[mythtv-users] Resolved, mostly: HD Choppy or Jerky

[Dick Steffens]

On 02/01/2014 08:49 PM, Dick Steffens wrote:
> I have come up with a test that I hope will help determine if network 
> speed is the issue.
> <snip>
> My plan is to move the HDHomeRun Prime to the living room, using a 
> splitter there so it shares the RG-mumble cable feeding my old Comcast 
> cable box. Connect the Ethernet side of the HDHomeRun Prime to the 
> 10/100/1000 switch. Connect the Lenovo M58P to that same switch. Leave 
> the connection to the router on that switch, too, since both of the 
> other devices need DHCP from the router.
>
> If my assumption is correct, short, un-kinked CAT-5 cables going from 
> the switch to the HDHomeRun Prime and my Lenovo should operate at 1000 
> when talking to each other. The only time they would operate at 100 
> would be while getting their IP assignment, or when the Lenovo needed 
> to talk to the outside world.

As it turns out I did not have a 10/100/1000 switch like I thought. I 
moved the HDHomeRun Prime down to the living room and hooked it up as 
described above, but with just a 10/100 switch. There actually was a 
slight improvement, but not good enough to watch the game. I got a 
10/100/1000 switch today and swapped it out with the 10/100 one. It 
makes a difference, but doesn't completely clean things up. There are 
still video drop outs, and out of sync sound, but to a lesser degree 
than before the 10/100/1000 switch went in. I'm still using the 
HDHomeRun Config GUI to connect to a station. It's definitely not 
convenient, but it works. One advantage of it is that it has some signal 
strength indicators that I can observe. Here are two examples:

Physical Channel qam256:76 has channels 703 - KRCW HD, 712 - KPTV HD, 
304 - ANTENNA, and 303 - THISTV. The signal strength is shown in red and 
floats between 65 and 66%. The signal quality is shown in yellow and 
floats between 52 and 53%. The Symbol Quality is shown in green and 
stays at 100%.

Physical Channel qam256:14 has channels 709 - WGN-HD, 710 KOPB HD, and 
310 - OPBPLUS KOPB2. The signal strength is shown in yellow and stays 
around 80%. The signal quality is shown in green and floats between 98 
and 100%. The Symbol Quality is shown in green and stays at 100%.

As you would expect from those numbers, a program on 710 is much cleaner 
than one on 712. 710 is clean enough to call good enough -- no obvious 
video drop outs, and the audio is in sync.

712, on the other hand, had video drop outs and out of sync audio. It 
was better than yesterday, but still not good enough to watch a program. 
712 is FOX in this market, and was the channel the Super Bowl was on. We 
watched it on the standard definition transmission channel.

There may be something Comcast can do to improve this, but I'm not 
inclined to pursue that until I have MythTV working, since now that the 
football season is finished there is unlikely to be anything on the 
local HD channels we'd want to see other than something on OPB. And OPB 
comes in nice and clean. Plus I don't have any problem with the standard 
definition channels.

So for now, I'm going to declare this issue resolved, mostly, and move 
on to getting MythTV working. But that's for another thread.

Thanks again to all for your input and advice.

-- 
Regards,

Dick Steffens