MKV playback info and buffering

[Pardila]

I've ripped/backed up many 4K, True HD 7.1, movies to MKV files. When I play them in my media room (ground floor) using my Nvidia shield pro from my Plex server in my PC (2nd floor) via wifi I have virtually no buffering. When I play Clapton's latest (Lady in the Balcony, 4K True HD 7.1) it buffers every 20 seconds or so. I checked the playback info on my Nvidia Shield on a couple movies and the data showed 3840 x 2110 @ ~50 Mbps, give or take. The Clapton rip is 101.6 Mbps. Why would the Clapton rip be twice as fast? Do you think that the higher speed is causing the buffering? Any and all thoughts on this are apprecitated.

[Billycar11]

Higher bit rate video and audio that also makes it better quality.
Wired connection is the way to go wifi bad

[dcoke22]

UHDs and blu-rays (and DVDs) contain lossy compressed movies. The disc's author (or whoever controls the purse strings) get to make choices about how much to compress the contents of the disc. There are different kinds of discs with different capacities. The higher the capacity of the disc, the more it costs (generally). So, there's a financial incentive to compress a movie as much as possible. Go too far, however, and it looks bad, perhaps even to casual viewers. Additionally, some kinds of material need more data (aka less compression) to look acceptable than other kinds of material.

All that means that data rates for UHDs can vary from title to title (or release to release for a single title). For example bit rate for the 2018 remaster of 2001: A Space Odyssey is listed as ~62 Mbps. The bit rate of Avengers: Endgame is listed as ~36 Mbps. The Lady in the Balcony is even higher at ~89 Mbps. That's just an average (some sections have higher bit rates, some lower), and probably just refers to the video portion; the audio track will add more to the data rate.

According to blu-ray.com, The Lady in the Balcony is a 2-layer BD-66. The capacity of the disc is 66 GB. Once you've decided on the production costs of that kind of disc, there's no reason not to fill it up, encoding the 77 minute movie with the least amount of compression needed to fit it on the disc (or some approximation thereof).

Bringing this around to your specific situation… As Billycar11 has suggested it probably is the speed (or consistency) of your network connection(s) that is the reason for the buffering. I would guess that eventually you'd find another movie with a high enough data rate to cause the same buffering. I assume your Nvidia Shield is connected via wifi and perhaps your Plex server is too? Depending on the speed of your internet connection, you can test the network speed of your Shield and Plex server to get a feel for what kind of bandwidth is available to each. If your internet connection isn't fast enough to expose the limits of your wifi then things get a bit complicated in a different way.

If both your server and client are on the same wifi network (same band, same channel), it is important to remember that all clients on wifi are sharing a finite resource. If you live close to neighbors who are also on the same channels as you, you're sharing it with them too. Interference can slow things down too.

The simplest solution is to move to gigabit (or better) ethernet wherever possible. Gigabit ethernet is more consistent, throughput wise, and less susceptible to interference. Depending on your network hardware, you might temporarily run a long ethernet cable right in the middle of the floor to test putting the Shield and/or Plex server on ethernet to see if things improve.

[Pardila]

Wow. Thanks for the response. Awesome information. I pay for 200+ mbps from my ISP, Spectrum, and measured that speed to my shield. To try an upgrade without the expense of installing ethernet, and because I have coax to the media room, I added a couple moca adapters and now my shield shows an ethernet connection of 1000 mbps. Still the buffering is there on the Clapton video, so I installed two 1gb switches, one in the basement and one upstairs where my PC is. Still no change to the buffering and things could even be worse (had to reboot the shield a couple of times). The issue though seems to be when I check the Local Area Connection 2 Status in my PC it shows 100 mbps. Under Networking I see Intel (R) 82578DM Gigabit Network Connection so I guess it's a faulty Cat 5e cable that runs from the switch in the cellar to the switch upstairs where the PC is. In lieu of replacing the cable though, and because I need more storage, I'm thinking of adding a NAS to the basement and running the Plex server from there. Again, all advice is greatly appreciated.

[Billycar11]

Wow. Thanks for the response. Awesome information. I pay for 200+ mbps from my ISP, Spectrum, and measured that speed to my shield. To try an upgrade without the expense of installing ethernet, and because I have coax to the media room, I added a couple moca adapters and now my shield shows an ethernet connection of 1000 mbps. Still the buffering is there on the Clapton video, so I installed two 1gb switches, one in the basement and one upstairs where my PC is. Still no change to the buffering and things could even be worse (had to reboot the shield a couple of times). The issue though seems to be when I check the Local Area Connection 2 Status in my PC it shows 100 mbps. Under Networking I see Intel (R) 82578DM Gigabit Network Connection so I guess it's a faulty Cat 5e cable that runs from the switch in the cellar to the switch upstairs where the PC is. In lieu of replacing the cable though, and because I need more storage, I'm thinking of adding a NAS to the basement and running the Plex server from there. Again, all advice is greatly appreciated.

Outside internet speed has nothing to do with it.
Your internal network can operate at a different faster speed.
But your if your server is limited to 100mps that is also an issue

[Pardila]

The CAT 5e coming from the basement terminates to a wall plate in my office. I just attached a new CAT 6 from that plate to my switch and another CAT 6 from switch to my PC. My PC now shows a speed of 1.0 Gbps under Local Area Connection 2 Status. Does this simple change solve the problem? How do I measure the LAN speed from PC to the Nvidia Shield? I will be able to play the Clapton video later tonight to see if there is an improvement.

[dcoke22]

The CAT 5e coming from the basement terminates to a wall plate in my office. I just attached a new CAT 6 from that plate to my switch and another CAT 6 from switch to my PC. My PC now shows a speed of 1.0 Gbps under Local Area Connection 2 Status. Does this simple change solve the problem?

Not necessarily. Your PC can now tell that the connection between the PC and the switch is a 1GB connection. It can not, however, tell you what kind of connection the switch has though the wall. If you connect your PC to the wall plate and it shows a 100MB connection, then the switch probably has a 100MB connection too.

[Pardila]

Yes, back to 100 when I connect PC to wall plate. Does that prove the CAT 5e is the weak link?

[Woodstock]

5e can do gigabit, but only if it's wired with all 4 pairs correct. Those of us used to seeing this sort of thing have network analyser boxes to verify the wiring uses matched pairs with the correct polarity.

You can also check the cable between the wall and the NEXT segment, because that cable could be bad. I've had two cables go bad between my primary Synology and its local gigabit switch, which slowed EVERYTHING down.

[Pardila]

The CAT 5e goes from office wall upstairs to downstairs into the switch down there. I switched out the cables down there to CAT 6 so it seems like it has to be the CAT 5e that's bad. I think the decision at this point is to spend money to have someone install a new CAT 6, or live with the CAT 5e and spend money on a NAS that would go in the basement (and run the Plex server from the NAS). Thoughts on this?

[dcoke22]

Before I spent money on cabling in the wall or a new NAS, I'd get a long cable to temporarily run on the floor to bypass whatever was already in the wall. This would be relatively cheap and could easily prove if the network connection between your existing Plex server and your Shield is the problem. (Amazon.com has a 100 foot ethernet cable for about $17 currently.)

As for the cables you already have in the wall, it could easily be something as simple as poor termination. The process of putting some kind of end on a network cable is called termination. It is also the biggest source faults in a wired network. This is why Woodstock mentioned a network analyzer box. In any case, the right network person might be able to redo the termination on your existing wires to allow for gigabit speeds.

Installing cat 6a cable (there is a cat 6 standard, but any new installs now should use cat 6a, not just cat 6) will cost real money because proper cat 6a cable with in-spec termination costs real money. It is very likely that any cat 6/cat 6a you buy from Amazon, Monoprice, etc. may be labeled as cat 6a but do not, in fact, pass cat 6a cable tests (the cable linked above does not claim to support 10 gig speeds despite claiming to be a cat 6 cable). I have a few cat 6a cables in my home for the segments of my wired network that are 10 gig ethernet (one needs cat 6/cat 6a cable to do 10 gig ethernet over copper). The place I order them from makes them to custom lengths and tests each cable. The printed cable test report comes in the bag with the cable and the cost is a couple bucks per foot.

Ethernet cables are a type cable known as a twisted pair cable. Inside the cables are 8 tiny cables. These 8 cables are divided up into 4 pairs of cables. Each pair of cable is twisted together. The twisting of the pair of tiny cables together is import for helping the cable reject interference and perform properly. So, consistency in the twisting of the cable is important in the manufacture of the cable. Also import is the termination. In order for these twisted pairs of cables to go into a flat plug on the end of the cable, the wires have to stop twisting and be laid out flat (and in the proper order). Untwist too much and the cable will allow too much interference and not work correctly at the fastest speeds. A proper cat 6a cable is capable of carrying 10 times as much data as a cat 5e cable. Getting that right is a lot harder to manufacture than a cat 5e cable.

[Pardila]

Again great information that is very much appreciated. I will look into the possible faulty termination issues. If I don't replace the CAT 5e and do buy a NAS for the basement, will the CAT 5e cause problems transferring the mkv file movies from the hard drive of the PC to the NAS? I've got about 5 TB in my PC's hard drive to move. Would physically moving the hard drive from my PC to the new NAS be a possibility or probably not recommended?

[dcoke22]

If I don't replace the CAT 5e and do buy a NAS for the basement, will the CAT 5e cause problems transferring the mkv file movies from the hard drive of the PC to the NAS?

I don't think the relatively slow speed of the network segment that is inside your wall would cause a problem. It will, however make file transfers slower, thus taking longer. Computer are great, however, at continuing a task while you sleep.

I've got about 5 TB in my PC's hard drive to move. Would physically moving the hard drive from my PC to the new NAS be a possibility or probably not recommended?

Generally, I wouldn't recommend using the hard drive in your PC as one of the hard drives in your NAS. Hard drives that are best for a NAS are usually a bit different than hard drives that are best for a PC. However, many NAS boxes have a USB port on them to allow for connecting a drive in a USB enclosure and copying data from that external drive to the storage inside the NAS. This is probably the fastest way to copy 5TB onto a new NAS (faster than even over gigabit ethernet).

A NAS allows for a convenient way to aggregate the storage capacity of multiple hard drives and make that storage available on a network. They've also evolved into a convenient way to run a little server in one's home. When hard drives operate, they produce vibration, heat, and sound as a by-product of storing and retrieving data. A PC typically has one, sometimes two hard drives. The cumulative effect of the vibration, heat & sound is low to non-existent. Since a PC sits very close to user typically, a PC hard drive is usually optimized to produce as little sound as possible. In a NAS, there are typically 3 to 8 hard drives all in close proximity. The cumulative effects of the vibration, heat & sound can be significant. Hard drives optimized for a NAS (or an 'enterprise' grade drive) usually have additional sensors and algorithms to account for and mitigate the effects of vibration. They're also built to withstand the higher heat levels of being in a rack with other hard drives. Enterprise drives optimize for speed and make almost no accommodations for sound; compared to a normal PC hard drive, they chatter quite a bit when the head is seeking. Regular PC drives often perform poorly in a NAS.

Western Digital has a brand, WD Red, that is hard drives optimized for a NAS. Seagate's brand is Ironwolf. Toshiba's brand is the N300 series of drives. Personally, my network storage lives in a utility room in my basement, so the sound doesn't matter at all. I just buy enterprise grade drives, lately either the Seagate Exos or Toshiba MG series. They're not quiet. I wouldn't want them in a NAS in my office or bedroom. They are, however, fast (for a spinning hard drive) and relatively inexpensive per terabyte for something suitable for that kind of environment.

[Woodstock]

Some of the "optimized for NAS drives" aren't as optimized anymore, in the era of SHR drives, though. Both WD and Seagate sell SHR drives under their "NAS drive" brands, so you have to be careful. SHR drives are slow-on-write, which may or may not be a factor in a given installation.

Regarding the vibration issues, there's a video out there where they demonstrate the effect of loud noises (vibration) seriously affecting the throughput of a storage array. The demonstration is on a LARGE, rack-mounted server, but it does scale to smaller units.

[Pardila]

Well what do you know. I changed out the cables that I could do easily, and I did internet speed tests to my PC. I'm getting the 230 Mbps that I'm paying for. Then I played the Clapton video and no buffering. It did get a little wonky when I tried to "rewind" and "fast forward" but I'm happy for now. I am interested in testing the network speed so I'll see if I can use iperf. Now if the internet goes down, I will still be able to watch my movies, right?

Again, thanks for all the great info, including the latest on the hard drives. When I see SHR I think Synology Hybrid Raid. Does it stand for something else?