Hi Everybody

Guys just to inform and clarify everything, again we cannot compare the player to a PC and to a real NAS. The media player is only a basic NAS which you can still used for file transferring, the player ethernet Gigabit port is there to stream your High definition videos on to your television via your network flawlessly (Gigabit streaming). If you have basic network setup there should be no worry streaming non HD videos.

As i sayd before i dont expect NAS nor PC networking speeds from a media player.. The issue here is the overall performance of the tested network speed of the HD2 player against the HD player and the lack of network performance of both these players accordingly to the specs, altough HD/Full HD content could be streamed.

I have no doubt it'll play High Definition via the network, since this is 720P and 1080i, (HD Ready) Not to be confused with 1080P (Full HD)

There i have my doubt, since its not possible to stream 1080P(Full HD) content flawlessly over a connection with a maximum bandwith of 3.7MB/sec (29.6mbit/s)(tested on my PlayonHD again today) (Firmware 4824) Normally, Full HD content will stream over a 100Mbit network(working at a decent 100Mbit speed), but only if the bitrate in the movie isn't pushed to maximum and no HD Audio is used this should be more then sufficient. As some of the network bandwith is used for packing and negotiation.

To be clear about the test, these are the quick specs of my network: Synology DS211 NAS, Linksys WRT610N-EU Router, Tripple shielded avaya gigabit network cable's connected to Siemens double shielded gigabit outlets, network tested with a Fluke LR duo (flawless test result, highest possible speed reached through physical network) Cisco gigabit switch, gigabit certified patch cables etc. ( i was a telecom engineer)

As my neighbour bought a playon HD2 (Firmware version v9.5.3.r1731) i asked if i could test the network speed at my own Gigabit network using Windows Explorer to copy a file to the HD2, the speed was max 7.3MB/sec (58.4Mbit) That is enough to stream Full HD and HD Audio, talking in streaming rates. Talking in File tranfer its not Gigabit worthy.

As i asked myself what the highest speed possible could be over my network between my windows based desktops, i copied a file of 25GB between them, resulting in 115MB/s (920Mbit/s) read, and 65MB/s (520Mbit) write (average speeds) over gigabit. To my NAS the speed was tested at 102MB/s (816Mbit/s read and 51MB/s (408Mbit) write (average speeds) Since i don't wanted to make any effort finding a network benchmark tool i did it the conventional way to test the speed.. using again.. Windows Explorer...

Please note that these speeds could not in anyway be compared to any network performance of any kind of media player! this was just for testing to have an indication of my max network speed!

I then tryed to stream some random Full HD 1080P Full BlueRay 1:1 copy movie's with DTS from my NAS to the HD2 but that was as far beyond flawless, with each few minutes buffering (hanging) as result. *This issue fixed itself after testing again later on, dont ask me why, its working flawless know*

My point is, even its a media player, its strange to see this BIG difference of performance in networking compared to a NAS or a PC / laptop over a wired network.

It's absolutely not my goal to totally burn down these players, i'm using my playonHD allmost every day for some time know and dispite the network performance it plays media from the internal HDD like a charm and there is no lag in support! As i had some DTS issues (Other Topic) but thats fixed know thanks to the forum!

In my opinion people looking for a media player should know the facts people tested on media players, whatever brand/company is to be choosed..

If u see things that are incorrect or if you have a question about this please let me know / Ask!


[Edit] The streaming stutter on the HD2 solved itself, as the bandwith should be anough to stream BD movie i tested it again, same movies in random order, same setting, nothing changed at all. Maybe a reboot helped? anyway.. it works..

[Edit:] I forgot the firmware versions, thought that would be handy...

Blu-Ray maxes out at 54 Mbps, video is 40Mbps max + audio. And the video bitrate is variabel, so it will rarely be 40Mbps.

So the stutters every few minutes should not just be because of network performance, unless there are significant drops from the max speed you are stating (58Mbit) while decoding the video / audio.

Interesting read Alex, cheers for that!

maximum streaming of an m2ts file with 55mbits per second plays flawless,
on my gigabit network with an wrt320N and all other gigabit components as switches etcetera,

it is on a playonhd pv73100 with an 100Mbit autonegotiation lan port,

so it is possible.
but i had to set all speeds on autonegotiation instead of full or half duplex with any speed,
switch on the upnp option in your router,
switch off the QoS and WMM in your router as well,
plus on the pc i stream from i also switched of the QoS packetplanner for the lan connection,
i use all static adresses.

your and mine network are similar,
so the 5MB/s plus should be capable with your pv73100 as well.
copying from the playonhd to that pc controlled from the player,
even reaches 9MB/s
see my findings and tests on this forum.

copying from playonhd to the pc controlled from the windows machine still gave me 8.25MB/s

so again if 3MB/s is the max you get,
see if tweaking in your router and lan card on your pc increases this some more,

what the speeds are on the new 2 series playonhd`s on te gigabit network,
i also will test the same way and place the results here again.
even if they are what you measured,
stil 7,3MB/s is enough to stream FullHD video with at least Dolby Thruehd on 7.1 channels audio.

plus it seems that streaming will give even a bit higher results then
copying files.

only flaw i found is that with mkv files it is at the max 48mbits/s for streaming on a pv73100,
probably because the processor needs to be doing a bigger job on decoding an mkv then an m2ts file.

these are just some of my findings on a pv73100.

There is a slight error in your way of thinking here guys

Streaming != Transfer Speed.

Meaning the Streaming on the new playonhd2 actually is gigabit. theres no stuttering here in streaming 7.1 dts-hd bluray isos and mkvs etc.

The bottleneck sits somewhere else when it comes to the actual data transfer.

So if you have stuttering videos while streaming it might be a network related issue or even some codec problem. honestly it works fine.
We dont make a secret of the transfer speeds thats just not in our hands atm but we are busy as hell trying to figure out a solution.


My setup is a gigabit network with a wrt320n router + playonhd2.
as mentioned above i didnt find any file yet that forced the player down to his knees.


cheers !

Hi Dirk,

Thnx for the reply and the tips.

I honestly cant tell why i reach a top speed of 3.7MB/sec on my PlayonHD with 100Mbit port, after testing i looked in the router config and saw nothing unusual, attached it directly on the router port to eliminate possible switch failure with no improvement. switching to another port on my router also makes no improvement, as i wanted to exclude any harware failure of some kind.. u never know..

i run static ip's on all my machines atached to my network: NAS, Printers, Xbox360, Playon, TV, Desktops and laptop (if used wired)

Qos is always turned off in my router and comp's, Autonegotiation turned on, UPnP turned on, WMM still enabled but this has never affected my network performance over wired LAN, i use the 300Mbit when going wireless with my laptop, turning WMM off is resulting in 54Mbit WiFi.

I checked the performance log in my Synology but the stream graph showed no drops when streaming media to the playonHD and the HD2, here i see a slightly higher LAN performance while streaming, as that is 0.2Mbit higher, 31.2Mbit max for the HD. The HD2 also topped som higher while streaming, but not much.

As all of my storage runs at top speed on my network, everything is rock solid, only the playonHD is left.. Maybe a slight board faillure on the HD of somekind?? Autonegotation problem? or are there different board versions in the PlayonHD series wich could explain this?

I posted it before, if my playonHD reaches arround 7 to 8 MB/s i could live with it, due that is a allmost 40 to 50% increase of performance.

As for the streaming stutter on the HD2, I tested it again while typing this and amzingly its running flawless know, very strange as it repeatedly stutterd when testing before.. on random BD movies, I will update/edit my previous post..

Uhm but i stream from my PC, the player needs the transferspeed to get the data fast enough from the PC to play it without stuttering right.

I am now unable to play files exexpt from the internal HDD i built in... But getting files on that is really really sloowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

If i had know this up front i wouldn't have bought it

Well especially with the mini 2 serie there is a great need for the bigger Transfere speeds, since I think most people will want this device for existing home NAS storage data streaming... So when the Full HD file is going to be on DiskStation which is connected over gigabit network I think 7MB/s is not really speed anyone could be happy with. One of the main reasons for me to get tihs one - next to flac+cue support, which is also not working - was the gigabit adapter, well do not try to tell me that it is even slower then if I had 100Mb one... It is not even funny. Come on... Someone from A.C.Ryan, tell us how we should understand this? Why does the specification page advertise Gb adapter when the reality is somewhere else? Can we expect some improvement of the fact some of us tested and described here? Thanx.

Kaucuk

Ok I thought I might try this on my own, just to findout how bad it is... so here is my result... I have Synology DS410 NAS with 4x2TB disks connected to Asus RT-N56U Gigabit router/switch, than to zyxel Gb switch in my living room and to my mini 2... I connected Seaget External 1TB usb disk to the mini and copied 6184MB MKV file from the NAS to the USB drive conected to the Mini... the final copy time was 21:02 min:s. So it is 39Mb/s far away from 1000Mbit/s all right the USB 2 limitations and such things we have to count with, all right... but still it might be at least double... When I connected the USB to my laptop and copied the very same file over the very same cable I have connected to the mini 2 from the very same NAS to the very same USB drive it took me 4minutes and the speed was something like 180Mbits and this was due to USB drive limitations I am sure... But come on this is what I would expect from the box... 22MB per sec. is not that much to want from gigabit ethernet port. is it?

Just to finishe this... this is what official page specification says about the HD2 mini: Network - Wired : Gigabit... I just doublechecked that there is nothing about streaming or whatever...