Streaming

I'm looking for some advice please.

We have a fibre installation which tests at approx. 23mb download. To my mind this should be more than capable of streaming videos online. However, even now, when the line is probably least used, we still can't watch things properly. We are trying to watch the live Mexican feed from azteca.com but it goes may 10 seconds before buffering, making it completely impractical to watch.

We have the stream on a dedicated machine that runs nothing else, and so I'm looking for some things to try to make this stream properly. Any help would be appreciated.

Wired or wireless?

wireless

url for a stream ?

maybe it's just a [censored] site

The URL is http://www.azteca.com/envivo/losdel7/751/index it's defo not porn, if that was what the censored bit was, it's Mexican tv. We specifically want to watch the Mexican football on azteca deportes, but the in-laws want to watch daytime tv too

Unauthorized in my country

Why Windows?

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

Unauthorized in my country

In Reading? I'm in Northampton and it works just fine, to a degree anyway.

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

Why Windows?

Why not? I better things to do than faff around with Linux and umbutu. I want to watch the channel not spend time configuring the os.

In reference to www.azteca.com/envivo/losdel7/751/index:

We're sorry, this content is only available in certain countries.

Northampton must be another country .

I mean why post in Windows forum? It's nowt to do with your OS.

Edited by XRaySpeX (Wed 30-Jan-13 20:00:22)

Ah me too now. I think it's because of the program being shown. Usually it's fine.

Sorry, I thought you meant why windows per se. Is this not the correct forum then? I figured, windows problem, post here. Where should it go?

that's an index, not a stream URL. The censored bit was my suggestion that the site might be rubbish, rather thna your connection.

General or Technical forums, I would have thought.

that "index" page does contain a video that won't play here.

The URL is the page in which the stream is embedded. I don't think the site is rubbish. Azteca is one of the biggest media companies in South and Central America.

In reply to a post by timfoster:

Ah me too now. I think it's because of the program being shown. Usually it's fine.

As of the timestamp of this post, it's streaming fine for me (South Oxfordshire, ISP is IDNet).

Peak speed of stream is about 230KBps, according to the iMac's activity monitor.

Maybe your ISP has poor routing to South America?

For info:

traceroute www.azteca.com
traceroute: Warning: www.azteca.com has multiple addresses; using 92.122.126.217
traceroute to a1479.g.akamai.net (92.122.126.217), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
 1  www.asusnetwork.net (192.168.1.1)  0.543 ms  0.251 ms  0.197 ms
 2  telehouse-gw4-lo1.idnet.net (212.69.63.98)  19.348 ms  19.807 ms  19.468 ms
 3  telehouse-gw6-gi4-400.idnet.net (212.69.63.246)  19.430 ms  19.123 ms  19.247 ms
 4  telehouse-gw5-gi4-400.idnet.net (212.69.63.245)  19.269 ms  19.359 ms  19.278 ms
 5  gi4-42-75-idnet.bdr-rt3.thdo.ncuk.net (80.249.97.109)  20.015 ms  19.467 ms  20.230 ms
 6  * 195.66.236.168 (195.66.236.168)  26.773 ms  23.390 ms
 7  a92-122-126-217.deploy.akamaitechnologies.com (92.122.126.217)  19.551 ms  20.033 ms  19.947 ms

Also working fine here, PlusNet 20:59

Have you tried streaming from any other site? That might determine whether the problem was with your connection or just the one site.

Streams at 1800kbps (225KBps) here on Plusnet.

Not a live feed though.

In reply to a post by camieabz:

Not a live feed though.

So it isn't... didn't notice that

Shouldn't matter though? Either the link is fast enough or it isn't...

Shouldn't matter though? Either the link is fast enough or it isn't...

Live streaming tends to have modest buffer, if it's saved content the download can whizz ahead of where you're at and get over any blips without affecting playback.

OK, let me re-phrase that- either the minimum speed of the link etc...

It might also be cached elsewhere, such as on a CDN, although, based on my limited research, this site is not on a CDN.

Edited by camieabz (Wed 30-Jan-13 21:44:51)

In reply to a post by timfoster:

Ah me too now. I think it's because of the program being shown. Usually it's fine.

Ah! Now it's streaming fine for me at about 2 to 3.5 Mbps on a 20 Meg connection; no buffering. So the country authorization must depend on the program being transmitted.

Coming in at around 3500kbps on Sky Fibre optic.

No issues.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Thu 31-Jan-13 01:15:00)

No problems here watching the Mexican version of loose women at 2500 kbps.

So it looks like the problem may be my end then. I'm with PlusNet and testing reports 23MB downloads which is why I thought the problem was less likely to be the connection and more likely to be something else.

The box it runs on isn't a super computer, but it is a new one and runs nothing but this (or whichever internet TV we're watching). I have similar problems, although not quite as frequently, when we're watching the subscription channel tennistv.com. This is almost exclusively live. They do have video replays of matches, but we tend to only watch the live games.

The other site we use regularly and have similar problems with is time4tv.com which shows Sky Sports and other sports channels. I accept that this site is probably the most flaky of them all though.

What I was really after was suggestions for how I can optimise the machine to run these streams without interruption. I'm running Windows 8 and play these outside of the metro interface, both in Chrome and IE.

I had thought that with fibre we would be able to watch things like this as though we were watching regular tv. Was I expecting too much?

In reply to a post by timfoster:

What I was really after was suggestions for how I can optimise the machine to run these streams without interruption.

Re:

In reply to a post by timfoster:

wireless

Nobody seems to have suggested the obvious test- how does it behave on a wired connection?

It may well be the same, but the check needs to be done- it may be a simple matter of using a different channel.

Wired isn't an option I'm afraid Bill. The PC is in the lounge and connected the TV. There simply isn't a wired connection that goes to it. I can't even move it to the router as there isn't a monitor I could plug into it.

That sounds as though it's some distance from, and not in the same room as, the router... in which case the wireless would definitely be a good suspect.

If you can't get hold of a long Ethernet cable for testing, it may be worth just trying different channels on the router to see what happens. In my (admittedly not exhaustive) experience, the usual default of Auto is seldom a good idea- even manually setting the same channel that Auto selects often improves matters

It might even be worth buying one- they're cheap enough, and imo a long Ethernet cable should be in everyone's spares box

As someone suggested try using a wired connection to test. Most people can't have a permanent ethernet cable trailing about but having a 50m cable is handy especially if access to the internet is important.

In reply to a post by timfoster:

The box it runs on isn't a super computer, but it is a new one and runs nothing but this (or whichever internet TV we're watching). I have similar problems, although not quite as frequently, when we're watching the subscription channel tennistv.com. This is almost exclusively live. They do have video replays of matches, but we tend to only watch the live games.

The other site we use regularly and have similar problems with is time4tv.com which shows Sky Sports and other sports channels. I accept that this site is probably the most flaky of them all though.

Have you tried testing various steam qualities from youtube (e.g. 240 v 1080p)?

It might throw up a system issue.