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NIC speed required for PMS streaming


George

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Hi all

 

At what video size/quality is cable 100Mbps or 1Gbps required. Recently discovered that the cables installed in my house are all Cat5 and not Cat5e which means I'm throttles down to 100Mbps per plug point instead of the desired 1Gbps.

 

Going to have to fix/correct some of them, just gave to be clever about which.

 

G

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in theory 5/5e have the same bandwidth of 100MHz if the distance is not to far you might get 1 gibit/s, maybe using newer cat5e sockets might help too to get 1gbit

http://discountcablesusa.com/ethernet-cables100.html

 

about video, a bluray (full hd) is maxing with ~40MBit so 100Mbit should be ok for hd streaming and digital tv (use a gigabit switch so the backplane of the switch has enough bandwidth for more connections to clients)

4k might work in some cases when the full possible bandwidth is not used (82/108/128 MBit)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra_HD_Blu-ray

i guess most 4k stuff from the internet is re-encoded for smaller size and will be below 100Bit but i think when it cant be predicted and only works in some cases its not fun to use and not technical users are easily annoyed as they cant see why its working and sometimes not (missing causality)

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7 hours ago, IG-88 said:

in theory 5/5e have the same bandwidth of 100MHz if the distance is not to far you might get 1 gibit/s, maybe using newer cat5e sockets might help too to get 1gbit

http://discountcablesusa.com/ethernet-cables100.html

 

about video, a bluray (full hd) is maxing with ~40MBit so 100Mbit should be ok for hd streaming and digital tv (use a gigabit switch so the backplane of the switch has enough bandwidth for more connections to clients)

4k might work in some cases when the full possible bandwidth is not used (82/108/128 MBit)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra_HD_Blu-ray

i guess most 4k stuff from the internet is re-encoded for smaller size and will be below 100Bit but i think when it cant be predicted and only works in some cases its not fun to use and not technical users are easily annoyed as they cant see why its working and sometimes not (missing causality)

 

Thanks. as for cat 5 /5e... even at my distance, which is not allot, just runs between study and other rooms in the house, the cabling drops me down to 100Mb :(

 

Thanks for the size/resolution. First thing to get onto 1Gb is my WiiAP, It's sitting on a 100Mb link at the moment, capable of 300Mb, but having 5 devised connected to it all the time/streaming, or make that trying...

 

G

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4 hours ago, George said:

 

Thanks. as for cat 5 /5e... even at my distance, which is not allot, just runs between study and other rooms in the house, the cabling drops me down to 100Mb :(

 

Thanks for the size/resolution. First thing to get onto 1Gb is my WiiAP, It's sitting on a 100Mb link at the moment, capable of 300Mb, but having 5 devised connected to it all the time/streaming, or make that trying...

 

G

dont forget to take into account the performance of the client device, all streaming data is buffered to a degree and if the client can't handle the stream, network retries, buffering you might get stuttering. With wifi, also take into account distance to devices and topology, walls etc, real world you wont get anywhere near 100Mb. you could do some tests to see if you can see the difference between stream qualities, recode your library to bit rates/resolution that looks good on the screens you have.  

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1 minute ago, sbv3000 said:

dont forget to take into account the performance of the client device, all streaming data is buffered to a degree and if the client can't handle the stream, network retries, buffering you might get stuttering. With wifi, also take into account distance to devices and topology, walls etc, real world you wont get anywhere near 100Mb. you could do some tests to see if you can see the difference between stream qualities, recode your library to bit rates/resolution that looks good on the screens you have.  

 

All understood :)

 

The proximity of the 5 devices are well within a good distance to get full speed from the WiFi AP.

 

At the moment if each device pushes their ability then I'm bottle necking on the AP as it's 100Mb/s connected to my central switch, the switch is 1Gb connected to the NAS.\All ym Hardwired points are currently 100Mbps connected.

Was curious what the band width required was for HD so that I can add them together and see where I'm possibly bottle necking.

 

G

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for hd/bluray you should use 5ghz wifi, single stream 2.4 ghz is usualy (newer iterations) max 75 Mbit, even with 1-2 meter line of sight i never got hd/bluray (40mbit) reliable working, the ususal rule might be calculate with half what the wifi speed is promising, so with 5GHz thats 150Mbit (single stream) so there should be about 70-80 Mbit usable bandwidth for video

a 1gbit connection of the ap to the lan would be better but i guess 100mbit will do as long as there is nothing else on that 100mbit connection so you realy get the full 100mbit speed for your wifi ap and for the video

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9 hours ago, IG-88 said:

for hd/bluray you should use 5ghz wifi, single stream 2.4 ghz is usualy (newer iterations) max 75 Mbit, even with 1-2 meter line of sight i never got hd/bluray (40mbit) reliable working, the ususal rule might be calculate with half what the wifi speed is promising, so with 5GHz thats 150Mbit (single stream) so there should be about 70-80 Mbit usable bandwidth for video

a 1gbit connection of the ap to the lan would be better but i guess 100mbit will do as long as there is nothing else on that 100mbit connection so you realy get the full 100mbit speed for your wifi ap and for the video

 

and here in "1gbit connection of the ap to the lan would be better but i guess 100mbit will do as long as there is nothing else on that 100mbit connection so you realy get the full 100mbit speed for your wifi ap and for the video" lies my problem, I have 2 large screen 4K TV's, I have at least 2 iPad's also streaming, and then at the same time I'm busy over the same WiFi network. Thus my suspicion that at times when my PLEX is battling it might actually not be the PLEX, it might be the PLEX having to consider transcoding to lower resolution (for which it does not have the power) because of available bandwidth.

 

with a 70-80Mbit needed per stream it implies I don't need to change the hard wired points as each of them won't kill the 100Mb available.

 

Hopefully with the new XPEnology I'll have the CPU to transcode, step 1 and then step 2 being the fixing of the cabling where needed.

 

G

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here is a dumb suggestion, presuming that you dont have any network monitoring tools on your lan, and also presumes you have a 'fast' internet connection, say 20-40mbits

 

1) Run an Internet speed test (using 2 or 3 different test sites) from a PC connected direct to the router and no other traffic. Record the results

2) On each wireless device do the same speed tests - record the results - Repeat at different locations if you want to and with several devices testing at the same time

 

If you compare the wired download speed to the wi fi one, the latter will give you an approximation of the bandwidth the wifi device is receiving at. I've done this a few times to 'prove' to clients why their wifi is s*it when compared to the paid for broadband. 

 

True its not exactly 'scientific', but is a visual aid

 

 

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Hi 

 

My Internet speed is less than the speed required for streaming. so even if I get line speed/internet, it still won't push the local speed capable, and potentially needed for HD and 4K streaming inside the house.

 

Current NAS (with PLEX) is 1GbE to switch (TPLink TL-SG1024D),

New XPenology (with PLEX to be) is 1GbE to switch

Apple TV (with PLEX Client) is 100Mb (hardwired) to switch - With TV direct connected

2nd TV (with PLEX Client) is 100Mb (hardwired) to switch

 

2 x iPad's + 2 Laptops all connected via 5ghz to Wifi AP  (TP Link Archer C7 AC1750)

1 x General computer - 1Gb connected to switch

1 x Macbook Pro - 5ghz connected to AP.

 

various other computers devices still.

 

Router runs separate on a Draytek Vigor2760

 

G

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if the 5ghz ap only get a 100mbit connection the it can be a little unpredictable when using more the one wifi client for video

imho there might be a different option for connection 1GBit switch to AP then the existing cat5 cables - Powerline (dLAN, PowerLAN, PLC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-line_communication

that can at least give you a >100MBit connection for one point 2 point connection in the house, maybe more

 

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Problem is Cat 5 and cat5E. some of this is not to long runs. and I got conduit in the walls. mostly labour and some swearing needed.

 

My original design for for as much as possible to use WiFi and only when I need high bandwidth to hard wire into the router... and now discovered that my hard wire points are running slower than what my Wifi CAN... if it was hardwired at 1Gb instead of the current 100Mb.

 

G

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Do some research into '4K' streaming (as well as your other sources). 4K is generally the h265 codec, massively compressed and as a result bandwidth is lower than say a 1080p h264 stream - you just need to compare file sizes to see the difference. I have a smart network and monitoring and, for example, watching a 4K episode of Stranger Things, streamed from my NAS using Media Server, my switch and 4K TV were running at about 3mbit. You may be 'over thinking' the 4K and other demands and things may be ok.

 

 

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most 4k will work with 100Mbit i guess but no warranty as if its "raw" ultra hd bluray it might not work as the standard allows >100Mbit (on paper)

but i guess most 4k's will have been recompensed and will be much smaller then raw and streams most like are always <100Mbit even in "raw" as they come from netflix or amazon, how many customers will have a >100mbit internet connection?

i'd would use the 100mbit cat5 for the tv's, its more like to work then wifi shared with a lot of unpredictable clients around

some problems can occur because of protocol/overhead so beside streaming you can try nfs and smb/cifs (but i guess smb/cifs will be terrible)

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5 hours ago, IG-88 said:

most 4k will work with 100Mbit i guess but no warranty as if its "raw" ultra hd bluray it might not work as the standard allows >100Mbit (on paper)

but i guess most 4k's will have been recompensed and will be much smaller then raw and streams most like are always <100Mbit even in "raw" as they come from netflix or amazon, how many customers will have a >100mbit internet connection?

i'd would use the 100mbit cat5 for the tv's, its more like to work then wifi shared with a lot of unpredictable clients around

some problems can occur because of protocol/overhead so beside streaming you can try nfs and smb/cifs (but i guess smb/cifs will be terrible)

 

Thinking I have 1 point I have to rewire to 1Gb, my WifiAP point to my switch, which is 100Mbit atm, 

probably leave the others at 100Mbit for now

 

I'm not worried about streaming from outside my network, it's the inside from my Media server thats taxing the network.

 

G

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