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[disneyandbond]

Hello – recently I am having a serious Media Station audio stuttering issue when playing to my DLNA receiver.

The issue is that when I play audio files on my DLNA receiver through MediaStation I get an audible "stuttering" – as if the file is lagging (or the equivalent sound would be a CD skipping), even though the FLAC rip is accurate/perfect.

Here is my setup; note that the file being played is a FLAC file (a format that is supported by my DLNA receiver):
- Mediastation (v.15.0173?) is on a desktop PC upstairs that is connected to the home network wirelessly (120Mbps wireless connection, usually).
- FLAC audio file is saved on a NAS drive (Synology DiskStation) in the basement, hard wired to the wireless router with an ethernet cable.
- Network receiver (Yamaha RXA-1000) is hard wired to the wireless router with an Ethernet cable.
 
This stuttering happens using both ASIO and Kernel Streaming settings (I use XP so don’t have WASAPI)  I have prebuffering set to 6 seconds.

I have the DLNA server set to never convert audio, and encoder set as an uncompressed stream  (same as the Library Server Client file settings)

I have tested and know it is not an issue relating to the actual rip of the track, the receiver,  or the NAS storage device, because when I use the DiskStation Audiostation web interface (http://192.168.0.102:5000/) pushing the file to the DLNA receiver, I have no issue.  Also, when I access the file on the NAS direct through the Yamaha’s onboard ‘browser’ and initiate playback, I have no issue.

As soon as I use MediaStation to push the album to the DLNA receiver, it starts up but then stutters and lags.  This happens not just on initial tracks but will happen sporadically through an album, making listening almost impossible (at the very least quite aggravating!)

Note that this issue does not happen when I have JRiver Media Center play the FLAC file from the network drive on the desktop computer’s local speakers, thus I think the connection between the Media Center and the NAS storage is okay, it is some kind of issue between the Media Center and the DLNA receiver.

I should also note that I played music via Media Center to the receiver all through December with the same setup and never had this issue at all, it has only popped up the last couple weeks (?)

The only thing that has changed in the interim was upgrading my antivirus software and upgrading Media Center versions, but I even tested the rig with antivirus/realtime scanning disabled completely, and the issue was still happening, so I don’t think it’s the antivirus.  I have no other bandwidth intensive programs that I know of running.  Antivirus is Avast free.

Any help would be appreciated – my sole reason for purchasing Media Center was to have a great playlist/library interface to send music to the DLNA receiver, so I really would like to get this working properly again.  Also, I have tried to search the forums for a similar issue (audio lag, stuttering, etc.), but can’t find another thread dealing with this issue specifically (most discuss WASAPI which as mentioned doesn’t apply to my XP machine)

Thanks!
 

PS – not sure if it matters, but despite having 6sec buffering enabled I don’t see a “buffering” message when I initiate playback anymore – instead the track starts to play and count in on Media Center, but it doesn’t play for a few seconds on the receiver, and then when the audio finally starts to play then the Media Center time counter resets a few seconds earlier in the track without the audio being affected (if that makes sense)

[JimH]

It's the kind of problem that could be caused by a virus checker.

Try the thread called "Weird Problems" in my signature to see other possibilities.  There are several pages there.

If you test with local files I would expect the problem to go away.

[disneyandbond]

Hi - thanks for the response.  I went through the list and will try a couple of the solutions.  I see in another post you highlighted the Avast 'silent firewall' - maybe that is my issue (though I told avast to disable all its shields when I was troubleshooting).

In a lot of cases the classic response seems to be that there is a conflict with the antivirus scanner, and the solution is to uninstall/disable the antivirus scanner to get MC working properly.  However, given that I don't want to be unprotected, is there a particular antivirus provider/program that is known to 'play nice' with Media Center?  I'm not opposed to switching! (especially as my program is free now)  I searched the forum to try and find this, no luck.

[JimH]

Disabling may not be enough.  Uninstalling may be required (to test).   Disconnect from the network if you're concerned.

Test some local files.

[disneyandbond]

Hi - sorry for the late reply, as I was away on business.

I uninstalled Avast totally, and installed Microsoft Security Essentials for antivirus.  So far tonight the music was playing fine.  However, a few moments ago it started to lag again, and I think I know why (though it sounds odd - worthy of the 'Weird problems list'!)

I noticed that when the music began lagging and MC becoming unresponsive that my wife was microwaving an item for dinner, far across the room on the same floor.  When the microwaving stopped, the lag issues disappeared.  I began microwaving some water to test this theory.  Within about 10 sec, the music started lagging and MC became laggy too.  Stopped the microwave and all became normal again. I tried this again, and it happened once more.

Sounds odd, I know, but the computer I am using to interact with MC is connected to the home network via wireless internet (as noted in my previous post the receiver is networked by ethernet cable to the adapter and network drive where the files are stored, so it should have been unaffected.)

Thus, does it make sense that the lag between media center and the network drive supercedes the connection between the receiver and the FLAC file, creating lag even though the only lag is on media center's connection to everything going on (and not between the actual FLAC file and the output device?)  And would my wireless internet be affected by microwave rays?  (sounds like something out of sci fi - I haven't tried googling this issue)

Thanks!

[bob]

I'd be a little concerned about the microwave leakage to start with!

It sounds like packets are being lost. It's a bit difficult to figure out where. The fact that you can play it in MC and not push it to the renderer COULD have something to do with the buffering MC does to play the file (it might cover over some packet loss). Pretty weird situation...