1080p Stutters On PS3 Even With Gigabit Ethernet...

[Murkurial]

I've been using PMS for a little while now and before I was using it to stream HD .mkv files to the PS3 (normally in 720p) with a Linksys WRT54G router. CPU wired to the router, wired to the PS3. The WRT54G clearly doesn't have gigabit ethernet and that was the reason, I assumed, why a recent attempt to stream an .mkv of the movie Moon in 1080p was met with all sorts of stuttering issues when the bitrate jumped above 100 Mbps.

So I ordered a new Netgear Wireless-N router with the intent of being able to not only stream this with a wired connection, but maybe even, with a max of 300 Mbps, wirelessly as well. I tried to wire it up first, fired up Moon and everything is good until about 30 seconds in to the opening of the movie when the bitrate simply hits 60 Mbps and the stuttering begins. I try with another .mkv, this time the movie The Fall, and the opening credits get into the 130s (again, intense stuttering). This is from a gigabit ethernet enabled CPU, to a gigabit ethernet enabled router, to a gigabit ethernet enabled PS3. It stutters to the point that it's unwatchable.

I've searched around the forum for troubleshooting options and found people mentioning increasing the transcode buffer size (I bumped it up to 600: nothing.), messing with the max bandwidth (put it to 15: nothing.), checking the "enhanced multicore" box (tried that: didn't help.).

My system has a Core2Duo E6300 processor @ 1.82 GHz, 4 gigs of DDR2 RAM, and NVIDIA GeForce 7300 LE video card with 128 MB of dedicated video memory (not too great, I know), 1Tb external from which I stream these files. 720p videos work fine. Is my CPU just not fast enough to handle transcoding 1080p on the fly?

One thing that I noticed though was that when I first used the "enhanced multicore" option, I played Moon with a wired connection on the PS3 and the bitrate never even came close to 100 Mbps and everything was fine. I stopped the movie right there and tried to do it wirelessly and the bitrate was right back to the 90-110 range and the stuttering was rampant. I switch back to the wired connection and the stuttering won't stop.

Are there any other avenues that I could take to getting this fixed. If it's not my cpu then I don't get why with a theoretical max of 1000 Mbps I still get stuttering issues. I even changed the number of audio channels to 2 and the AC3 bitrate to 384 because I don't have surround sound and the stuttering was still present.

[meskibob]

It's your CPU.

[doclip]

For 1080p files, let the buffer become full and then play it...it does the trick unless I have subtitles.

[phdeez]

Where are you getting those bitrate values? If you're watching them on the PS3 (ie: pressing select, or the i+ function in the triangle menu) that value is erroneous. It is much better to monitor the throughput on your computer via Task Manager -> Network Tab.

Also, have you tried playing the movie from an internally connected drive? If you are streaming from the external drive and downloading something to it (ie bittorrent/newsgroups) you might be over-extending the USB bandwidth (even though it's maximum is 480M).

But, meskibob is most likely correct- your CPU might not be able to handle it. doclip also has a good suggestion- start the movie, pause it, let the buffer fill (600mb), then continue. If that works, and the buffer ends up becoming starved after a few minutes that means you don't have enough processing power.

Keep an eye on PS3MS and see which transcoding engine is serving it. TsMuxer is much easier on the CPU than mencoder... so give that a try (unless of course you want to use non-hard-coded subtitles- in which case tsmuxer won't work).

[basvanhulten]

I have the same problems. 1080p streaming is stuttering on a Intel Core 2 Duo P9500 (2,53GHz, 1066Mhz, 6Mb) PO, 4GB DDR3 1066MHz memory (2x 2GB), 320GB SATA HDD 7200RPM machine.
I have a gigabit router, I am using cat7 ethernet cables and I am trying to stream m2ts files.
My laptop doesn't have to transcode m2ts files, does it?
So why is it still stuttering? On my laptop the video plays nice and smooth.

[Cosmin]

I have an Opteron DualCore 1.8GHz with 1.5Gb RAM and windows 7 x64 and a linksys wrt54g router. With network limit on 90mb and 200MB buffer i can play most 1080p movies. There are some movies that freeze every second or so, but they work just fine if i open them from transcode directory with TSMUXER (no subtitles).
Also I have an Intel Core2Duo E6300 with 8GB RAM and windows 7 x64 and trough same router I can play those movies with Mencoder! Keep in mind that all my movies are on Opteron so i take them trough share and stream them on PS3 trough same 100mb router => network should not be the issue (especially with your gigabit connections)!

PS: What you see when press SELECT on PS3 is the bitrate of audio and video streams not the transfer rate between your PS3 and computer !

[itachi46]

i have similair issues only i stream to a bravia tv... i can run 720s no problem but 1080 just doesnt work. it stutters to no end...

my cpu is a t7100 (mobile intel) at 1.8ghz... im gonna buy a 20m cat5e cable to connect it to my router and see if my q9550 will make a difference

[no8080]

A 1to1 transcode of a 1080p movie results in a huge use of bandwidth, even gigabit ethernet can not keep up, is almost like removing the compression all together, sending an uncompressed 25 fps across the link, nothing would send that, even the file stored on a local HD can not stream that size of data in realtime. A decent SATA HD can only push about 400Mbps of data.

Wireless N standard in 40Mhz bonded channel mode provides 60-70Mbps throughput maximum, and thats with an excellent signal strength, far short of the stated theoretical 300Mbps. Wireless N speeds drops significantly with a small drop in signal strength, so a strong signal with no other wireless clients on your AP is important.

As long as you keep within the 60Mbps limit of your wireless connection you should get no stuttering. The problem you are seeing is that when the video starts stuttering on your PS3 the bandwidth meter in the top right corner of the PS3's screen becomes unreliable as well, thats why it peaks so high.

I have hit highs of 250Mbps on the PS3 when stuttering occurs.

The easiest fix is to alter your PMS.conf file quality settings to stop the bandwidth being exceeded, try altering your settings, vqmin, vqscale and vqmax.

I use the follwoing on 1080p mkv files when transcoding;
mencoder_encode = keyint=1:vqscale=1:vqmin=5

This gives me v.good quality with no stuttering on my wireless N connection.

Neil

[ExSport]

A 1to1 transcode of a 1080p movie results in a huge use of bandwidth, even gigabit ethernet can not keep up, is almost like removing the compression all together, sending an uncompressed 25 fps across the link, nothing would send that, even the file stored on a local HD can not stream that size of data in realtime. A decent SATA HD can only push about 400Mbps of data.

Best quality settings [keyint=5:vqscale=1:vqmin=2] sends bandwidth about 5-200Mbit. In most cases it is under 100Mbit so also 100Mbit network can achieve this bandwidth.
Keyint=5 will achieve better bandwidth precision so bandwidth limit set in PMS works better then

As long as you keep within the 60Mbps limit of your wireless connection you should get no stuttering. The problem you are seeing is that when the video starts stuttering on your PS3 the bandwidth meter in the top right corner of the PS3's screen becomes unreliable as well, thats why it peaks so high.

Yes, when PS3 can't catch the bandwidth it will show crazy bitrate but not real one
But beware, PS3 has G wireless only so maximum throughput is about 15Mbit. In this case you need to lower quality settings and using bandwidth limiter in PMS (with keyint= from 5 up to 25 for better precision)

I have hit highs of 250Mbps on the PS3 when stuttering occurs.

When using 100Mbit there is no problem to use best quality settings (5-1-2) with limiter to about 90Mbits.
When using 1Gbit network, no limit is needed but also you need good cables (minimum is CAT5e for bandwidth about 250Mbits max, CAT6 can achive almost 1Gbit=theoretical maximum)

The easiest fix is to alter your PMS.conf file quality settings to stop the bandwidth being exceeded, try altering your settings, vqmin, vqscale and vqmax.
I use the follwoing on 1080p mkv files when transcoding;
mencoder_encode = keyint=1:vqscale=1:vqmin=5
This gives me v.good quality with no stuttering on my wireless N connection.

In case PS3 is connected with cable and PC with Wireless N (PS3 doesn't support N-card)
If you will change keyint between 5-25, you can go for better quality by lowering vqmin=5

[no8080]

ExSport, I think you have missed the point at bit on your reply, the orginal question was based on either the PS3 cabled at 1Gb, or using a wireless N bridge. The builtin wireless G card in the PS3 was not mentioned. Thats why I based my answer on the wireless N details, with the ability to use about 60Mbps of bandwidth over wireless N.

I use a keyframe interval of 1 as anything higher results in a massive picture problems with the picture getting fuzzy very quickly before correctling itself, this is mainly due to MKV files with VFR, which PS3mediaserver can't handle correctly. I gave my settings as a baseline for the same setup. As usual, you need to alter the setiings to achieve the best reults for your own setup and movie files.

A Vqmin of 2 will not work with most 1080p video files over N wireless, fine for 720p, or most BD9 1080p files, but not 1080p files that are above 9GB in size, although it depends on how the movie was re-encoded.

There is no difference in speed between CAT5e and Cat6 cabling, both achieve the exact same speed over a 1Gbit conection, CAT6 is design to allow improvements in crosstalk interference, improved SNR and allows for longer cable runs, 100 metres compared to 25 metres (25m is recommended, but you can go up to 90m on CAT5e, although multiple cable runs of 90m causes issues with error rates). If the cable run is ran as per the IEEE specification then CAT5e cables achieve little or no errors at 1GBit, but CAT6 gives a higher reliability, especially if used in noisey environments, such as factories and areas with heavy machinery. CAT6a is designed for 10Gbits over copper.

Neil