No wireless connectivity between MED400X - Network

[Vulturian]

The ultimate test is to try and stream a ripped bluray with all audio tracks using Play Folder. The Med uses software drivers run on the support processor to handle I/O. But the support processor is also used to unwrap complex packages, such as MKV.  So you can't have 100% of any "time interval" being used to handle I/O during streaming.  I find you need to have 50% or less. So the Utilization Figure is just as important as the Throughput Rate.

Unfortunately becuase a PC uses Hardware for it's Wired Lan connection  it's utilization figure ins't a good match for whats' happenning at the med end. A wireless connection is more dynamic and  the loading reflects what rate/utilization has been handshaken between source and sink.

When i tried with wired connection to stream a heavy .mkv file (around 39Gbs) , played with random stops, when tried with wireless, it was much more worse...

On the other hand, when tried with wired connection to stream a ripped BlueRay of around 38Gbs (with BDMV and CERTIFICATE folders in), it played normally (only a couple of times i have noticed small interuptions on movie's normal flow).

When tried the wireless connection, more or less the same with the wired one...

When plugged on med400x' usb an external hard disc, a couple of times the "heavy" .mkv file had often breaks/interruptions but another time it played almost normal..why is that?
As regards the ripped blue-ray, played normally through USB...

[Vulturian]

Hi Vulturian,

Please also verify the bootloader version on your 400X (setup info menu)
Be sure that it has latest 26 version for proper comparing with others.
If not on 26, you can upgrade using the procedure as described in the V4 release notes.

regards,
Maasbommel

When purchased the Med400x i directly installed the V.4 FW but then i read in a forum which deals with A/V that i should see bootloader ....26 while mine was showing ....26L and their advice was to re-install first the beta version (December) of 4 and thenafter to install once more the pure V.4 FW, so i did and now i have a ......26 bootloader shown in system info...
Is that OK?

[jer1956]

Unfortunaltely Sanji have pulled the throughput figures from the new online Spec. Becuase wi-fi is additional software task for the support processor, it needs an even lower network utilization figure than cable Lan. That means 300-n wi-fi  has a lower throughput than 100 mbps lan, not 3 times more as some people might hope.  I have pasted the thoughput figures form the old spec in other threads and I will copy them here when I find one.  

Network - Ethernet 10/100 Mbps - Streaming MAX Samba 26Mbps / NFS 36Mbps
Optional Wi-Fi (802.11b/g/n)
Achievable Streaming G router - Samba 12Mbps - NFS 18 Mbps @ 1m - unprotected
Achievable Streaming N router - Samba 14Mbps - NFS 22 Mbps @ 1m - unprotected
(Typical MKV 720p Play 10Mbps max FF/RW 15Mbps)

I find Samba to be just as fast as Sanji claim NFS is.

[Vulturian]

Unfortunaltely Sanji have pulled the throughput figures from the new online Spec. Becuase wi-fi is additional software task for the support processor, it needs an even lower network utilization figure than cable Lan. That means 300-n wi-fi  has a lower throughput than 100 mbps lan, not 3 times more as some people might hope.  I have pasted the thoughput figures form the old spec in other threads and I will copy them here when I find one.  

So this means that eventhough the Med Wifi Dongle is 802.11n draft (2.0) and you have a router capable to support same (at maximum 300Mbps), the final streaming is less than the one you get from wired/100Mbps  (i.e. similar to the one you take from wireless @ 802.11g which is maximum 54Mbps??? This really [CENSORED] if it is valid....
Maybe this issue is one of the things that the next FW should really deal with...

[jer1956]

Firmware won't fix it! It's an architechure problem. The support processor needs more help. The way to do that is to add a seperate Wireless-lan bridge rather than use the dongle.

I used to  be able to say  this is in the online spec and you shouldn't have expected anything more. I can't say that anymore!

You will notice that no one has ever posted an example network in the Tips section using the dongle.  

Most users don't want to stream full bitrate bluray and so are quite happy with a wi-fi solution that can  handle DVD and a little bit more.

[Vulturian]

Firmware won't fix it! It's an architechure problem. The support processor needs more help. The way to do that is to add a seperate Wireless-lan bridge rather than use the dongle.

I used to  be able to say  this is in the online spec and you shouldn't have expected anything more. I can't say that anymore!

You will notice that no one has ever posted an example network in the Tips section using the dongle.  

Well, from med400x manual, there are guidelines on how use security settings (i.e. WAP) for wireless network build-up and avoid reduction of "n" to "g" (upto 54mbps) which was quite promising i.e. to be able to build an "n" wireless streaming (well not upto 300Mbps but at least to a satisfactory level, certainly more than the one you get from wired one...)

To conclude....is this a "tricky" point on behalf of Med's manufacturer?

How can i "add a seperate Wireless-lan bridge"? Sorry to ask but my knowledge on building networks is very limited...Thnx for your assistance!

P.S. As regards "You will notice that no one has ever posted an example network in the Tips section using the dongle", thought that the only way to connect Med400x with a wireless router was to purchase same brand's Wifi dongle as manufacturer short of tutors you into this direction, this is also a myth??

[jer1956]

We do go though this tricky issue quite often. The lan interface is not the limiting factor with a Med. It's the capacity of the support procssor to handle the I/o, and still have time to process what's been  streamed. So if the standard 100 mbps lan interface is actually being under utilized due to the support procesor bottleneck, changing to gigabit or 300-n isn't going to improve things, it's just going to reduce the interface utilization even more.

So whats the point of 300-N? Well it means you can run your network at full 300-N for the benefit of all the other 300-n devices on the network. A 54g dongle would require the network to operate in Mixed Mode, limiting N devices to 150 mbps.

You will find an example network using a Lan Bridge in the Tips section. It would appear that those posting networks have been determined to stream bluray and have ended up with solutions which don't use the dongle.

http://www.mede8erforum.com/index.php/topic,3613.msg25111.html#msg25111

[Vulturian]

We do go though this tricky issue quite often. The lan interface is not the limiting factor with a Med. It's the capacity of the support procssor to handle the I/o, and still have time to process what's been  streamed. So if the standard 100 mbps lan interface is actually being under utilized due to the support procesor bottleneck, changing to gigabit or 300-n isn't going to improve things, it's just going to reduce the interface utilization even more.

So whats the point of 300-N? Well it means you can run your network at full 300-N for the benefit of all the other 300-n devices on the network. A 54g dongle would require the network to operate in Mixed Mode, limiting N devices to 150 mbps.

You will find an example network using a Lan Bridge in the Tips section. It would appear that those posting networks have been determined to stream bluray and have ended up with solutions which don't use the dongle.

http://www.mede8erforum.com/index.php/topic,3613.msg25111.html#msg25111

Hmm, i think that all above mentioned should consist knowledge of the medium user (like me) before purchasing a media player like Med400x while having at mind that want to use it with a wireless network for streaming HD ...

I belive this is part of Mede8er's manufacturer responsibility, to let the potential buyers know that wifi is not 100% achievable/workable for heavy use no matter whether they are able to buy additional hardware to support same or not...

[jer1956]

That was why I posted about the removal of the thoughput figures from the spec on the new website.  Users have been left to make assumptions which are inaccurate.  One assumption is defining for themselves what a HD bitrate is. The BBC use some very good codec settings to send HD H264 down the internet at around 5 mbps for the BBC Iplayer. The dongle can easily manage that. Bluray ISO? You can forget doing that even with cable lan.

I wouldn't go  thinking that other sigma/realtek mediplayers are magically better. They all use hardware with the same weaknesses, and also never mention throughput figures in the spec.  

[Vulturian]

Do you believe that the addition of a  Wireless-lan bridge (like  the Linksys one, which is part of one of the examples of networks setup posted in relevant thread in this forum) will really change the performance of wireless connection, in a way to be able to easily stream HD like heavy .mkv files or ripped BlueRays?
Does it worth to spend another Euro 75,00 - 80,00 in order to reinforce MED400x processor's capabilities?

[jer1956]

Look at the link to Masbommels network, and look at the throughput figures. As far as the Med is concerned it's interfaced to a cable network and performs to it's  cable specs. My network also uses wirelss-N, but not between the MED and the network.  I can stream 40 mbps with a wireless-n link in the system.  But you don't have to use a Lan bridge. You could go down the route of Powerlink using the mains. It dosn't matter as long you using the Med's Lan interface, and not the dongle which overloads the support processor.

Only you can decide if it's worth it. There are other zero cost solutions. You could just keep high bitrate media on the internal drive, and stream DVD. You could just move your router, like I did, to the home theater rack, connect the Med to it via cable, and connect the PC via  wireless (you could even use the realtek dongle to connect the PC to the network!).

[Vulturian]

Well, if my understanding is correct, following setup for building a reliable network will work just fine:

Desktop (with Wifi-n USB stick) ==>wireless connection==> Belkin N+ modem/router (upto 300Mbps)==>lan connection==>Med400X

Presume that when refering to lan connection between Belkin and Med400X, a category 6 (for upto 1Gbit  passthrough) straight cable will do the job...

Thanks in advance m8!

[jer1956]

If you can future proof by buying a gigabit cable then do so. That gives you the option to move over to gigabit in the future.

I do tell those drooling over the prospect of a gigabit med in the future that it might also be just to make integration easier, like using 300-n dongle instead of 54g. The internal processor of the next gen realtek "chip" will still be the bottleneck.

My origonal network after moving the router to the home theater rack is described here:-
http://www.mede8erforum.com/index.php/topic,3613.msg24620.html#msg24620

I'm sure it would  have streamed bluray but I didn't try that until I changed my network. My main focus at that  time was streaming my HDV videos.

[Cootie107]

We do go though this tricky issue quite often. The lan interface is not the limiting factor with a Med. It's the capacity of the support procssor to handle the I/o, and still have time to process what's been  streamed. So if the standard 100 mbps lan interface is actually being under utilized due to the support procesor bottleneck, changing to gigabit or 300-n isn't going to improve things, it's just going to reduce the interface utilization even more.

Let me get this straight as I was just a half a second away from hitting a 1-Click Amazon button on a bridge when I had a "What a minute..." moment.  We are only talking about streaming and the resulting reduced effective throughput caused by the processor workload, right?  If I'm sending a video file to the Med's internal harddrive at 300 mbps N wi-fi then I'm still getting 300 mbps throughput, right?  It sound ridiculous to ask that but you had my head spinning there for awhile.  I rarely stream video other than the occasional PlayOn feed and none of that ever approaches BR disk quality.  I think I'll stick with my dongle.

[jer1956]

I'm afraid not. The quoted max copying speed of 4.4 mb/s is just another way of saying 36 Mbps, which is the quoted max streaming speed.  Everything boils down to how fast the puny support procesor can work. None of the interfaces are hardware supported, they are simple interfaces requiring a driver running on the support processor, and limited by it. That includes the USB interface as well. Wifi adds another layer on top of the normal TCP/UDP processing required for any lan interface.  So if the support processor is maxed out streaming (or copying) at 36 mbps over cable, it has to lower the thoughput to process the added wi-fi task. It also has to lower it if the support processor is needed to unwrap package formats. The more complex a package format, the lower the max streaming rate. Bluray Iso is too complex to stream and unpack.

From some  of the posts complaining about poor copying speeds I think you can work the wi-fi copying speed from the quoted streaming figures. It would be 22/36 x 4.4 = 2.6 mb/s.

You can see why some people use a real NAS. You can copy files to that at 20+ mb/s, and then stream full bluray M2TS from that at 40mbps to the Med (with a well setup network interface by the lan input).