| Author |
Message |
EZRyder
Guest
|
 Posted:
Sun Jan 23, 2005 11:41 pm Post subject:
Wired performance with Guide ... |
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Using MCE 2005 on a wired ethernet setup, I find that just accessing the
Guide really bogs down the network. I turned on Network Performance in Media
Center and also turned on the Graph. I then watched Live TV from an Extender
and had excellent performance - until I accessed the Guide and moved around
on it. The performance took a massive dip, to just under the Acceptable
Performance line. After a bit it came back, but still always dips when
accessing the Guide again. Everything on the network is brand new, except my
network card, which is built-in to my PCI motherboard. Any ideas why the
Guide is such a network pig, or what I can do about it? I'm in "proof of
concept" mode, and want to shake out all these problems before deciding to
roll this out as a replacement for my two RePlay units.
As an aside, anyone know of a tuner that can get 1,000 channels? =} I hate
having to deal with the Comcast STB's - I don't like the delay in changing
the channel through the IR blaster thingy. Thanks!!!!! |
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Todd Bowra [MSFT]
Guest
|
| Posted:
Mon Jan 24, 2005 10:43 pm Post subject:
Re: Wired performance with Guide ... |
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Can you confirm that the below reflects the steps you followed?
1) You turned on your MCX and tuned it to Live TV
2) You opened the Media Center Extender Network Performance Tuner utility on
your PC and told it to test your network (while TV was running)
3) You browsed to the guide on your MCX while TV was running and the Network
Performance Tuner was running
If this is correct, the results you saw were skewed by running the Network
Performance Tuner at the same time that you were watching TV and browsing
the guide - the Network Performance Tuner should only be run when the MCX is
idle.
--
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
"EZRyder" <EZRyder@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:3BFCAE8A-4E96-4496-87BB-41C114C3CEE9@microsoft.com...
| Quote: | Using MCE 2005 on a wired ethernet setup, I find that just accessing the
Guide really bogs down the network. I turned on Network Performance in
Media
Center and also turned on the Graph. I then watched Live TV from an
Extender
and had excellent performance - until I accessed the Guide and moved
around
on it. The performance took a massive dip, to just under the Acceptable
Performance line. After a bit it came back, but still always dips when
accessing the Guide again. Everything on the network is brand new, except
my
network card, which is built-in to my PCI motherboard. Any ideas why the
Guide is such a network pig, or what I can do about it? I'm in "proof of
concept" mode, and want to shake out all these problems before deciding to
roll this out as a replacement for my two RePlay units.
As an aside, anyone know of a tuner that can get 1,000 channels? =} I
hate
having to deal with the Comcast STB's - I don't like the delay in
changing
the channel through the IR blaster thingy. Thanks!!!!! |
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|
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EZRyder
Guest
|
| Posted:
Tue Jan 25, 2005 12:41 am Post subject:
Re: Wired performance with Guide ... |
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|
No, I didn't do it that way. I:
1) Did NOT even start Media Center on the PC, but went right to the Network
Performance app.
2) Did NOT start Live TV on the PC.
3) Started Live TV on the MCX - everything very good in the perf Graph..
4) Opened the Guide on the MCX - big spike down in the Graph. Subsequent
moving around on the Guide shows continued spiking.
I also notice that switching to My Music or My Radio does a massive spike,
as well. Is that normal?
My concern is that I intend to put another MCX on the network and what the
effects of that will be. I did change the performance setting on my network
card to 100mbs instead of "Automatic" - that seemed to help, but still the
spiking.
I know it's REALLY bad when I have the PC running Live TV, as well as the
MCX, but I suppose that's to be expected. I don't intend to run Live TV on
the PC. Thanks for your help.
Eric
"Todd Bowra [MSFT]" wrote:
| Quote: | Can you confirm that the below reflects the steps you followed?
1) You turned on your MCX and tuned it to Live TV
2) You opened the Media Center Extender Network Performance Tuner utility on
your PC and told it to test your network (while TV was running)
3) You browsed to the guide on your MCX while TV was running and the Network
Performance Tuner was running
If this is correct, the results you saw were skewed by running the Network
Performance Tuner at the same time that you were watching TV and browsing
the guide - the Network Performance Tuner should only be run when the MCX is
idle.
--
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
"EZRyder" <EZRyder@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:3BFCAE8A-4E96-4496-87BB-41C114C3CEE9@microsoft.com...
Using MCE 2005 on a wired ethernet setup, I find that just accessing the
Guide really bogs down the network. I turned on Network Performance in
Media
Center and also turned on the Graph. I then watched Live TV from an
Extender
and had excellent performance - until I accessed the Guide and moved
around
on it. The performance took a massive dip, to just under the Acceptable
Performance line. After a bit it came back, but still always dips when
accessing the Guide again. Everything on the network is brand new, except
my
network card, which is built-in to my PCI motherboard. Any ideas why the
Guide is such a network pig, or what I can do about it? I'm in "proof of
concept" mode, and want to shake out all these problems before deciding to
roll this out as a replacement for my two RePlay units.
As an aside, anyone know of a tuner that can get 1,000 channels? =} I
hate
having to deal with the Comcast STB's - I don't like the delay in
changing
the channel through the IR blaster thingy. Thanks!!!!!
|
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|
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Todd Bowra [MSFT]
Guest
|
| Posted:
Tue Jan 25, 2005 1:02 am Post subject:
Re: Wired performance with Guide ... |
|
|
Performing any activity on your Extender at the same that you are using the
Network Performance Tuner will skew the results. This includes watching TV,
browsing the guide, etc. The Extender should be left at the Media Center
start page with no music/videos/TV playing while the Network Performance
Tuner is being run.
Regarding your root question - it is very unlikely that running two
Extenders on a 100 Mbps network will max it out. In fact, we've successfully
run 5 Extenders at once (playing TV) on a 100 Mbps network streamed off of
the same PC.
--
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
"EZRyder" <EZRyder@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:D1318B24-072A-4E65-BB46-5D9251854485@microsoft.com...
| Quote: | No, I didn't do it that way. I:
1) Did NOT even start Media Center on the PC, but went right to the
Network
Performance app.
2) Did NOT start Live TV on the PC.
3) Started Live TV on the MCX - everything very good in the perf Graph..
4) Opened the Guide on the MCX - big spike down in the Graph. Subsequent
moving around on the Guide shows continued spiking.
I also notice that switching to My Music or My Radio does a massive spike,
as well. Is that normal?
My concern is that I intend to put another MCX on the network and what the
effects of that will be. I did change the performance setting on my
network
card to 100mbs instead of "Automatic" - that seemed to help, but still the
spiking.
I know it's REALLY bad when I have the PC running Live TV, as well as the
MCX, but I suppose that's to be expected. I don't intend to run Live TV
on
the PC. Thanks for your help.
Eric
"Todd Bowra [MSFT]" wrote:
Can you confirm that the below reflects the steps you followed?
1) You turned on your MCX and tuned it to Live TV
2) You opened the Media Center Extender Network Performance Tuner
utility on
your PC and told it to test your network (while TV was running)
3) You browsed to the guide on your MCX while TV was running and the
Network
Performance Tuner was running
If this is correct, the results you saw were skewed by running the
Network
Performance Tuner at the same time that you were watching TV and
browsing
the guide - the Network Performance Tuner should only be run when the
MCX is
idle.
--
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
rights.
"EZRyder" <EZRyder@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:3BFCAE8A-4E96-4496-87BB-41C114C3CEE9@microsoft.com...
Using MCE 2005 on a wired ethernet setup, I find that just accessing
the
Guide really bogs down the network. I turned on Network Performance
in
Media
Center and also turned on the Graph. I then watched Live TV from an
Extender
and had excellent performance - until I accessed the Guide and moved
around
on it. The performance took a massive dip, to just under the
Acceptable
Performance line. After a bit it came back, but still always dips
when
accessing the Guide again. Everything on the network is brand new,
except
my
network card, which is built-in to my PCI motherboard. Any ideas why
the
Guide is such a network pig, or what I can do about it? I'm in "proof
of
concept" mode, and want to shake out all these problems before
deciding to
roll this out as a replacement for my two RePlay units.
As an aside, anyone know of a tuner that can get 1,000 channels? =}
I
hate
having to deal with the Comcast STB's - I don't like the delay in
changing
the channel through the IR blaster thingy. Thanks!!!!!
|
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|
| Back to top |
|
|
EZRyder
Guest
|
| Posted:
Tue Jan 25, 2005 1:56 am Post subject:
Re: Wired performance with Guide ... |
|
|
Well, my point is that I noticed BEFORE running the performance monitor that
the Guide was VERY slow - unusably so - when I had the PC playing Live TV as
well as the MCX. I can't see where running the performance tool would skew
the results to that big a degree. I found it (the graph) matches the
performance of the Guide very well. Otherwise, I think the performance tool
is pretty useless if you can't run anything and see what the results are.
I'm just trying to verify that running two MCX's will be OK - without
running anything on the PC - and I'm getting some lag on the Guide with just
one MCX. I also notice random stutter on the MCX, but that's another
problem...
"Todd Bowra [MSFT]" wrote:
| Quote: | Performing any activity on your Extender at the same that you are using the
Network Performance Tuner will skew the results. This includes watching TV,
browsing the guide, etc. The Extender should be left at the Media Center
start page with no music/videos/TV playing while the Network Performance
Tuner is being run.
Regarding your root question - it is very unlikely that running two
Extenders on a 100 Mbps network will max it out. In fact, we've successfully
run 5 Extenders at once (playing TV) on a 100 Mbps network streamed off of
the same PC.
--
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
"EZRyder" <EZRyder@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:D1318B24-072A-4E65-BB46-5D9251854485@microsoft.com...
No, I didn't do it that way. I:
1) Did NOT even start Media Center on the PC, but went right to the
Network
Performance app.
2) Did NOT start Live TV on the PC.
3) Started Live TV on the MCX - everything very good in the perf Graph..
4) Opened the Guide on the MCX - big spike down in the Graph. Subsequent
moving around on the Guide shows continued spiking.
I also notice that switching to My Music or My Radio does a massive spike,
as well. Is that normal?
My concern is that I intend to put another MCX on the network and what the
effects of that will be. I did change the performance setting on my
network
card to 100mbs instead of "Automatic" - that seemed to help, but still the
spiking.
I know it's REALLY bad when I have the PC running Live TV, as well as the
MCX, but I suppose that's to be expected. I don't intend to run Live TV
on
the PC. Thanks for your help.
Eric
"Todd Bowra [MSFT]" wrote:
Can you confirm that the below reflects the steps you followed?
1) You turned on your MCX and tuned it to Live TV
2) You opened the Media Center Extender Network Performance Tuner
utility on
your PC and told it to test your network (while TV was running)
3) You browsed to the guide on your MCX while TV was running and the
Network
Performance Tuner was running
If this is correct, the results you saw were skewed by running the
Network
Performance Tuner at the same time that you were watching TV and
browsing
the guide - the Network Performance Tuner should only be run when the
MCX is
idle.
--
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
rights.
"EZRyder" <EZRyder@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:3BFCAE8A-4E96-4496-87BB-41C114C3CEE9@microsoft.com...
Using MCE 2005 on a wired ethernet setup, I find that just accessing
the
Guide really bogs down the network. I turned on Network Performance
in
Media
Center and also turned on the Graph. I then watched Live TV from an
Extender
and had excellent performance - until I accessed the Guide and moved
around
on it. The performance took a massive dip, to just under the
Acceptable
Performance line. After a bit it came back, but still always dips
when
accessing the Guide again. Everything on the network is brand new,
except
my
network card, which is built-in to my PCI motherboard. Any ideas why
the
Guide is such a network pig, or what I can do about it? I'm in "proof
of
concept" mode, and want to shake out all these problems before
deciding to
roll this out as a replacement for my two RePlay units.
As an aside, anyone know of a tuner that can get 1,000 channels? =}
I
hate
having to deal with the Comcast STB's - I don't like the delay in
changing
the channel through the IR blaster thingy. Thanks!!!!!
|
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|
| Back to top |
|
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Todd Bowra [MSFT]
Guest
|
| Posted:
Tue Jan 25, 2005 8:11 am Post subject:
Re: Wired performance with Guide ... |
|
|
The Network Performance Tuner is intended to allow you to measure network
throughput against the bandwidth required for TV playback on MCX (while you
do things like tweak antennas, move your access point, etc.). In order to do
this, it sends probe data to the MCX; sending additional information to the
MCX in the form of a TV show or UI activity will skew the results because
the network traffic required for these activities is additive to the probe
data, but is not marked as probe data and is therefore not taken into
consideration when calculation network capacity. If you're interested in
monitoring real-time network utilization, the best tool for the job is Task
Manager (more specifically, the Network tab).
If you're experiencing slow performance in the guide while you're
simultaneously watching two TV shows, it's possible that your PC is the
bottleneck. Couple questions:
- what are you PC specs? (CPU, RAM, etc.)
- what is PC CPU utilization when you're watching TV on the PC and MCX and
scrolling the guide? (as reported by Task Manager)
--
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
"EZRyder" <EZRyder@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:D28BCCA4-D3B9-4482-8E95-F996CA9BAD62@microsoft.com...
| Quote: | Well, my point is that I noticed BEFORE running the performance monitor
that
the Guide was VERY slow - unusably so - when I had the PC playing Live TV
as
well as the MCX. I can't see where running the performance tool would
skew
the results to that big a degree. I found it (the graph) matches the
performance of the Guide very well. Otherwise, I think the performance
tool
is pretty useless if you can't run anything and see what the results are.
I'm just trying to verify that running two MCX's will be OK - without
running anything on the PC - and I'm getting some lag on the Guide with
just
one MCX. I also notice random stutter on the MCX, but that's another
problem...
"Todd Bowra [MSFT]" wrote:
Performing any activity on your Extender at the same that you are using
the
Network Performance Tuner will skew the results. This includes watching
TV,
browsing the guide, etc. The Extender should be left at the Media Center
start page with no music/videos/TV playing while the Network Performance
Tuner is being run.
Regarding your root question - it is very unlikely that running two
Extenders on a 100 Mbps network will max it out. In fact, we've
successfully
run 5 Extenders at once (playing TV) on a 100 Mbps network streamed off
of
the same PC.
--
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
rights.
"EZRyder" <EZRyder@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:D1318B24-072A-4E65-BB46-5D9251854485@microsoft.com...
No, I didn't do it that way. I:
1) Did NOT even start Media Center on the PC, but went right to the
Network
Performance app.
2) Did NOT start Live TV on the PC.
3) Started Live TV on the MCX - everything very good in the perf
Graph..
4) Opened the Guide on the MCX - big spike down in the Graph.
Subsequent
moving around on the Guide shows continued spiking.
I also notice that switching to My Music or My Radio does a massive
spike,
as well. Is that normal?
My concern is that I intend to put another MCX on the network and what
the
effects of that will be. I did change the performance setting on my
network
card to 100mbs instead of "Automatic" - that seemed to help, but still
the
spiking.
I know it's REALLY bad when I have the PC running Live TV, as well as
the
MCX, but I suppose that's to be expected. I don't intend to run Live
TV
on
the PC. Thanks for your help.
Eric
"Todd Bowra [MSFT]" wrote:
Can you confirm that the below reflects the steps you followed?
1) You turned on your MCX and tuned it to Live TV
2) You opened the Media Center Extender Network Performance Tuner
utility on
your PC and told it to test your network (while TV was running)
3) You browsed to the guide on your MCX while TV was running and the
Network
Performance Tuner was running
If this is correct, the results you saw were skewed by running the
Network
Performance Tuner at the same time that you were watching TV and
browsing
the guide - the Network Performance Tuner should only be run when
the
MCX is
idle.
--
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
rights.
"EZRyder" <EZRyder@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:3BFCAE8A-4E96-4496-87BB-41C114C3CEE9@microsoft.com...
Using MCE 2005 on a wired ethernet setup, I find that just
accessing
the
Guide really bogs down the network. I turned on Network
Performance
in
Media
Center and also turned on the Graph. I then watched Live TV from
an
Extender
and had excellent performance - until I accessed the Guide and
moved
around
on it. The performance took a massive dip, to just under the
Acceptable
Performance line. After a bit it came back, but still always dips
when
accessing the Guide again. Everything on the network is brand
new,
except
my
network card, which is built-in to my PCI motherboard. Any ideas
why
the
Guide is such a network pig, or what I can do about it? I'm in
"proof
of
concept" mode, and want to shake out all these problems before
deciding to
roll this out as a replacement for my two RePlay units.
As an aside, anyone know of a tuner that can get 1,000 channels?
=}
I
hate
having to deal with the Comcast STB's - I don't like the delay in
changing
the channel through the IR blaster thingy. Thanks!!!!!
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