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[bil1010105]

Hi all,

I've been using MC for a few months now, and thanks to this forum I've set everything up so that it works. Just. It doesn't work particularly smoothly or well though, and I'm wondering if I'm missing something obvious (I do that a lot) to make it better.

My config consists of a main PC which I do all my editing on. I have a 500Gb NAS storage drive which has all my videos etc on. This is connected in the living room next to the HTPC, which is only used for browsing and viewing the library. They all communicate (wired) via a Linksys WRT54G router, with the main PC and the living room side of the network connected via Netgear 200Mbs Powerline ethernet. Gigabit is not an option at the moment. I also don't get particularly fast connection between the main PC and the rest of the house... the 40 year old wiring probably having something to do with that.

The NAS storage has three network shares on it, which are mapped to network drives on both the main PC and the HTPC. L: contains my library, M: has videos, and R: has music. Videos are my main use for this software.

The problem is that when I open the library on drive L: on the main PC (which is behind the slow powerline ethernet connection) it's almost impossible to do anything. Watching videos is a complete waste of time, and trying to even edit tags means that the whole application freezes after every mouse click for upwards of a minute at a time. Note that because MC doesn't stream Xvids etc I'm running them direct from network shares, as was recommended on this forum. That part works great on the HTPC. It's just making changes to the library that is (almost) unusable.

Oh, I should mention that I'm running Vista x64 SP1 on the main PC (the one I'm trying to do editing on).

So my question is - what is wrong with this setup that could be fixed by software? Is waiting upwards of a minute while MC freezes on me the best I can hope for & an unavoidable trade-off of being able to play XviDs, DivX etc over a network? Or, as I said earlier, am I missing something blindingly obvious?

Any help would be appreciated, thank you.

[JimH]

There are still a few problems with Vista.  Networking is one of them.  You can read more in a post at the bottom of this thread:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=24031.0

Powerline networking may not be fast enough for a good experience with video.  You may be able to improve it but that's a subject I can't help much with.   For example, you may be able to force the network devices to always do the best (fastest) protocol.  They sometimes auto-negotiate something less than optimum.

I doubt if the age of the wiring matters. 

[bil1010105]

There are still a few problems with Vista.  Networking is one of them.  You can read more in a post at the bottom of this thread:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=24031.0

Powerline networking may not be fast enough for a good experience with video.  You may be able to improve it but that's a subject I can't help much with.   For example, you may be able to force the network devices to always do the best (fastest) protocol.  They sometimes auto-negotiate something less than optimum.

I doubt if the age of the wiring matters. 

Thanks for the reply.

The problem may be Vista related, but it's hard to tell because I'm using an MSDN release candidate of SP1 for Vista at the moment, which is supposed to fix the issue (unfortunately, I can't install the real SP1 because the RC won't un-install, and is going to expire in June. When that happens, I'm upgrading back to XP.  ). It also only appears to affect Gigabit LANs, which I don't have. And if you're playing music at the time... which I'm not. Still, you can never underestimate Vista's ability to complicate matters.

The age of the wiring probably doesn't matter, but the "custom made" daisy chained junctions under my floor probably does. That, and the main PC is on it's own circuit ring. Neither of these problems are surmountable at the moment - and I'll learn to live with them if there's nothing else that's fixable causing the issue.

I'm not too fussed about playing videos on the main PC. I'm more bothered about the tag editing, and like I said, at the moment that is taking an age... 

[Listener]

bil1010105, where are the database files for the library? On the PC you use for editing?  Or on the NAS?

Jim, I seem to remember seeing advice to place the database files defining the library's music files on the PC running MC.  It was OK for MC to access music files across a LAN but the database files needed to be on the local PC.  Is my memory correct? 

Bill

[JimH]

bil1010105, where are the database files for the library? On the PC you use for editing?  Or on the NAS?

Jim, I seem to remember seeing advice to place the database files defining the library's music files on the PC running MC.  It was OK for MC to access music files across a LAN but the database files needed to be on the local PC.  Is my memory correct? 

I've seen Alex B recommend that, but I don't know why.

Networks are strange beasts sometimes.

[Qythyx]

This is what I do as well and it works for me. My guess is simply a matter of access speed. MC needs to access the library in random ways (e.g., to edit a tag in its database). This is something done best over a low latency connection (i.e., the local disk). When playing the media, however, even a video actually requires very little bandwidth for a LAN (probably somewhere around 1 to 2 Mbps), so playing off of the NAS is fine.

If you put your library on the main PC, though, I'm not sure how well the HTPC will browse the library. It's worth a try.

[bil1010105]

Listener, my library files are on drive L: (the NAS), which is obviously why it's slow. I did it this way so I didn't have to have the main PC on all the time when I want to use the HTPC.

Qythyx, I've tried having the library on the main PC - and you are of course correct, it is much faster with editing. However, I then have the same problem in reverse with the HTPC - and my wife (bless her little cotton socks) is too impatient to let it work. I don't let her near the tag editing side of things. It's better that way. 

I've heard mention before of 'library sync' and PCs on the network taking local copies of the library when they start MC, but I don't know how to set that up with a NAS. I just get lost in the wiki. Maybe that is a solution?

[thurston]

bil-
What about a test using an ethernet cable in place of the powerline adapters to take them out of the equation?

[bil1010105]

It's certainly worth a try.

I'll have a go tonight.