Video Streaming

[AnotherJohnson]

I’ve had the same negative experience trying to stream hi rez video over WiFi as I had with the audio. The two systems are both about 50’ from the router, at opposite diagonals. (HT is on southwest, Stereo is on northeast). The stereo problems were solved by installing Ethernet to the system’s location.

The streaming was first tried using a Sony BluRay 4k player. It would link up and work for 10 to 15 minutes and then die. I tried a hard connection, but the player refuses to move to the Ethernet. It defaults to the WiFi as soon as it realizes WiFi is available, even when Ethernet is plugged in. The WiFi is unreliable at that location. FWIW, the Sony player has had all updates. It is current.

So I moved on to the Sony Bravia TV and its resident streamer. It sets up on and stays with the Ethernet connection. It works and is reliable.

Are there stand alone video streamers out there? Are they better than the TV resident streamers? What are you using?

[admin]

I've used a Amazon fire stick, Roku stick, and PS4 for wireless streaming. All have worked flawlessly. In terms of choice I think it comes down to which user interface you prefer. The good think is that these devices are very inexpensive so it's no big deal to upgrade every few years to get all the new bells and whistles. But with the firestick and roku, under $50 will get you 4K streaming and compatibility with the latest apps.

[AnotherJohnson]

Wireless … that’s the problem. It is unlikely that a stick will do better than a Sony player. The sticks work fine on the TV next to the router. 50’ away through two brick walls, not so good.

I’m looking for the Holo May of video streamers. Does that exist?

[admin]

Get a wifi repeater. It works fine for 4K streaming.

[AnotherJohnson]

Got one. It does not.

Is there no dCS of video?

All this evaluation by specs and theory of data transmission is bullocks when it comes down to eyes and ears.

If your eye or ears are disappointed in one installation and not in another, the first installation needs attention.

WiFi is great for the phone, web surfing, general data transfer where the transferred file is like a document or a YouTube or mp3.

Maybe you are blessed with a better isp. We live in the “real world.” Available ISPs all bear watching / monitoring.

[AnotherJohnson]

The ONLY thing I’m running off an extender now is a laser printer. And it’s hardwired to the extender. Works great! It did not like the WiFi direct.

I am running several devices off just WiFi, including a color printer/scanner, an iMac, a cable TV, MacBook Airs, phones, tablets. No problems. Streaming Hi Rez music or video is not the same here, no matter what the guidelines might say to the contrary.

And I’m getting 400 to 500+ mbs in the vicinity of the router. Packet loss and jitter do not measure as issues. And updates are current on the Sony player. It seems to ignore Ethernet if WiFi is available. I’ve gone through extended set up. I’m not trying to fix it. Just looking for the Holo Audio or dCS equivalent for video. Maybe it doesn’t exist.

Edit: The extended network is great to run the phone to surf when I’m at the back of the garage. Information is easy to get. Continuous Hi Rez information, not so much.

[AnotherJohnson]

This looks like the problem that the HiFi Rose is trying to solve.

[admin]

Do we know why the extender is failing? If it is able to output 30 mbps, it should be able to handle the highest resolution streams from Netflix/Disney+/Amazon/etc.

I think you should think of video streamers in a different fashion than audio gear. A new $50 streamer today is going to outperform a 5 year old $500 streamer. The performance is really going to be about CPU/RAM in these devices but even more importantly the software running it. You are going to get much better performance by buying a new cheap streamer every 2 years than one very expensive one every 5 or 10. The apps on my streaming devices are updating literally every month. Hardware even a few years old are falling out of the support cycle.

Also, you are relying not on the streamer manufacturer but rather the content producers to keep the software compatible. So you don't want to go outside of the roku/amazon/apple sphere of hardware as Disney+ is not going to care whether their streaming app runs well on your exotic high end streamer that only has 500 users in the entire world. They make sure it runs on the AppleTV however.

The HiFi Rose is a great device for audio that does a lot of stuff. It will stream video that is stored locally on your network but will not be able to stream the dozens of streaming networks that are popular today. I presumed this discussion was about video streaming services and not just local network stored video files.

[AnotherJohnson]

We went though all this “if you’ve got this data rate, it’s good enough” on the audio stuff. It didn’t hold water there.

There seem to be several levels of Hi Rez issues.

1. Is the streaming service able to stream the file to your isp?

2. Can your isp transfer it to your site.

3, Can your LAN deliver it to your device continuously?

4. Can your device accept the delivery continuously.

I am having no issues with 1 - 2.

3-4 are handled well by Ethernet on the TV’s built in streamer.

4 is not handled well by WiFi if the rate drops below about 75 Mbps EVEN IF AN IT GURU SAYS IT SHOULD.

I am not trying to solve a wifi problem. I’m hardwired and fully functional.

I’m just trying to learn what’s out there.

My summary of what I’m hearing you tell me is

Fix your wifi and use a cheap streamer because that’s what the streaming service will support into the future, and it won’t be much loss when it’s obsolete in two years.

Maybe that’s the best advice.

I’m beginning to understand why people download digital files to play later. Once the file’s downloaded, the only obstacles after are your LAN and your device.

[admin]

I'm a fan of the local media. A few thousand pounds of laserdiscs proves that. But there is some content that is only available on streaming services. So when the wife wants to watch The Mandalorian tonight, I have no option other than streaming it from Disney+. Also, I have to make sure the streaming works in our bedroom TV or else there is a full emergency situation in the house that I will have to interrupt any current activity and remedy. So #1 priority is to keep streaming TV working for the wife. Everything else is secondary. I've found the easiest way to make this happen is to keep these cheap streaming sticks up to date as possible. Not a new one necessarily every year, but they seem to be more reliable if not older than 3.

In all honesty, to keep it as simple as possible I would just buy this, it's currently on sale for $35. If it doesn't work out of the box, just send it back or maybe just throw it in the garbage to skip the hassle considering how cheap it is: https://www.amazon.com/fire-tv-stick-4k ... 107&sr=8-3

[AnotherJohnson]

Yes, I’ve looked at them. My daughters in law love them.
I don’t need one with the Ethernet plugged into the TV, the resident streamer works great.

Plus Apple Air Play also works.

Video streaming, like audio streaming, is of variable quality and not drama free.

[admin]

Yes, I’ve looked at them. My daughters in law love them.

Yup, same response from my wife. You just plug it into the TV and the outlet. They just work and everything is intuitive. The remote is simple to use.

Video streaming, like audio streaming, is of variable quality and not drama free.

Also true. As for quality, streaming has dramatically improved in the last few years with not only improved bandwidth but improved video codecs that offer significantly better video compression. Newer CPU's can now decode these with ease.

On the flip side. The quality of even the best 4K streaming pales in comparison to any 4K Blu-ray. The bitrate of a 4K Blu-ray is close to 10x that of streaming. And no streaming services offer lossless audio tracks.

Like audio, there is no perfect medium. They all have pros and cons.

[tonye]

Hmm... well not the simplest... but...

Run your own Plex servers at home.

It helps when you got, like we do, 110TB of online storage in NAS servers and the entire house is wired for GigE ( with spanning tree between the three main switches ). I have measured 10G, which simply blows the need for bandwidth.

That said, I never did go for Bluray or anything like that. The current crop of SoCs in the smart TVs does an exceptional job of upconverting to their native panel resolutions. Our LG OLEDs are extremely good ( I calibrated them, by eye.... ).

Besides, a lot of the stuff I like to watch are TV shows... Get Smart, All In The Family.. so even though everything is upconverted to 1080p in the Plex servers, the displays will up convert.

Even when I watch them on my Android Tablets or our smart phones ( yes, I do have a roaming 802.11ag set up as well, the resolution of modern digital displays may or may not have anything to do with the native resolution of the stored file.

Streaming... from outside.. hmm.. my wife and daughter watch Netflix. We also have Rokus and Tablos and they do a very good job with all kinds of processing of video.. and audio.

The complexity of ARM based SOCs today is astounding. The market is simply moving very fast... nowadays we are seeing SOCs with built in FPGAs ( which is what I've been programming the last year and a half ). Heck, the last two were video processors.... as a matter of fact.

[admin]

Hmm... well not the simplest... but...

Run your own Plex servers at home.

The fundamental problem that I saw with running a home service is the incredible amount of time it takes to get the hard media onto digital storage. Ripping blu-ray's takes close to an hour, DVD's less but still significant amount of time, and you have to worry about copyright and encryption issues. It may be viable for your favorite 30 films, but after that it's a 2nd job and big $$ if you want to do an extensive catalog of 1,000's of titles. And at the end of the day, you still can't watch the latest episode of that new show that is only on Netflix/Disney+/etc.

I just couldn't get myself to commit. I buy my favorite movies on Blu-ray to have the best quality, stream new content,... and of course keep a few thousand laserdiscs on the shelf (I mean, who doesn't?).

[tonye]

True it takes time, but I've been doing it for over 20 years now.

Ripping a DVD is rather fast, transcoding takes time. I transcode into the Highest Quality 1080p quality with all the audio streams (using Handbrake)... It used to take more than five hours per movie, but you can queue them and let them rip. Having spare PCs helps.

My latest machine for this can do the transcoding in around an hour for a two hour movie -or so. It's an 12th gen I7 with 32GB of RAM and SSDs.

I have not tried to rip a BlueRay.

Laserdics... yeah, I got a couple of hundred. Got two LD players (one is a Sony MDP700, plus an SHFH1000 and the editing controller. Back in the day I used to rent LDs and record them into Superbeta. With the editing machine setup and flying erase heads I could flip the LD and continue recording with frame by frame perfection!

I still have Dr. Strangelove... the High Zoot version, I think I paid like 100 bucks for it back in the 90s!

[admin]

This was my experience as well when I did a few rips.

A DVD can be ripped in under 15 minutes if your are not transcoding and just pulling the video direct to native format.

A Blu-ray will take about an hour.

But at the end of the day, the time vs benefit has not really been worth it for me. You can rent just about any older movie for $4 of streaming services like Amazon, and buy them for $20 (or less). And of course I can just pop in the hard copy of an owned DVD/Blu-ray to play.

Their are "luxury services" where you can download movies in blu-ray quality for local storage. I forgot the name (perhaps Kaleidescape, or something like that) but basically you select the movie, it downloads in the background but it's blu-ray quality. It costs more than typical streaming but is designed for the high end clientele that want the best quality (ie Blu-ray) but does not want to spend the time with hard media and the encoding process.