not put 1GB LAN on your top of the line uber expensive TVs?!)

UPDATE: reset did not help.