# Skipping on HD



## fieldy301 (Mar 27, 2013)

Hey guys I am a new Tivo user as of yesterday...We decided to trade in our two cable boxes for an XL4 and Mini, the Tivo rep at my work(Best Buy) has been hounding me to buy Tivo so I finally caved...

Here is my issue, I have the mini setup in the bedroom and it will display the Tivo display and SD channels perfectly fine. When I switch to HD its like the TV is displaying 5 FPS instead of 60FPS and no audio or very broken audio.

Now my HT and networking knowledge would tell me all the info is not getting to my TV. How do I remedy this, it is happening with both Ethernet and MoCa the ethernet is coming out of a piece of Sonos equipment which I have never had bandwidth issues with in the past.

Is MoCa not as reliable or as fast as Cat5e or Cat6? Do I need to drop a home run into my bedroom?

Quick layout for an idea....Fios comes into my attic and hits a splitter that goes down into bedroom and living room which are right next to each other. Then another two lines run to my sisters laundry room in her Apt.

The ethernet line is running from the Airport extreme in the laundry room to behind my HT system where it goes into a Monster 10/100 switch and runs out to various devices including the XL4.

Do I need to upgrade the switch? I am not a networking guy I know HT so I am at a loss.


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## jmpage2 (Jan 21, 2004)

Well, I am a networking guy so let me see if I can help you.

MoCA is more than fast enough (200 megabits or better usually) to handle multiple HD signals to multiple Minis simultaneously. However, it would depend on the quality of the connection. If you go into the settings->network-> status on the XL4 and the Minis, what is the displayed MoCA speed and how many errors do you have?

On the Ethernet side of things, the network as you describe it should in theory be fine, but I'm not familiar with "Monster" branded network switches... the last time I worked in the audio/video space Monster made over-priced cables, not data networking gear... so I might consider swapping that out with a cheap gigabit switch from a reputable manufacturer (d-link, netgear, cisco, trendnet, buffalo).

If your problem was not happening on both MoCA and wired Ethernet I would say that without a doubt the problem was network related. 

I would recommend getting the MoCA device data I specified above, making sure that there are no coaxial devices interfering with the MoCA signal, and trying to get MoCA working first.

One possibility that strikes me is that you could have a device on the wired ethernet side of the network that is injecting a huge amount of noise/traffic into the network and that could bleed out to the MoCA side of the network. 

As a test you could disconnect the XL4 from the 10/100 Ethernet network, make sure the Minis are disconnected from the Ethernet and that only MoCA is in use. If only the XL4s and Minis are connected to MoCA and they are not connected at all to the rest of the home network, is everything okay? If so then you have a major problem with your network, either a loop, or some device that is creating a problem.


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## tatergator1 (Mar 27, 2008)

I'm no expert by any means, but had a thought. The OP mentions he has FiOS. Don't most FiOS routers have MoCA built in? Assuming the XL4 is in "Bridge Mode" could there be an issue with interference from 2 MoCA networks trying to run on the same coax? 

Assuming the FiOS router is enabled for MoCA, perhaps you could try pulling the ethernet from the XL4 and trying to setup as only MocA using the FiOS MoCA network.


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## jmpage2 (Jan 21, 2004)

That's a good question. I am far more familiar with Ethernet than with moca.


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## BigJimOutlaw (Mar 21, 2004)

- Are you using the Verizon-provided router? Where in the setup is it?
- What is the Airport Extreme connected to? Wired/Wireless? Wireless could easily be a bandwidth issue for HD programming.
- Is the XL4's chosen network connection ethernet, MoCA, or ethernet + MoCA?
- Is the Mini connected via ethernet or MoCA?

If you're using Verizon's router, set the XL4 and Mini to MoCA only and unplug the ethernet connections. It's plenty fast. If a 100% MoCA connection between them still has stuttering, I'd wonder if something was wrong with one of the boxes. But you can always double-check the splitters for any loose connections too.


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## fieldy301 (Mar 27, 2013)

Alright, so I looked at this quickly before going to work...I feel like I made things worse...XL4 was setup for ethernet and when I swapped that to run MoCa it told me I needed an adapter...Is this normal? Then when I try to swap it back to ethernet it is telling me ethernet is not recognized...

When I looked at MoCa settings earlier there were 0 errors but I couldn't find a speed setting....

I am using a Verizon Router it is required by Fios as it runs the phone as well as most of there on demand services(which I obviously lost) This is running with the WiFi shut off and straight into my Extreme....The Extreme then has a Cat5e running over tomy HT where I had the monster switch I picked up a Netgear GS108 at work tonight and I am going to attempt to pull the M-Card powercycle and run initial setup again. 

When I attempted to unplug ethernet earlier I ran into MoCa issue, this is my issue. I never heard of MoCa until I got the Tivo so I am a little lost here.

I found it odd that the woman at Tivo I spoke to had never heard of this issue and tried to tell me this was related to download speed. Can someone please confirm for me that sharing between two devices on my network has zero to do with DL/UL speed.


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## fieldy301 (Mar 27, 2013)

Update: I am not to sure what I did, I swapped the bridge but the Tivo still told me I was not connected VIA Ethernet when I repeated guided setup. I then clicked MoCa and it connected, I went through the setup flawlessly. Now everything seems to be working perfectly, when I look at my network settings it tells me Ethernet + MoCa...Odd? Can someone explains to me how that works? The TiVo seems to tell me it doesn't see ethernet but I can ping it from my modem with no issues and everything is working fine now.

If someone can maybe tell me some specs to check so we can see what I did and be able to ID a resolution for people in the future.


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## jmpage2 (Jan 21, 2004)

fieldy301 said:


> Update: I am not to sure what I did, I swapped the bridge but the Tivo still told me I was not connected VIA Ethernet when I repeated guided setup. I then clicked MoCa and it connected, I went through the setup flawlessly. Now everything seems to be working perfectly, when I look at my network settings it tells me Ethernet + MoCa...Odd? Can someone explains to me how that works? The TiVo seems to tell me it doesn't see ethernet but I can ping it from my modem with no issues and everything is working fine now.
> 
> If someone can maybe tell me some specs to check so we can see what I did and be able to ID a resolution for people in the future.


Well, it's difficult to know what actually "fixed" the trouble since you changed several things.

MoCA + Ethernet on the XL4 means that your XL4 is getting DHCP from your router over Wi-Fi or ethernet (depending on which you are using), but is also bridging itself onto the MoCA network (using it's built in MoCA adapter) and providing MoCA service to the Minis that way. Basically the XL4 acts like a MoCA converter for other devices on the network, connecting them over coax and bridging them on to ethernet if they need an outside (internet) connection for things that don't stream inside the network between the TiVos.

At first blush I would say that it's entirely possible that there is, or was something wrong with your ethernet network. If you turned off MoCA, reconnected everything via Ethernet and the problem returned that would more or less prove it.... but under the circumstances I think you should simply be happy it is now working.


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## todd_j_derr (Jun 6, 2000)

In my FiOS installation the router uses 2 independent MoCA channels for WAN and LAN. They're on separate frequencies that should not interfere with each other at all even on the same cable - you can get full bandwidth from both. I haven't had any issues personally.

However, note that the Verizon router is already bridging from the LAN-side MoCA to Ethernet and you do not want your TiVo doing the same thing or it can create a loop (can't say for sure without knowing exactly how your network is connected and what channel all the MoCA devices are using although they are supposed to auto-configure to use the same channel). Bridges are supposed to run a protocol called STP to detect loops and negotiate how to break them. It's possible that is happening in your case - or it's possible it's not happening properly which could definitely lead to problems on the network. It's better to avoid the loop - I'd say you should either disable MoCA on the TiVo or unplug the Ethernet... Although if it's working for you now then maybe it's not worth messing with it.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

If the MoCA connection between the XL4 and the Elite is using a third MoCA channel, than that would not interfere with the two MoCA frequencies it's already using for FiOS. I know you can manually select the MoCA channel to use in the TiVos with built in MoCA.

I've always had an Ethernet connection from my ONT so I only needed to use the FIOS router when I had a STB for VOD. But even then I could use that behind my own router, or use my own router behind the FiOS router.


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## todd_j_derr (Jun 6, 2000)

True, although when I briefly enabled MoCA on my XL4 I don't remember it asking for a channel and it did join my MoCA LAN. So, unless the OP explicitly set the channel, it should all be the same network... but it's worth checking.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

todd_j_derr said:


> True, although when I briefly enabled MoCA on my XL4 I don't remember it asking for a channel and it did join my MoCA LAN. So, unless the OP explicitly set the channel, it should all be the same network... but it's worth checking.


You can set a Moca channel from ch15 to 25, but I found that using the auto mode (the TP-4 default), the system looks for the best channel to use by itself, my system went to ch 15 and works great.


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## fieldy301 (Mar 27, 2013)

Alright, so woke up this morning used the Mini and couldn't go 5 minutes without losing signal to the XL4. Would boot me back to main menu I would click back on the show and it would work....Got fed up and brought the XL4 back to work tonight and exchanged it for another...Got it all setup about 45 min ago and everything seems to be working fine...For some reason it looks like the 1st unit I had was defective and couldn't keep itself on the network.

Symptoms that led me here:

When I first set the unit up it had a hard time recognizing the network

I then Ping'd the unit from my router multiple times and about 30% of the time the unit would fail, only successfully transferring 2 or 3 packets. 

Then this AM the Mini wouldn't stay attached while watching something recorded on the XL4 but it would link back up immediately after going back to the TiVo menu.

I don't know enough about networking to know what was going on but it must have been dropping signal intermittently causing an issue.

I appreciate everyones help and TiVo cx support overall was very good in helping me out over the past few days. I am glad I was able to get this running as I have already fallen in love with the interface.


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## teklock (Sep 11, 2012)

aaronwt said:


> If the MoCA connection between the XL4 and the Elite is using a third MoCA channel, than that would not interfere with the two MoCA frequencies it's already using for FiOS. I know you can manually select the MoCA channel to use in the TiVos with built in MoCA.
> 
> I've always had an Ethernet connection from my ONT so I only needed to use the FIOS router when I had a STB for VOD. But even then I could use that behind my own router, or use my own router behind the FiOS router.


This is exactly how I advise any FIOS setup. 1) Run ethernet from your ONT to any router. 2) Install your FIOS router behind the first router with all the DHCP settings turndown. (Where it's just a MOCA bridge to Ethernet). 3) Install all of your tivos to MOCA OR ethernet, but not both.

The first router will provide IPs to all the network devices (MOCA or ethernet including your FIOS DVR's and phones)


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## tivoboy (Jan 14, 2002)

I've noticed something similar now using the Mini..it seems the mini or the moca when doing FF in HD, it isn't slow per se, just that it isn't FLUID. The speed of the FF on the regular XL4 is very smooth and linear. I'm not sure if this is just the way they optimize for remote distribution or if there is a problem with my MoCa setup?


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

tivoboy said:


> I've noticed something similar now using the Mini..it seems the mini or the moca when doing FF in HD, it isn't slow per se, just that it isn't FLUID. The speed of the FF on the regular XL4 is very smooth and linear. I'm not sure if this is just the way they optimize for remote distribution or if there is a problem with my MoCa setup?


 It's always been that way using MRS from 1 series 4 unit to another, so with Mini it's no different.


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## Gromit (Nov 4, 1999)

Last night my second Mini started 'skipping' while watching HD.

Setup -
1st Mini - MoCA. XL4 is in the living room, connected to the internet via an Apple Airport Extreme which is connected wirelessly to a second Airport Extreme (5ghz 802.11n). Works fine.

2nd Mini - Ethernet. Connected to a 10/100 switch which in turn is connected to the previously mentioned second Apple Airport Extreme which is connected to my cable modem. All of these are close to each other, so the cable outlet feeds the modem.

I knew the 10/100 switch was probably going to need to be replaced by a gigabit switch. But it's been working almost perfectly until last night. I had a pause in video and sound here and there, but no big deal. My plan was to buy a gigabit switch soon.

Last night when the skipping started, I removed the switch and wired the Mini directly to the Airport Extreme router. Still skipped. I rebooted the Mini. Still skipped.

So I put a coax splitter in from the wall cable outlet. One direction goes straight to the Mini, the other goes my cable modem. After enabling MoCA on the Mini it works great. No skips at all.

I'm starting to think these things just like MoCA better.

But now it looks like my internet speeds are suffering, at least reported by an initial test. A follow-up test was fine.


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## southerndoc (Apr 5, 2003)

Gromit said:


> Last night my second Mini started 'skipping' while watching HD.
> 
> Setup -
> 1st Mini - MoCA. XL4 is in the living room, connected to the internet via an Apple Airport Extreme which is connected wirelessly to a second Airport Extreme (5ghz 802.11n). Works fine.
> ...


Your system is skipping because you're using the Mini in a way not supported by TiVo. Wireless isn't supported because it can't sustain the data rates without dropouts or stuttering. You can use all ethernet if you have wires going through your house.


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## jmpage2 (Jan 21, 2004)

geekmedic said:


> Your system is skipping because you're using the Mini in a way not supported by TiVo. Wireless isn't supported because it can't sustain the data rates without dropouts or stuttering. You can use all ethernet if you have wires going through your house.


From his description the Mini that was skipping was wired end to end when it did it.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

geekmedic said:


> Your system is skipping because you're using the Mini in a way not supported by TiVo. Wireless isn't supported because it can't sustain the data rates without dropouts or stuttering. You can use all ethernet if you have wires going through your house.


Sure it can. Wireless can sustain the bitrates needed without any issues if your wireless is setup properly. I had my two Elites and two Minis connected to wireless Bridges for a couple of days and saw zero issues. The experience was identical to when I had everything connected to Ethernet or when I had everything connected to MoCA.


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## jmpage2 (Jan 21, 2004)

aaronwt said:


> Sure it can. Wireless can sustain the bitrates needed without any issues if your wireless is setup properly. I had my two Elites and two Minis connected to wireless Bridges for a couple of days and saw zero issues. The experience was identical to when I had everything connected to Ethernet or when I had everything connected to MoCA.


It's the "set up properly" part that is the problem.

You frequently espouse how you have reliable HD streaming over wireless but in reality wi-fi almost always falls flat on its face trying to do this... even moreso in the typical environment in which there is occasional radio interference on the 2.4ghz bands being used, buffering problems due to wi-fi radios throttling speeds down for slower devices, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.

The bottom line is that unless someone particularly knows what they are doing (and, like you, has a penchant for buying piles of gear, piles of access points and repeaters, etc) they should steer clear of trying to stream anything better than Youtube quality crap over a wi-fi connection.


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## southerndoc (Apr 5, 2003)

jmpage2 said:


> From his description the Mini that was skipping was wired end to end when it did it.


Perhaps I was confused, but his XL4 is connected to an Apple Airport Extreme and is connected to the network wirelessly through the Airport Extreme. The second Mini is connected to a switch, which is then connected to an Airport Extreme (wired) that is connected to the cable modem.

In order to get from the XL4 to the second Mini, it must go through the Airport Extreme's WiFi connection to the second Airport Extreme, then to the switch, then to the Mini. That is a wireless connection unless I'm missing something in his setup description. The two Airport Extreme units aren't hardwired together, or at least he didn't mention them as being hardwired.

His first Mini is connected via MoCA. So the XL4 can transfer directly to the second Mini through MoCA and skip the wireless connection.

WiFi can sustain high data rates (especially 802.11ac), but in most real life situations, interference from competing signals, barriers (walls), etc. make _sustained_ data rates unreliable.


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## jmpage2 (Jan 21, 2004)

I think I mis-understood his post, I had thought he indicated that the XL4 was hardwired and after having trouble he hard-wired the 2nd Mini to the same Airport Extreme router. Clearly though I mis-read this.

And definitely, trying to stream HD video *reliably* over wi-fi is a bit of a wasted effort.


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## Gromit (Nov 4, 1999)

The XL4 is hard-wired to a router, but that router is connected to a second router via a wireless bridge. The second router, where the skipping Mini is, is hard-wired to my modem. But since the XL4 is the source for all Mini streaming, any ethernet wired Mini, no matter where it is in my condo, is going across a wireless network.

So there was a wireless network between the skipping Mini and the XL4. But it worked for almost a month with no skipping. I had a couple of hiccups here and there but nothing that concerned me enough to make an immediate change as this isn't a primary TV. I thought the 10/100 switch was probably a bigger factor.

Maybe my wireless network was more saturated last night when I first encountered the skipping. Bottom line, I'm aware of the fact that wireless isn't supported and I should have considered that as the primary factor in last night's skipping. It's worked great up to this point but as long as the splitter before my modem isn't going to impact my internet speeds, MoCA seems to be the way to go for me.

Sorry for the confusion. It can get somewhat complicated trying to determine what is going where if your network isn't simple. I guess the good thing for me is that I have options. I could remove the wireless bridge by putting a MoCA adapter in the room with the modem/router combo and let the XL4 serve as the ethernet source for my wired devices in the living room.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

jmpage2 said:


> It's the "set up properly" part that is the problem.
> 
> You frequently espouse how you have reliable HD streaming over wireless but in reality wi-fi almost always falls flat on its face trying to do this... even moreso in the typical environment in which there is occasional radio interference on the 2.4ghz bands being used, buffering problems due to wi-fi radios throttling speeds down for slower devices, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.
> 
> The bottom line is that unless someone particularly knows what they are doing (and, like you, has a penchant for buying piles of gear, piles of access points and repeaters, etc) they should steer clear of trying to stream anything better than Youtube quality crap over a wi-fi connection.


Unfortunately that is the entire problem with most home Wi-Fi networks. Most are not setup properly. To be setup properly you need multipls APs, APs that are not saturated, plus you need to be using channels that are not congested. The vast majority of home Wi-Fi networks have one or more of those issues which of course can cause reliabilty issues.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Gromit said:


> The XL4 is hard-wired to a router, but that router is connected to a second router via a wireless bridge. The second router, where the skipping Mini is, is hard-wired to my modem. But since the XL4 is the source for all Mini streaming, any ethernet wired Mini, no matter where it is in my condo, is going across a wireless network.
> 
> So there was a wireless network between the skipping Mini and the XL4. But it worked for almost a month with no skipping. I had a couple of hiccups here and there but nothing that concerned me enough to make an immediate change as this isn't a primary TV. I thought the 10/100 switch was probably a bigger factor.
> 
> ...


MoCA is usually one of the easiest alternatives with houses wired with coax cable. That should eliminate the issues you are having from wireless. I'm currently running two Minis and two Elites on MoCA. With one Elite using the Ethernet connection for internet access for all the MoCA devices, and my second Elite usng the Ethernet connection to connect my OTA only Premiere to the internet and the other TiVos on MoCA.. I was going to go back to Ethernet only for everything but this setup frees up one of my GigE switches that I needed to use at another location.


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## jmpage2 (Jan 21, 2004)

Gromit said:


> Sorry for the confusion. It can get somewhat complicated trying to determine what is going where if your network isn't simple. I guess the good thing for me is that I have options. I could remove the wireless bridge by putting a MoCA adapter in the room with the modem/router combo and let the XL4 serve as the ethernet source for my wired devices in the living room.


You don't even need to do that.

Just turn on the MoCA function in the XL4 and have each mini use the integrated MoCA to connect to the XL4.

The connectivity from the XL4 to the internet is not important, as long as it has one. All local streaming (which is where you will have bandwidth and performance bottlenecks) will be going over coax.

If someone has coaxial to each room that they have a TiVo in, there's no reason NOT to use MoCA exclusively for the Minis, as long as the XL4 has some kind of internet connectivity.


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## Gromit (Nov 4, 1999)

jmpage2 said:


> You don't even need to do that.
> 
> Just turn on the MoCA function in the XL4 and have each mini use the integrated MoCA to connect to the XL4.
> 
> ...


MoCA is enabled on the XL4, it's just getting its internet connection from the router serving as a wireless bridge.

I was thinking I could drop the wireless bridge by using the XL4's ethernet jack as the input for a switch, which would allow me to connect all of the wired devices in my living room to the internet. To do that, I would add a MoCA adapter to the room with the cable modem/router combo, giving my XL4 internet access.

But I doubt I'll bother unless I run into more problems.

This stuff gets confusing.


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