December 30, 201015 yr There have been quite a few questions recently about whether unRAID can stream a full bitrate (non recoded) Blu-ray rip (BDMV folder or ISO). I think the main reason for this is the easily transposed units of MegaBytes/second (MB/s) and megabits/second (mbps). Blu-ray discs can peak at or slightly above 50 megabits per second and unRAID (in a typical system) can deliver around 40 Megabytes per second in disk reads. Even though 40MB/sec is 320mbps, it can often look at first glance as though unRAID would struggle to stream a full Blu-ray disc. There is plenty of headroom for streaming of a single Blu-ray stream. A single Blu-ray stream is using around 15% of the maximum bandwidth a typical unRAID server can deliver. In answering the question, it's often speculated that unRAID should be able to handle multiple Blu-ray streams, but as far as I can tell, this has not been tested. Until now! My test was performed on Rig 1 in my sig, which is set up as follows: P5B-VM • 2GB • C2D 2.4GHz • 2x 1430SA, SIL3114 • 17 Drives All tests were performed using user shares, not disk shares. The disks streamed from were as follows: disk1 WDC_WD20EARS (5400rpm) disk3 ST31500341AS (7200rpm) disk4 WDC_WD10EACS (5400rpm I initially attempted to stream three Blu-ray discs from a single drive (disk1), but this failed with stuttering. disk1 is a 5400rpm drive, so a 7200rpm drive may fare better. However, I did manage to simultaneously stream two Blu-ray discs from that single drive. I successfully streamed 4 full Blu-ray discs simultaneously to 3 different machines. Two streams went to a PC running MPC-HC and TMT 3, the other two streams went to a Popcorn Hour C-200 and a Popcorn Hour A-110. Two streams were from one drive (disk1), the remaining two streams were from two different drives (disk3 and disk4). Total bandwidth delivered was measured at around 16MB/second, or 128 megabits/second. The average bitrate of each Blu-ray stream was 32 megabits per second. Here's the proof!
December 30, 201015 yr Good info, thanks for sharing. Now I have to ask; where are all those buttons in my unRAID console? Is that 5.x?
December 30, 201015 yr Good info, thanks for sharing. Now I have to ask; where are all those buttons in my unRAID console? Is that 5.x? There from unmenu, look at http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=5568.0 how to install
December 31, 201015 yr Thanks for sharing..this should be a sticky somewhere for all the "how fast is unRAID" questions
January 2, 201115 yr From the original poster comments said this: "I initially attempted to stream three Blu-ray discs from a single drive (disk1), but this failed with stuttering. disk1 is a 5400rpm drive, so a 7200rpm drive may fare better. However, I did manage to simultaneously stream two Blu-ray discs from that single drive." I'm a little nervous about not being able to stream from a 5400 drive. What if all drives are 5400? According to that statement, it won't work to well, right?
January 2, 201115 yr I have 7 drives in my array. 5 of the drives, including my parity drive, are 5400rpm. I also have a 5900rpm drive. The only 7200rpm drive I have is my cache drive. I have not had any problems streaming bdmv file structures to my pch-c200. The only times I had stuttering issues, were when I had it connected to my server wirelessly. As soon as it was a hard wired connection, the stuttering stopped. The only other time it would stutter, was when I did not rip the movie correctly.
January 2, 201115 yr From the original poster comments said this: "I initially attempted to stream three Blu-ray discs from a single drive (disk1), but this failed with stuttering. disk1 is a 5400rpm drive, so a 7200rpm drive may fare better. However, I did manage to simultaneously stream two Blu-ray discs from that single drive." I'm a little nervous about not being able to stream from a 5400 drive. What if all drives are 5400? According to that statement, it won't work to well, right? It will entirely depend on the disk controller and the individual disks. He was trying to stream three different movies from the same disk at the same time. The disk heads would have been very busy seeking from one sector to the next. Seek time would be as important as rotational speed and track buffering in the disk. (Or ...Put the kids movies on one physical disk and the adult movies on another and odds are you'll never have to worry.) In my house it is rare to be watching more than two different movies at the same time, never mind from the same physical disk in the array. (rare because there are usually only two of us, and usually we are watching the same movie.) Joe L.
January 2, 201115 yr I'm a little nervous about not being able to stream from a 5400 drive. What if all drives are 5400? According to that statement, it won't work to well, right? I think you overlooked a key part of his statement, he only had trouble with streaming 3 BluRay movies from 1 5400 RPM drive. It will stream 1 movie perfectly fine from 1 5400 RPM drive. It will stream 2 movies perfectly from 1 5400 RPM drive. It will stream 3 BluRay movies from 2 5400 RPM drives. I suspect it will be able to stream 4 BluRay movies from 2 5400 RPM drives provided each drive is only serving up 2 movies. It's a matter of how many movies you will be streaming from the same drive.
January 2, 201115 yr Author From the original poster comments said this: "I initially attempted to stream three Blu-ray discs from a single drive (disk1), but this failed with stuttering. disk1 is a 5400rpm drive, so a 7200rpm drive may fare better. However, I did manage to simultaneously stream two Blu-ray discs from that single drive." I'm a little nervous about not being able to stream from a 5400 drive. What if all drives are 5400? According to that statement, it won't work to well, right I streamed two Blu-ray structures simultaneously from a 5400rpm drive. It only failed when attempting to stream three Blu-ray structures simultaneously from a single 5400rpm drive. You should not have a problem streaming one movie unless your hardware is broken. I streamed 4 Blu-ray movies simultaneously to three players. The only reason I didn't try 5 or 6 is because I ran out of devices to stream to. If you have more, try it out! Note that claiming to stream "a 1080p movie" is too vague. A 1080p movie could have been recoded to a 2mbit/sec stream, rendering the statement meaningless. Either use actual, uncompressed, non-recoded Blu-ray BDMV structures or ISOs, or state the bitrate of the movies you are streaming. Stating "I can stream x number of 1080p movies!" is like saying "I can fit 23 dogs in the back of my car!" Are they Chihuahuas or Great Danes?
January 3, 201115 yr Note that claiming to stream "a 1080p movie" is too vague. A 1080p movie could have been recoded to a 2mbit/sec stream, rendering the statement meaningless. Either use actual, uncompressed, non-recoded Blu-ray BDMV structures or ISOs, or state the bitrate of the movies you are streaming. Stating "I can stream x number of 1080p movies!" is like saying "I can fit 23 dogs in the back of my car!" Are they Chihuahuas or Great Danes? Adding to the problem is that there are issues with the some playback software stuttering on ISO/raw format over a network drive, which gets interpreted as network/server speed problems, rather than problems with the playback software.
January 3, 201115 yr Author Adding to the problem is that there are issues with the some playback software stuttering on ISO/raw format over a network drive, which gets interpreted as network/server speed problems, rather than problems with the playback software. What software?
January 3, 201115 yr Adding to the problem is that there are issues with the some playback software stuttering on ISO/raw format over a network drive, which gets interpreted as network/server speed problems, rather than problems with the playback software. What software? I believe it was Total Media Theater for ISO and Plex, XBMC for mt2s and ts files.
January 3, 201115 yr Author I have no problem playing ISO or BDMV with TMT 3. I've only tried about 500 discs though.
January 5, 201115 yr neilt0, I also have a PCH A-110 and I've had problems streaming a 1:1 BD rip of Avatar in an MKV container. Lots of studdering during the high bitrate scenes especially at the beginning of the movie. I verified playback via USB and the A-110 had no issue. Any suggestions to help identify the bottleneck? I posted this issue over at the NMT forum: http://www.networkedmediatank.com/showthread.php?tid=48380 but no response. I'll copy the contents below for your reference: This is the first issue I've had streaming over a wired 100 Mbit network using Samba with my A-110. Just wondering if the bitrate of this MKV is just too high and what options I have to improve playback (stuttering during high bitrate scenes) without altering the file? General Unique ID : 173054975590489181103146041086947600048 (0x82312D0B283217CD89CF0623FF7BA6B0) Complete name : \\TOWER\Media\BluRay\Avatar (2009) BluRay 1080p\Avatar (2009) BluRay 1080p.mkv Format : Matroska File size : 34.3 GiB Duration : 2h 41mn Overall bit rate : 30.3 Mbps Encoded date : UTC 2010-04-24 14:06:46 Writing application : mkvmerge v3.3.0 ('Language') built on Mar 24 2010 14:59:24 Writing library : libebml v0.8.0 + libmatroska v0.9.0 Video ID : 1 Format : AVC Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec Format profile : [email protected] Format settings, CABAC : Yes Format settings, ReFrames : 2 frames Muxing mode : Container [email protected] Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC Duration : 2h 41mn Bit rate : 28.2 Mbps Width : 1 920 pixels Height : 1 080 pixels Display aspect ratio : 16:9 Frame rate : 23.976 fps Color space : YUV Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0 Bit depth : 8 bits Scan type : Progressive Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.568 Stream size : 31.9 GiB (93%) Audio ID : 2 Format : DTS Format/Info : Digital Theater Systems Codec ID : A_DTS Duration : 2h 41mn Bit rate mode : Constant Bit rate : 1 510 Kbps Channel(s) : 6 channels Channel positions : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz Bit depth : 24 bits Compression mode : Lossy Stream size : 1.71 GiB (5%) Language : English Text #1 ID : 3 Format : UTF-8 Codec ID : S_TEXT/UTF8 Codec ID/Info : UTF-8 Plain Text Language : Dutch Text #2 ID : 4 Format : UTF-8 Codec ID : S_TEXT/UTF8 Codec ID/Info : UTF-8 Plain Text Language : English I've got an A110 connected to a 100 MBit U-Verse Router (Motorola model 3800HGV-B) which is connected to a D-Link DGS2208 10/100/1000 switch which is connected to my media server (UnRAID tower with gbit LAN). Using Samba server on the NMT to stream. I don't think NFS works very well with UnRAID but maybe that's also fixed? Would I be better off getting another Gig switch and just keep the U-Verse modem on 100 MBit and go direct from the A-110 to the D-Link DGS2208 via Gbit even though the NIC in the A-110 isn't Gbit (seemingly less network overhead but maybe not)? I've also seen posts about using http via llink. How difficult is that to setup?
January 6, 201115 yr This is not an ethernet problem. 100M Ethernet can transfer 11-12MBps. A Blu-Ray stream is less than 6MBps.
January 6, 201115 yr What else could explain the ability to playback the file locally (USB drive) vs. streaming?
January 6, 201115 yr I remember a while back that bubbaQ (I think it was him) mentioned there being something off with the PCH in that it did not like to be connected to a Gigabit switch. I can't find the thread right now but I specifically remember someone mentioning it. If you can get a non-gigabit switch and replace the Gigabit one (at least temporarily) I would test to see if that fixes the problem.
January 6, 201115 yr So you mean keep the connection between UnRAID tower and PCH solely on a 100 Mbit switch? If I want to keep the rest of my network Gigabit then could I just introduce a 100 Mbit switch between Tower and my Gigabit switch with my current setup? One connection going to the Tower and another to my Gigabit switch with the PCH going directly to the 100 MBit switch? I should also point out that I have not had any issue streaming +20GB mkv's with the Gigabit switch in place.
January 6, 201115 yr I remember a while back that bubbaQ (I think it was him) mentioned there being something off with the PCH in that it did not like to be connected to a Gigabit switch. I can't find the thread right now but I specifically remember someone mentioning it. If you can get a non-gigabit switch and replace the Gigabit one (at least temporarily) I would test to see if that fixes the problem. I'm not sure......I currently have my C-200 on a gigabit switch. I think you just have to keep the setting on the PCH to use 100Mbit and not 1000 or auto, don't remember what the exact choice is.
January 6, 201115 yr HAHA I managed to find what I was talking about: This thread covers the PCH related stuff. And this post specifically talks about the stuttering issue when using gigabit.
January 6, 201115 yr Thanks for the link ProStuff1. Sounds like the setup described is exactly what I have currently since my Motorola router is only 10/100. I suppose I could just try different switches in the configuration to see if that helps. Like I mentioned above, I've also heard that mkv containers have more overhead than ts. That could be contributing to the issue as well.
January 6, 201115 yr Author I have an A-110 and a C-200. The A-110 doesn't care if it's attached to a gigabit or 10/100 switch. The C-200 with old firmware worked better with 10/100, now it's fine with both. The issue with the A-110 is that you can't reliably stream Blu-ray over Samba to it, this is a problem with the A-110. The solution is to install llink on your unRAID server and use that to stream to the A-110. llink is an http server, which is more efficient than using Samba. In my tests, I used llink to stream to the A-110 and Samba to stream to the C-200 and the PC. EDIT: If that doesn't work, remux the MKV to a Blu-ray BDMV structure or m2ts, as I know that will work, having played hundreds of m2ts files on my A-110.
January 7, 201115 yr The solution is to install llink on your unRAID server and use that to stream to the A-110. llink is an http server, which is more efficient than using Samba. This is what I was thinking based on the research I did over at the NMT forums. I just found this thread: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2319 so I'll give it a go this weekend and report back. Thanks!
January 7, 201115 yr Ok, thought I would get a head start over my lunch break by reading the installation notes for llink using Linux: http://lundman.net/wiki/index.php/Llink:Linux_installation A lot of these commands are over my head so I was wondering if anybody could tailor these instructions for installing on an UnRAID server? I saw a similar request here: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2319.msg24059#msg24059 but that was over 2 years old and I couldn't locate any documentation so please excuse me if this has already been done.
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