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Movie Stuttering How To Check System

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anniebody

Serviio lover

Posts: 78

Joined: Sat Nov 19, 2011 12:28 am

Post Sun Mar 14, 2021 4:06 pm

Movie Stuttering How To Check System

Hi
I only use Serviio for streaming movies from my PC to my Panasonic TV using wired Cat8 ethernet.
When playing movies the only activity on the ethernet is the movie playback.
I change the audio to DD and add it to the movie to prevent me having to transcode on the fly as my TV prefers DD and doesn't play DTS or Atmos.
When I play any movie I always get a short period of combined video and audio stuttering which lasts for 30 seconds or so. This stuttering can come anywhere during the movie playback and if I'm very unlucky occurs more than once.
If I rewind then replay that section again it doesn't stutter again, so I know the issue is not with the movie itself.
I want to find out if the issue is with the TV buffering or my PC.
I think that the PC may be periodically doing something that interferes with the data stream.
Does anyone know a way of checking to see if Serviio reports a streaming/communication error and what is causing this error?
Does anyone know of any software that I can install that checks Windows 10 x64 activity during the playback to see what the PC is doing?
Regards and thanks
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atc98092

User avatar

DLNA master

Posts: 5205

Joined: Fri Aug 17, 2012 10:22 pm

Location: Washington (the state)

Post Sun Mar 14, 2021 8:54 pm

Re: Movie Stuttering How To Check System

I don't know of any way to monitor Serviio functionality in operation. The sort of issue you're having is unlikely to be entered into the log.

As far as monitoring what the computer is doing during playback, Windows has an app called Task Manager. Just right-clink along the bottom menu bar and you will find a quick way to open the app. By default, it doesn't show much. But on the bottom edge it say More Detail, and if you click that you can see all sorts of operational information. You can see every running process, and how much memory and processor time it's using. If you click on the Performance tab, you can see in real time how hard the CPU is working, activity for all discs, memory and network usage.
Dan

LG NANO85 4K TV, Samsung JU7100 4K TV, Sony BDP-S3500, Sharp 4K Roku TV, Insignia Roku TV, Roku Ultra, Premiere and Stick, Nvidia Shield, Yamaha RX-V583 AVR.
Primary server: Intel i5-6400, 16 gig ram, Windows 10 Pro, 22 TB hard drive space | Test server Windows 10 Pro, AMD Phenom II X4 965, 8 gig ram

HOWTO: Enable debug logging HOWTO: Identify media file contents
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anniebody

Serviio lover

Posts: 78

Joined: Sat Nov 19, 2011 12:28 am

Post Tue Mar 16, 2021 11:45 am

Re: Movie Stuttering How To Check System

Dan
Thanks for the response.
The trouble with standard Windows tools like Task Manager is they don't record. You have to check within 60 seconds or you lose that recent data.
What I am looking for is a type of task manager that records and retains the information so I can investigate after watching the movie, rather than having to keep stopping and hoping to catch the data in time.
I'll trawl the internet and see what I can find.
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atc98092

User avatar

DLNA master

Posts: 5205

Joined: Fri Aug 17, 2012 10:22 pm

Location: Washington (the state)

Post Tue Mar 16, 2021 3:33 pm

Re: Movie Stuttering How To Check System

That's true, I didn't realize you wanted it monitoring in the background. . But Windows does also offer another monitor app. You have to access the legacy Admin Tools in the control panel, but there's something called Performance Monitor. You can set it up to monitor and log all sort of different parameters. You have to configure what you want, as there's really no templates. But that might provide what you're looking for.
Dan

LG NANO85 4K TV, Samsung JU7100 4K TV, Sony BDP-S3500, Sharp 4K Roku TV, Insignia Roku TV, Roku Ultra, Premiere and Stick, Nvidia Shield, Yamaha RX-V583 AVR.
Primary server: Intel i5-6400, 16 gig ram, Windows 10 Pro, 22 TB hard drive space | Test server Windows 10 Pro, AMD Phenom II X4 965, 8 gig ram

HOWTO: Enable debug logging HOWTO: Identify media file contents
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anniebody

Serviio lover

Posts: 78

Joined: Sat Nov 19, 2011 12:28 am

Post Sun Mar 28, 2021 7:27 pm

Re: Movie Stuttering How To Check System

I found an app called 'Bandwidth Monitor' that is free for thirty days, see http://www.bwmonitor.com/.
I am not associated with this app in any way!
This allows real time logging that you can start when playing the movie, as well as max. & min. over a period of time.
It would appear that when the stuttering occurs the speed is 102Mbps.
Further investigation and help from smallnet builder forum, see https://www.snbforums.com/
has pointed to my TV only having a 100Mbps ethernet connection, so my 1Gbps CAT8 is proving pretty useless with the TV!

As I only use DD+, I convert the original audio using Media Recode then add it to the original movie using MKVToolnix.
I don't really want to physically remove the higher audio in case I get a better system in the future.
Although I will try this on one test sample just to be sure this is the problem.

As I currently only use DD+ audio, which is all my TV will handle, is there a way to prevent Serviio from attempting to stream up to DD+ and not the unused audio, such as 7.1 atmos?
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atc98092

User avatar

DLNA master

Posts: 5205

Joined: Fri Aug 17, 2012 10:22 pm

Location: Washington (the state)

Post Sun Mar 28, 2021 7:38 pm

Re: Movie Stuttering How To Check System

Depending on your player, you should be able to select a different audio track from the stream. But it has to be something the player supports. At the moment my Roku devices are not allowing it, but my Shield players do.

Yes, very few streaming devices (TVs or players) have Gigabit Ethernet. I don't personally know if any TV with it. For players, the Shield and the Apple TV are the only two I know of. But it's possible you can get better than 100 Mbps if you use WiFi. 802.11g tops out at 56 Mbps, but .11n starts at 150 and has higher speeds from there. .11ac can exceed 1 Gbps with the proper equipment. Although on my own Gigabit network I can't get my Roku players to work as fast on WiFi as I can using Ethernet. So I simply don't watch my UHD rips on a Roku. Besides, they can't bitstream the high end audio anyway, so that's where the Shield comes in.
Dan

LG NANO85 4K TV, Samsung JU7100 4K TV, Sony BDP-S3500, Sharp 4K Roku TV, Insignia Roku TV, Roku Ultra, Premiere and Stick, Nvidia Shield, Yamaha RX-V583 AVR.
Primary server: Intel i5-6400, 16 gig ram, Windows 10 Pro, 22 TB hard drive space | Test server Windows 10 Pro, AMD Phenom II X4 965, 8 gig ram

HOWTO: Enable debug logging HOWTO: Identify media file contents
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anniebody

Serviio lover

Posts: 78

Joined: Sat Nov 19, 2011 12:28 am

Post Wed Apr 07, 2021 7:17 pm

Re: Movie Stuttering How To Check System

With thanks to everyone who replied I have found a solution.
As Bandwidth Monitor indicated, the streaming was being limited by the 100Mb ethernet on my TV.
I tried using WiFi instead of a wired connection and with some adjustments, trial and error, managed to get a speed of 450Mb.
The movies now play without stuttering and Bandwidth Monitor indicates the max. stream was 145Mb, so a 200Mb should be sufficient for audio streams above DD+, such as Atmos.
In the future, I'll be more aware of TVs that state 4K with DLNA, which are limited to 100Mb as clearly this configuration doesn't work with BluRay movies.
Regards

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