Can you guys tell me what the normal throughput should be reading from my UnRaid server?  I'm getting about 40 MB/s according to Win7 when copying a large file off the server.  I'm running version 4.5.6.

 

I'm asking because I'm having an issue streaming Bluray ISOs.  They stutter in Total Media Theater 5.  However, if I play the same ISO from the local drive it plays just fine.

 

MKVs stream just fine though from the server.  It's a weird issue I've just never had before.

 

Thanks,

Doug

Okay I found the problem (thanks to another thread I noticed after posting this).  My HTPC and my UnRaid server were in different workgroups.  I updated my HTPC and everything is working fine now.

 

I'm just curious, why would that cause an issue like this?  Where it works most of the time, but not all.

 

Thanks!

 

Doug

Well the workgroup didn't totally solve my problem.  I'm still having some stuttering issues when playing ISO files from the server.  Any thoughts out there?  Is 40 MB/s normal read throughput?

 

Doug

Blu-Ray video streams are about 5MBps maximum. I don't know what additional overhead is required to serve an ISO image, but I doubt it requires enough to cause the problem.

Sounds more like a network issue IMO.

 

I would log into the unRAID OS and run:  netstat -i

 

Is the traffic going over a routed interface?

Have you tried another program to play ISO over the network drives?

 

As I am not a user of Total Media Theater, I would not know for this specific case, but I have heard of problems people have been having playing ISO files on network drives for other Media player software. It seems that it did not matter whether the network drive was hosted on a NAS, UnRaid or OS.

I just finished copying an 8gig ISO off my server to a Win7 machine and it topped out at 85.5 MB/s on a gigabit network.

 

Can you try a different player?

To play BluRay ISO's I use Cyberlink PowerDVD. For some reason it won't let me access network files so I mount the ISO using Virtual CloneDrive (free from Slysoft) and play that mount point.

Sounds more like a network issue IMO.

 

I would log into the unRAID OS and run:  netstat -i

 

Is the traffic going over a routed interface?

 

Yeah I believe it's a network issue as well.  I have a GB network and yes there is a router and a couple of switches in play.

 

Should I do the netstat while playing a movie or just at any point?

 

Here is the output with nothing going on:

 

Kernel Interface table

Iface  MTU Met  RX-OK RX-ERR RX-DRP RX-OVR    TX-OK TX-ERR TX-DRP TX-OVR Flg

eth0      1500 0  41714404      0      0 0      101604959      0      0      0 BMNRU

lo        16436 0      886      0      0 0          886      0      0      0 LRU

 

I tried it while playing a movie and nothing changed really.

Have you tried another program to play ISO over the network drives?

 

As I am not a user of Total Media Theater, I would not know for this specific case, but I have heard of problems people have been having playing ISO files on network drives for other Media player software. It seems that it did not matter whether the network drive was hosted on a NAS, UnRaid or OS.

 

I have not tried another program as TMT is the only one I have.  I don't really want to purchase another one to test this though.  I guess I could try the trial version.

 

It's weird though.  Right now an ISO is playing just fine and my MKVs always play fine.  It's like whatever the issue is it's right on the edge.  Sometimes it doesn't work and other times it does.

 

Doug

Have you tried another program to play ISO over the network drives?

 

As I am not a user of Total Media Theater, I would not know for this specific case, but I have heard of problems people have been having playing ISO files on network drives for other Media player software. It seems that it did not matter whether the network drive was hosted on a NAS, UnRaid or OS.

 

I have not tried another program as TMT is the only one I have.  I don't really want to purchase another one to test this though.  I guess I could try the trial version.

 

It's weird though.  Right now an ISO is playing just fine and my MKVs always play fine.  It's like whatever the issue is it's right on the edge.  Sometimes it doesn't work and other times it does.

 

Doug

You can download and try vlc.  It is free. http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

 

It will play just about anything, including ISO images.

 

Joe L.

 

You can download and try vlc.  It is free. http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

 

It will play just about anything, including ISO images.

 

Joe L.

 

VLC can't play BluRay ISO's though.

VLC can't play BluRay ISO's though.

 

Are you sure?

 

I dont' have and BR ISOs, but I have a couple of ripped BR to a full directory structure, getting ready to transcode them, and VLC plays it all, with chapters, subtitles, etc.

I've got half dozen BR's all ripped to ISO. VLC can't play any of them.

 

They will play, as I described in previous post, by mounting with virtual dvd software and playing the mount with PowerDVD. When playing the ISO directly or from that same mount with VLC and it just sits there with a black screen. This is in Windows 7.

 

Last I heard, about two months ago, VLC was finally able to play BR's ripped to folder structure but without menus, subtitles, etc. Hearing that it works for you is good news indeed. I'm one version behind and will update tomorrow to try again with my ISO's.

unRAID has no problem streaming Blu-ray ISOs or folder rips. I've played hundreds on TMT 3. It's kind of what it was designed to do.

 

I think I'm going to write some kind of FAQ for Blu-ray streaming, as it seems to come up a lot.

 

My 2003-vintage P4 unRAID server can transfer data at 25MByte/sec.

That is 200 megabits/second. A Blu-ray peaks at the most at 50 megabits/second (I've run tests with bwm-ng).

 

The problem is not with unRAID.  It's either a hardware, network or software problem.

For fun, I thought I'd try streaming Lethal Weapons 1-4 (Blu-ray) at the same time and from the same drive.

 

I got as far as Lethal Weapon 2 and 3 streaming, then my CPU gave up (on the PC playing the video, not the unRAID server CPU), so I simultaneously copied a 14GB file (from a different unRAID drive).

 

The Lethal Weapons were running at about 4.5MB/sec each (36mbit/sec x2 = 72mbit/sec).

The copy was running at 24MB/sec (192mbit/sec)

Total throughput from unRAID: 33MB/sec (264mbit/sec)

 

As the limiting factor was my PC's CPU, later on I'll try the following:

 

Lethal Weapon 1 -> Popcorn Hour A-110

Lethal Weapon 2 ->  Popcorn Hour C-200

Lethal Weapon 3 ->  PC

Lethal Weapon 4 ->  PC

 

If it works, I'll post the results here and open a new thread RE: Video streaming performance.

 

For VLC, my understanding is that it will play blu-ray in folder format but not iso format.

 

Josh