# Horrible Lag



## WindyCityGirl

Got my Stream today, hooked it up, and BAM horrible lag. The stream wont go 30 seconds without freezing. I have two IPads and the problem is the same on both.

Anyone have any ideas on how to trouble shoot this? I have the Stream hardwired on the network but down in the basement. I assume the streaming comes from my wireless router (which is centrally located) not the stream, is that correct?


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## bradleys

Is your Premier hard wired as well?


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## WindyCityGirl

Yes.

I downloaded an IPad App (speedtest.net) to see the speed of the link to my IPad and I get 14.1Mbps download/13.3Mbps upload. That should be plenty for streaming right?


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## gtrogue

Try restarting your router.


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## Dan203

So the Stream, the TiVo and the wifi router are all hardwired to one another with no bridges between them? If so then it has to be the signal coming from your wifi router to your iPad. Is it an 802.11n router? Or is it an older g or b one?

Dan


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## jfh3

I agree with Dan - try troubleshooting the wireless connection between the router and iPad.

You will get best results if you can use 5ghz N network for streaming (which the iPad 2 or 3 can support - don't know about the original iPad).


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## Austin Bike

jfh3 said:


> I agree with Dan - try troubleshooting the wireless connection between the router and iPad.
> 
> You will get best results if you can use 5ghz N network for streaming (which the iPad 2 or 3 can support - don't know about the original iPad).


When I am outside in our screen porch, the network looks like this:

stream>Gb switch>Gb switch>Gb router>Wireless N>Wireless booster>IPAD

I have no issue with all of the handoffs and transitition.

I recommend the following:

1. Reboot your router
2. Do a hard reset on the IPAD (hold down the lock button and the menu button until the system reboots)


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## WindyCityGirl

Well I reset everything and still horrible lag. I dont get 5 seconds of play before a freeze.

Before I return this any other ideas?


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## Dan203

Disconnect everything from the network except the TiVo, the Stream and the iPad. Just to rule out the possibility of it being another device causing the lag. 

If that doesn't work exchange it. 

Dan


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## Austin Bike

Dan203 said:


> Disconnect everything from the network except the TiVo, the Stream and the iPad. Just to rule out the possibility of it being another device causing the lag.
> 
> If that doesn't work exchange it.
> 
> Dan


It is probably also worth swapping network cables while you are at it. Sometimes cabling can cause packets to drop and the retries just back everything up and can lead to lags.

I recommend taking the cables that are between your tivo, the stream and your router and plugging them in one by one between a PC and the router. In the network connection dialog box on the PC you should be able to see the speed of your connection. It is not uncommon for me to see a gigabit connection drop to 100Mb because I changed the cable.

Also, check your router settings. Two in particular are transmission rate and channel width. With some routers the channel width defaults to 20MHz and should really be at 20MHz/40MHz. I know changing this setting on my routers gave me significantly better performance (it was a dLink firmware issue). The transmission rate should be set at "best" and the antenna power, if you have a choice, should be high.

Also, are you setting your channels manually or using auto? You may have interference. It might be worth looking at the wireless environment and see if there are interferences from other devices or from other networks. It is not uncommon to have a neighbor interrupting (or stealing) your signal. My electrical panel for the house is sometimes an interference for wireless signals if I get that between the router and the device.


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## WindyCityGirl

All great suggestions. I will try them tonight!


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## WindyCityGirl

Just to be clear the Tivo Stream doesn't transmit anything via WiFi right? It's all sent via the wireless router correct? I have the Tivo Strem in the basement utility closet where my electrical circuit panel is.


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## macery

WindyCityGirl said:


> Just to be clear the Tivo Stream doesn't transmit anything via WiFi right? It's all sent via the wireless router correct? I have the Tivo Strem in the basement utility closet where my electrical circuit panel is.


That's somewhat correct. The process as I understand it:

A) Stream reads the recorded file off of the TiVo (So needs a good connection speed to the TiVo)
B) The Stream then Doe it's magic to the file so the iDevice can play it.
C) transmits the streaming vide to the iDevice that requested.

So while the Stream "Plays" the stream for the iPad/iPhone your wireless router is simply the medium used for the Stream and device to talk.

For troubleshooting I would place the stream in a few different places on your network to find the lag. You mention it's "in the basement", is that where the TiVo is as well? I would try to connect it to the same switch as the tivo and see if it improves (If it does that tells us the lag was caused during step A above). Next attach it to the wireless router directly and test (If it improves then the lag was at Step C).


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## Austin Bike

Yes, the stream "reads" over cabled network. But it "writes" it over wifi to your ipad.

I would definitely recommend moving the stream. The key is having the stream, the router and the ipad all next to each other for the testing. Remove all environmental variables.


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## Dan203

Yes you want the Stream, the TiVo and the wifi router to all be connected via Ethernet. The only thing you want in the loop that uses wifi is the iPad itself.

Dan


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## WindyCityGirl

Tried rebooting everything, changed cables and still bad bad lag.

My router on top of the kitchen cabinets (central location in the house). From the router I run to a switch (which has the Stream and TIVO attached). No way to put the router where the TIVO is so thats the best setup I can manage.

Still lots of lag.

Stream going back to Best Buy tomorrow.


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## jfh3

WindyCityGirl said:


> Tried rebooting everything, changed cables and still bad bad lag.
> 
> My router on top of the kitchen cabinets (central location in the house). From the router I run to a switch (which has the Stream and TIVO attached). No way to put the router where the TIVO is so thats the best setup I can manage.
> 
> Still lots of lag.
> 
> Stream going back to Best Buy tomorrow.


The lag has nothing to do with the Stream.

What model is your router? What frequency and channel are you using?


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## WindyCityGirl

I have a Netgear N900 (dual band (2.4GHz/5.0GHz)/gigabit). Connecting on the 2.4GHz (my IPad doesn't see the 5.0GHz). Channel selection - Auto.


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## WindyCityGirl

Well after literally hours online with Tech support no improvement. Box is going back to Best Buy.


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## Dan203

There seems to be a high rate of DOA units. You may just want to exchange it and try a new one.

Dan


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## jfh3

WindyCityGirl said:


> I have a Netgear N900 (dual band (2.4GHz/5.0GHz)/gigabit). Connecting on the 2.4GHz (my IPad doesn't see the 5.0GHz). Channel selection - Auto.


Try running inSSIDer and seeing if there is interference on your 2.4 band. In any case, I would try other channels (e.g. Don't use "Auto").


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## AndyAxel

Given that this device supports iPad1, which was pre-N, I have to believe that this product was geared to the large community of users that still use wireless G. At least that's my hope, because I really don't want to have to upgrade my WLAN in order to support just one application (i.e. the Tivo Stream).

For what it's worth, the "blinking white light" problem on my Stream was solved by me setting the speed on my switch to 100/full duplex rather than allowing the Stream to autonegotiate (for what it's worth, hard-setting the speed to 1000 does not work; the "blinking white light" continues while the link status lights on the stream stay off). But then, I get good results with SD video but horrible lag with HD video at 100MB/full. I'm wondering if anyone else is seeing that.

My working theory is that there's a production glitch in the Ethernet interface. The only "spec" I've been able to find is that it has a gigabit port on it. But since Tivo does not have a specification saying 1000MB connection required for HD streaming, I don't really know.


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## compnurd

This is not a wireless device, it has no wireless. It just transcodes the video. If it is slow it is something related to your wireless network


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## Dan203

I was using mine via G wifi for a week or so. I replaced my G access point with an N access point because I was having range issues with the G network in the places I want to use it. The N AP fixed the range issue, but didn't seem to effect the speed or quality of the streaming at all. (30 second skip might be a hair faster)

Dan


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## AndyAxel

compnurd said:


> This is not a wireless device, it has no wireless. It just transcodes the video. If it is slow it is something related to your wireless network


Yeah, duh. I am aware of that. I was wondering if there was a problem with a network bottleneck between the Premiere (networked at 1000MB/sec) and the Stream (network connected at 100MB/sec). Make sense now?


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## compnurd

AndyAxel said:


> Yeah, duh. I am aware of that. I was wondering if there was a problem with a network bottleneck between the Premiere (networked at 1000MB/sec) and the Stream (network connected at 100MB/sec). Make sense now?


Which Premiere because I believe only the XL4 supports gigabit(the 4 might) Considering almost all Apple devices except the Iphone 5 and the Ipad 3 dont support Full N, there would be no chance for a bottleneck(max speed on a 4S is 65Mbps/65Mbps)


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## AndyAxel

compnurd said:


> Which Premiere because I believe only the XL4 supports gigabit(the 4 might) Considering almost all Apple devices except the Iphone 5 and the Ipad 3 dont support Full N, there would be no chance for a bottleneck(max speed on a 4S is 65Mbps/65Mbps)


FWIW, the Premiere negotiates a 1GB/full connection to my 3550-12G without issue. Direct file transfer via Tivo Desktop is zippy.

And again, for the purposes of what I'm discussing, wireless doesn't enter into it. I am asking about the connectivity between the Stream and the Premiere specifically for the purpose of transcoding the video in real-time. I would not think that it takes over 100MB/sec in either direction but given what file transfer speeds have been on these appliances in the past (i.e. PATHETIC), I had cause to wonder if the stream was bandwidth inefficient.

Doesn't matter now, because the 2nd unit is a bust.

I'm still waiting for Ars Technica or Engaget to do a full write-up. I "panic bought" this device assuming a long back-order based on what Tivo was saying about product availability. Seems like maybe I should wait for another few months before diving in again.


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## Dan203

AndyAxel said:


> I would not think that it takes over 100MB/sec in either direction but given what file transfer speeds have been on these appliances in the past (i.e. PATHETIC), I had cause to wonder if the stream was bandwidth inefficient.


Apples and Oranges. TiVoToGo transfers have to be remuxed and re-encrypted on the fly, that's why they are so slow. Not because of any network limitation. The Stream is basically like another TiVo on your network using the Multi-Room Streaming interface. It skips all that extra processing on the underpowered TiVo so the transfer is a lot faster. And the processing that it does locally is all don't via a specialized chip that is faster at recoding and remuxing then even a $1,000 desktop CPU.

Dan


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## compnurd

AndyAxel said:


> FWIW, the Premiere negotiates a 1GB/full connection to my 3550-12G without issue. Direct file transfer via Tivo Desktop is zippy.
> 
> And again, for the purposes of what I'm discussing, wireless doesn't enter into it. I am asking about the connectivity between the Stream and the Premiere specifically for the purpose of transcoding the video in real-time. I would not think that it takes over 100MB/sec in either direction but given what file transfer speeds have been on these appliances in the past (i.e. PATHETIC), I had cause to wonder if the stream was bandwidth inefficient.
> 
> Doesn't matter now, because the 2nd unit is a bust.
> 
> I'm still waiting for Ars Technica or Engaget to do a full write-up. I "panic bought" this device assuming a long back-order based on what Tivo was saying about product availability. Seems like maybe I should wait for another few months before diving in again.


Again Which Premiere because the regular Premiere is only 100

When doing wired transfers I get about 80Mbps.. which is close to maxing out the 100 the device supports


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