Sound is choppy, streaming from W2012R2

Hi All,

I would like to ask you if Serviio is fully supported on Windows Server 2012 R2? It is running fine, streaming music to my denon receiver is no problem but issue comes when I'm streaming MKV files to my Samsung UE55F8000 TV. First 20 - 30 minutes is everything smooth and nice after that sound is starting to be choppy, sometimes also video is suffering by this symptom but it is very little, main issue is with audio. Firstly I thought that issue is with my MKV files but then I installed Serviio also to my laptop and from there whole movies were smooth. I already updated all drivers to latest, tried to turn off RSS, chimney and offloading settings on my Windows 2012 but without success. Server is whole time of playing without load - CPU is under 10% and mem around 2GB in use from 8GB, disk usage is also minimal. Checked also NW adapter statistics and there are no errors. MKV birrate is around 10 - 15 mbs.

My Config is: Windows 2012 R2 Datacenter, HP Microserver G8 with Intel Celeron G1610T and 8GB ram, I'm using wired 1GBs network. Serviio ver 1.4.1.2.

Do you have any idea what could be wrong here? Any help appreciated.

Thanks,

David

[atc98092]

Hi All,

I would like to ask you if Serviio is fully supported on Windows Server 2012 R2? It is running fine, streaming music to my denon receiver is no problem but issue comes when I'm streaming MKV files to my Samsung UE55F8000 TV. First 20 - 30 minutes is everything smooth and nice after that sound is starting to be choppy, sometimes also video is suffering by this symptom but it is very little, main issue is with audio. Firstly I thought that issue is with my MKV files but then I installed Serviio also to my laptop and from there whole movies were smooth. I already updated all drivers to latest, tried to turn off RSS, chimney and offloading settings on my Windows 2012 but without success. Server is whole time of playing without load - CPU is under 10% and mem around 2GB in use from 8GB, disk usage is also minimal. Checked also NW adapter statistics and there are no errors. MKV birrate is around 10 - 15 mbs.

My Config is: Windows 2012 R2 Datacenter, HP Microserver G8 with Intel Celeron G1610T and 8GB ram, I'm using wired 1GBs network. Serviio ver 1.4.1.2.

Do you have any idea what could be wrong here? Any help appreciated.

Thanks,

David

While my server is an older version, I have no issues streaming MKV files, even HD with high bitstream. My Sony players don't require transcoding, so there's no work for the server. My Rokus do need transcoding, and they will sometimes pause to buffer the video. I see my CPU at 100% during transcoding for the Roku, although the server doesn't lose any responsiveness.

The one issue may be your CPU. Your Celeron only has two cores, while my server has four. That may be the difference. I have a lower powered test server with only a dual core, and I have on occasion seen some video choppiness. What is strange is that the audio is still fine.

I know nothing about Samsung displays. Perhaps there's something in the audio stream that is causing a hiccup? I have many Blu-ray rips with HD audio, and some play perfectly, while others will lock the player if I select the HD audio stream. What audio is causing a problem, AC-3, DTS, HD Audio?

Hi atc98092,

I'm also not transcoding video to my TV so this means there is no work to CPU, cpu is as low as 5 - 10 % usage on my server. I'm playing BD rip in 1080 resolution with 6 channel Dolby sound track. The same file is working smoothly when streaming via serviio from notebook or playing directly from USB plugged to TV. Issue only arrives when streaming this file from server.

By the time I have decreased serviio buffer from default value 65535 to 10000 and then to 1500 and it is better now, still few hick ups during playing but not as many as before. So something is still causing hick ups here.

David

I played around with Serviio and Server 2012 and it worked fine. I later put Win 7 Pro back because Win 2012 Server made a crappy desktop system. I reloaded it in VirtualBox for experimntal purposes.

Your 1080 BD with 6 channel audio might be stressing things a bit. Your Celeron hass a passmark score of about 2500. Check out your laptop to see if it's more powerful. That might be the problem. I need to Chromecast from a Google tab with at least a passmark of 3300. My 8GB laptop with passmark 1650 has very choppy audio with Chromecast from a tab. Some videos on the small laptop play good, some not so good. The little laptop has an A6-1450 while the bigger one has an i3-3120, also 8GB. My ARM tablet always plays fine. Go figure.

Also, did you check any logs to see if any other issues occurred at the same time as the start of the choppy audio?

Maybe the server desktop experience (or whatever they call it) has features that will assist? Is it active? When you turned on the audio service, does it have the best driver?

Hi Jim,

I was checking log and no other issues found. I know that this Celeron is not powerful but I'm not transcoding so my TV is just "reading" this movie file without any heavy stress for CPU of my server. On my laptop is i7 processor which is much more powerfull, but as I already mentioned I'm not transcoding. If this streaming would be CPU stressful then I would see CPU going higher up to 100% but it's not. I think this has something to do with some buffer maybe on network interface or somewhere.

David