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[maxl311]

When I use MC10.0.95 with TiVo HMO to stream radio with the following setup, all stations start hiccupping or skipping after less than 5 minutes of playback:

1. 802.11b wireless network between TiVo and Linksys wireless access point/router.
2. Media Server computer is connected to LAN using a 100bT wired connection to the access point/router.
3. 1.5mbps broadband connection to the Internet.
4. TiVo reports an "Excellent" wireless signal (above 90%) to the access point (which is in another room about 15-20 feet away).
5. I have a "Radio" playlist set up in MC10 that contains all of the stations with their URLs; most are for streaming MP3, but some are for streaming WMA. Bitrate of streams ranges from very low (< 20k) to relatively high (96K).
6. I start playing any of the streams (MP3 or WMA) and within 5 minutes I am experienceing significant hiccuping of the audio.

Now, my first thought was that this was a bandwidth issue with my wireless LAN or with the Internet, but I suspect that something else is going on specific to MC for the following reasons:

1. My wireless signal is very strong and 192kbps MP3 files stream just fine through Media Server.
2. The exact same radio streams played back with the exact same URLs set up with an M3U playlist published directly through the TiVo Desktop software (rather than via MC) never skip when I play them through the TiVo HMO. Same goes with playback through the TiVo Desktop using iTunes playlists on my G4 Mac and the TiVo HMO.

Any ideas what might be going on here with Media Server? I know the workaround is to set up playlists directly in the TiVo Desktop, but I'd rather do everything through MC, which is where I have all of my radio stations already set up.





Media Center Registered 10.0.95 -- C:\Program Files\J River\Media Center\

Microsoft Windows XP  Workstation 5.1 Service Pack 1 (Build 2600)
AMD Athlon 1990 MHz MMX / Memory: Total - 1048 MB, Free - 565 MB

Internet Explorer: 6.0.2800.1106 / ComCtl32.dll: 5.82 (xpsp1.020828-1920) / Shlwapi.dll: 6.00.2800.1400 / Shell32.dll: 6.00.2800.1233 (xpsp2.030604-1804) / wnaspi32.dll: 4.60 (1021) , ASPI for Win32 (95/NT) DLL, Copyright © 1989-1999 Adaptec, Inc. / Aspi32.sys: 4.60 (1021)

Ripping /   Drive E: ATAPI   CD-RW 52X24       Mode:Normal  Type:Auto  Speed:Max
  Digital playback: Yes /  Use YADB: Yes /  Get cover art: Yes /  Calc replay gain: Yes /  Copy volume: 32767
  Eject after ripping: Yes /  Play sound after ripping: No  

Burning /  Drive E: ATAPI    CD-RW 52X24        Addr: 1:0:0  Speed:48  MaxSpeed:52  BurnProof:Yes
  Test mode: No /  Eject after writing: Yes /  Direct decoding: Yes /  Write CD-Text: Yes
  Use playback settings: No /  Normalization: None

[John Gateley]

Do you get skipping if you play the radio station in Media Center on the Media Server machine?

Do you get skipping just playing mp3 files on the TiVo?

j

[maxl311]

Do you get skipping if you play the radio station in Media Center on the Media Server machine?

Do you get skipping just playing mp3 files on the TiVo?

Haven't noticed any skipping playing stations directly in Media Center on the Media Server machine.

MP3 files play fine via Media Server on the Tivo. Most of my MP3s are encoded at a bitrate of 160 or 192.


Also, just to see if it was a wireless LAN or Internet bandwidth issue, I installed MC on a PC laptop with a wireless card, pointed it to the Media Server, and plugged the laptop's audio output into the same stereo receiver input where the TiVo is located. In this setup using MC directly with Media Server, the radio stations stream just fine via the laptop's wireless connection.

Very puzzling behavior.

(Thanks, btw, for the quick response. I love how responsive all of you at JRiver are on this board! Also, you guys have an AWESOME product. Media Server is a great "extra" for your core product and for me was the product's selling point along with SmartLists. IMHO, Media Server would be close to perfect if it also updated the "last played" and "number of plays" data in the MC library and displayed cover art and other data such as ratings and last played in the TiVo HMO.)

[jimpmc]

I actually experience similar behavior with certain radio stations (most seem to be ones I found through Shoutcast).  

The radio station plays fine in Media Center on the PC, plays fine on the TiVo using TiVo desktop, but hiccups and stutters using Media Server.

-J

[maxl311]

Still getting this exact same skipping behavior in MC 10.0.098. Does anyone from JRiver have any idea why this is happening and if so, what a fix might be (not just a workaround)?

[John Gateley]

No, no ideas. Have you tried different radio stations from different servers? Do they all consistently fail?

Try unchecking the convert to mp3 option to see if that is causing it.

j

[maxl311]

No, no ideas. Have you tried different radio stations from different servers? Do they all consistently fail?

Try unchecking the convert to mp3 option to see if that is causing it.

j

When you say "different servers" do you mean setting up an alternative Media Server and seeing if the problem repros, or do you mean streaming audio from a number of different Internet servers? If you mean the former, then the answer is No, I haven't tried using Media Server on a different box. If you mean the latter, then the answer is Yes, my radio stations are all across the board from all over the world in a variety of bandwidths. I am located in Seattle, and even streams from local stations exhibit the problem (but only when played back through MC; they are just fine when I use TiVo Desktop).

One difference I do see is that Windows Media streams start skipping almost immediately (even the low bandwidth ones for which Media Server is reporting the stream at 22 kb/s (avg)), whereas MP3 streams take around 4-5 minutes before they start skipping and hiccuping.

I tried unchecking the convert to MP3 option in Media Server, but it didn't seem to make a difference.

[John Gateley]

What are you running on the server machine? I'm wondering if it is a resource problem. TiVo desktop is much smaller than Media Server.

j

[maxl311]

I don't think I'm running anything that is sucking up my resources too much -- just using the box for some e-mail and web browsing tasks beyond its function as my main MC and Media Server box. It is an Athlon 2400 with 1gb of DDR memory with a 7200rpm 160gb Western Digital hard drive with 8MB of cache. As long as I am not ripping MP3s via Media Center or doing anything else that is CPU-intensive, CPU utilization consistently stays below 10%, and memory usage consistently stays at less than 50% of physical memory.

Would my TiVo Desktop performance and cache settings be relevant here? Or is Media Server functioning completely independently of the TiVo Desktop software?
It almost seems to me that there might be a buffering issue somewhere, though whether it is client or server side would be the question. When you tell the TiVo HMO to open an audio stream, what happens at that point? Does the stream flow through Media Server? Or does the TiVo HMO connect directly to the Internet and begin streaming?

[John Gateley]

It may be bandwidth. Where is your broadband connection in the network? Media Server connects to the radio station, not TiVo, so that non-mp3 files can be converted to mp3.
What bitrate music are you playing?

j

[maxl311]

I don't think it's a bandwidth issue since the exact same streams using the exact same URLs (minus the WM streams) play fine when I put them in an M3U playlist, and add the playlist directly to the TiVo Desktop, and then play the streams through the TiVo HMO. These streams also play fine directly in Media Center on my server box. Also, I am streaming MP3 files encoded at CBRs of 160 and 192 just fine using Media Server with no hiccups.

It sure seems to me like something funky is going on with the way that Media Server is serving up these streams to the client, though you would know better than I where other bottlenecks might be.

Like I said in my earlier post, my workaround is to simply not use MC for streaming radio playlists since the constant skipping makes it unusable for this purpose. The downside to this is I don't get to use any of the Windows Media streams since the TiVo Desktop doesn't support WM.

[John Gateley]

It could be bandwidth. If the TiVo and Media Server both connect to the Internet via wireless, then the bandwidth usage is doubled compared to TiVo accessing the Internet directly (via m3u playlists on the tivo).

Try reducing the mp3 conversion down to the lowest possible bitrate just to see if that helps, if so, then it is bandwidth.

j

[maxl311]

Thanks. Reducing the bitrate of the MP3 conversion in Media Server seems to have done the trick!

Thanks again for sticking with this! I appreciate your help.

Now if we can just get the TiVo to update the "play count" of a song in the MC library, everything will be nearly perfect.

[John Gateley]

I'm working on that

j

[stevendkimball]

Hi,
(I copied this over to here from another thread because it seems more appropriate here.  I have done all the things mentioned above, including dropping the bit rate down to 64 but nothing helps.)

I also have this problem with choppy play.  Everything works fine if I play mp3's, but all Internet radio stations start to skip after about a minute and a half when I play them on TiVo.  I have 3 computers on my network, 2 running XP and 1 running Win2000 and I get the same results from all of them.  Any ideas as to what could be the problem?  It looks to me like a buffering fissure.  I notice when I observe the MC server that there is a fairly significant fluctuation in bandwidth usage.  When bandwidth gets down around 80 on a station streaming at 128 kbps I get skipping.  This happens every 10 seconds or so.  Any solutions out there?

I would love the program if I didn't have this problem.  My principal reason for being interested in it was to stream Internet radio to my entertainment center through my TiVo machine.

Thanks for any help.

Steve