[mythtv] Video library playback using 802.11g wireless network

Eskil Brun eskil at eskil.net
Wed Jul 13 07:21:27 EDT 2005


After googling and searching the mythtv mailing lists I have not  
found an answer to the following:

I have just set up a mythtv backend (2.4ghz P4 with two pvr150 cards)  
that works just fine. Great work, guys!

I use a 802.11g wireless network in my house. So far this has been  
sufficient.

I have been using mythfrontend on my macintosh Powerbook.

Playing around with encoding and transcoding settings, I have found  
out that MPEG4 with 1 megabit of transfer rate will give me  
acceptable quality.

Using the mythfrontend, playback will abort and return to the  
frontend anywhere from a few minutes to a few seconds after starting.

In the log on the backend I get this message:

     WriteBlock zerocnt timeout

Using HTTP for streaming the .nuv file from my backend to VLC on my  
powerbook, playback is flawless and uninterrupted.

Since I can use the frontend with a 100MB ethernet connection (i have  
a switch) to my backend with no problem, I assume that the unregular  
data rate of my wireless network combined with insufficient video  
buffering is causing this.

Both my frontend hosts have 1GB of system memory and I would like to  
increase the buffering capacity of the mythfrontend software.
Since my wireless network is fully capable of 1 megabit rate in  
average (but not substained) this should solve my playback problems.

My question is: Is this not possible due to how the frontend player  
works? I know little about its workings.
If possible, any hints to where in the source code I could try out  
increasing buffer capacity would be helpful.
Also, any comments about about what I would like to do is welcome.

Also, where could I change the behaviour of the frontend from  
aborting? Is it the backend aborting the stream?

I could go diving in to the source code myself, but I would very much  
like some advice.

Eskil...
:-)


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