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Buffer?
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Jonog



Joined: 21 Feb 2010
Posts: 30

PostPosted: Sun Feb 21, 2010 4:06 pm    Post subject: Buffer? Reply with quote

I am a newbie here. I got edcast and ice cast set up on a PC in a studio and I can listen to it at home (same LAN) perfect, no buffers. I also use this stream as a link for an FM radio station, however the PC at the station end also same LAN, just seems to buffer for unexplained reasons. I dont know why as its not net speed and its only about 1% of the LAN speed. Any help much appreciated.
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karlH
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 21, 2010 4:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I would make sure the transfer rate to the problem machine can be maintained. a simple download app like curl which reports the transfer rate could be used to see if the expected bitrate is coming down. Obviously burst size can be used within icecast to prime the player quickly and maybe there is large latency on the link, but the simple download monitor will tell you whether the stream can be maintained.

karl.
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Jonog



Joined: 21 Feb 2010
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 21, 2010 5:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks Karl, just to run it by you my connection speed is 2mbits up and 2mbits down, the machine at the far end usually doesnt reach more than 1mbit up and 1mbit down. Yet is plays web streams of the same bit rate ok without buffers. I will try that curl application and see.
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Jonog



Joined: 21 Feb 2010
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 21, 2010 5:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ok, looked at curl and its beyond me!
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karlH
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 21, 2010 5:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

not that difficult

curl -o /dev/null http://host:8000/stream

you'll see a current download rate in bytes, that needs to match what you expect from the stream (eg 128k is ~16kbytes/s)

karl
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Jonog



Joined: 21 Feb 2010
Posts: 30

PostPosted: Sun Feb 21, 2010 8:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Sorry for sounding dumb, but could you just explain to me what I have to do. if you can please.

Also is it possible to run edcast and icecast server on two different PCs? or do they have to reside on the same machine?
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Jonog



Joined: 21 Feb 2010
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 21, 2010 8:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

my upload on this PC was only .4mb and download was .68mb, is this too slow to stream 320k? Also how can I set a large delay with ice cast. Thanks.
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karlH
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 21, 2010 9:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

320kbit/s is around 40kbytes/s. So you need to be able to sustain 40 kbytes/s. I don't know where you are getting the 0.68mb figure from but if you can manage 680kbytes/s from the server then 40 will be easy.

With such a bitrate, I would increase the burst size from the 64k default as that is only a little over a second worth of audio and increase the queue size from 512k as that would be only 12 seconds of lag before being dropped. You may also need to check the buffer on the player to make sure that is ok for 320kbit/s

the source client can be remote if you wish, a network connection is all that is required.

karl.
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Jonog



Joined: 21 Feb 2010
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 21, 2010 9:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I tired everything with burst etc. It seems to not make any difference. Them figures are from speedtest.net. I keep getting logged out of logmein if that is something to do with it? And yes ping times are very high as there is a big distance between the studio and TX, between 164 and 300ms.
I am lost as to what to do. VLC is well capable of playing a 320k stream?
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karlH
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 21, 2010 9:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

the speedtest run tells me nothing because you are not intending to stream to/from that site. The links you are interested in is between the source and the machine running icecast, and between icecast and the player.

As as least one player is ok then you can assume that the source client to icecast link is working fine, so the question is the icecast to problem player link. Now for some reason you don't want to test this 320k stream from the station PC with any other application, so I can only guess that either the link is saturated/throttled/failing or the player is having trouble handling the stream.

I'm not aware of any player application having a 320k playback limitation but obviously if the link cannot maintain that bitrate then any player will drop back to buffering mode at some point.

karl.
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Jonog



Joined: 21 Feb 2010
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 21, 2010 9:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I am willing to try another way of measuring it, just I dont have the savvy to get my head around curl. I downloaded a free bandwith monitor and I dont know if thats my net speed or my network speed.
In taskmanager network utilisation is 1% or under. I am very willing to try and test it with curl but all I got were text files, PDFs, are and other files I dont know what they are. I was expecting an exe and GUI.
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Jonog



Joined: 21 Feb 2010
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 21, 2010 9:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

and if this helps it takes 8 minutes to copy and paste a 15mb file from the pc with buffer problems to the one with edcast on it.
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karlH
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 21, 2010 10:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

urgh, you're on windows. well use any download bandwidth measuring tool but download the stream to see what the actual speed of the transfer is. With windows you may be getting throttled by the TCP window size, and with the larger ping time you may be getting max'd out on the connection. I don't know what settings are used on windows to know off hand iof this could be a problem but I know some have mentioned this before. Is icecast on windows as well?

karl.
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Jonog



Joined: 21 Feb 2010
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 21, 2010 10:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yes Icecast is on windows too. Everything is on windows sadly. I am looking for an alternative bandwith monitor. I have an image I could attach, ill have to upload it somewhere.
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karlH
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 21, 2010 11:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I would try increasing the TCP window size, start with 16k, assuming when you try to get the stream that it turns out to be less than 40kbytes/s (320kbit/s)

karl.
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