Sling Adapter Dish Receiver 722- Audio/Video Sync issues

[don_b]

I just got a slingadapter hooked on to VIP722 receiver.
I am using it to watch streaming on my HTPC on the internal network. The video streaming quality is excellent with around 8Mbps on the internal network on the dishanywhere.com site.

However, I have noticed that after few mins of watching a channel the audio gets choppy and audio and video get out of sync with each other and this is extremely frustrating. I have noticed that when I change the channel , the sync issue goes away for a few mins and returns back.

I have currently connected my HTPC to a AV receiver (HDMI) and then to a TV.

Has anybody else experienced this issue? I am wondering if this is a Slingadapter or the dishanywhere issue.
I am going to do some checking by trying different option but was wondering if anyone has similar issues.

My HTPC is 2GB RAM, AMD Athlon II dual core processor, and GIGABYTE ATX AMD motherboard. I have been using the HTPC for 3 years now with no such issue.

 

[TheKrell]

Yes I have had this same issue using an underpowered HTPC based on an Intel Atom processor. It works great using a very powerful GPU on every HD program I can find to test it with. But not with the Sling Adapter plug-in! I don't see this problem on my wife's mondo bitchin' laptop, so I conclude that my feeble-minded HTPC is just inadequate.

 

[don_b]

what were your specs on the laptop and the PC with the powerful GPU

 

[TheKrell]

It's a Gateway EC1457U. Seems to have a mere 1.2GHz dual core SU4100 processor. The one whose audio lags progressively worse is the Zotac ZBOX HD-ID11-U, which has an nVidia Ion GPU, and a 1.66GHz dual core Atom microprocessor. Both run 64-bit W7 and both have 4GB of RAM.

 

[Claude Greiner]

Have you tried it with a different computer?

 

[don_b]

tried on 2 other computers with slightly different setup. When I watch dishonline on my home laptop or desktop (not thru AV receiver), i don't see this problem. the laptop has 8gb ram and the desktop 6gb . all quad-core processors with 64bit win 7.
I bumped my ram on htpc (win7 32 bit home premium) from 2gb to 6gb last night... however the problem did not go away..
at this point it seems to be an issue with the dishanywhere site and particularly the guide. it seems like if i change channels in the guide, i get the choppy sound for a few seconds and the audio and video are out of synch. If I keep watching only a particular channel and not fiddle around in the guide, then it looks like its not a issue.
This issue is hard to pin point . it could be an issue with the AV receiver.. however I played multiple 720p/1080 p streams from youtube and the problem did not reproduce.

it looks like it might be something to do with the receiver or the dishanywhere site ..

 

[TheKrell]

If it works OK on your more powerful computers, how can it be an issue with Dishanywhere? And if it is your AV receiver, then how could the audio lag possibly build up? (Maybe I misunderstood your description, but in my case, the lag just gets worse and worse the longer I watch.) There is little if any memory in an AV receiver to bugger an ever increasing time delay.

Edited to correct Freudian slip: I meant to type "buffer"!

 

[Timpanogos]

On lower power computers, just change the output to SQ standard quality from HD and all will be fine again. I have five computers at home and only one of them can't handle Sling HD.

 

[don_b]

I think I agree with Timpanogos
it looks like my HTPC is not capable of handling 8Mbps streams. .. (even after bumping the RAM from 2gb to 6gb). It looks like the onboard video hardware is not totally capable enough.

Last night, during the superbowl, I had some friends come over and as we were watching the stream on dishanywhere, I was getting the same damn issue of audio becoming choppy and then audio and video getting out of sync. Video was never choppy. This was when setting was in "auto". what we noticed that on my HTPC the bandwidth would show 8mbps for a few mins, then fluctuate down to 2mbps and then rise up again.. This may have caused the issue. This happened even we set the stream quality to HD.. then when we changed the stream quality to "better", I was getting around 3Mpbs consistently and there was no audio issues what so ever. The quality of video , although not as great as the HD , was still pretty good and thankfully , we could enjoy the superbowl without too much issues.

this morning, I once again checked on other home computer . this one has quadcore, 6gb ram and a dedicated video card. I was getting no audio issues on this.

what is interesting is I did not have any issues with watching youtube 1080p videos on my HTPC. However , i am not sure at what bandwidth and how , youtube streams those 1080p videos

 

[Timpanogos]

My low power computer that couldn't handle TVAnywhere in HD but did fine on the "better" setting has an Intel Atom dual core 2.13 Ghz cpu with an Intel on-board 3600 series video. I built this computer specifically for the HD recording and streaming of a SiliconDust HD DVR device. It works perfectly with the SiliconDust unit on full HD streaming over my home network, but chokes on the HD streaming from the Dish Slingbox at HD resolutions. I have heard that entities that stream using "Silverlight" for HD streams such as Netflix are cpu intensive and will make lower capability computer hardware choke. TVAnywhere must be a cpu intensive application. My SiliconDust streaming must not be a cpu intensive application, as all HD feeds at full HD quality are perfect... on the same Atom dual core computer that chokes on TVAnywhere at HD quality.

 

[TheKrell]

I believe your SiliconDust tuner streams data that is unencrypted. One less compute-intensive operation may be enough to allow your Atom to keep up. (I have this same issue with my Zotac Z-box.)

 

[don_b]

I am going to try various things on that machine and reply back.
1) I realized that I had win7 -home premium - 32 bit. I just upgraded the ram to 6gb. I need to upgrade to 64bit so that win can make use of the 6gb ram
2) the motherboard has an integrated ATI video card. I am going to upgrade the drivers .
3) finally get an quad core processer upgraded from the existing AMD athlon II x2. thinking of getting AMD phenom II x4.

 

[lucky86]

I have an older desktop sitting around that's 2.3 gHZ I believe and 2GB of RAM and I can stream in HD/HQ with no issues at all. I do have a very fast network, but this PC isn't that great and it can handle it. I can't recall which video card is in this one but it may be a middle of the road card, but not anything extreme by any means.

Now that I think about it, I think the video card brand or model is called Extreme actually, I forgot that I see a green screen flash on boot displaying the work Extreme,

 

[TheKrell]

I have an older desktop sitting around that's 2.3 gHZ I believe and 2GB of RAM and I can stream in HD/HQ with no issues at all.

Dual core?

 

[lucky86]

Dual core?

Yep

 

[don_b]

I upgraded my PC to win7 -home premium - 64bit and installed the latest AMD/ATI video card drivers for the onboard video controller. Still no luck .
Looks like the only option left is to upgrade processor to quad core and try.
the other option is to watch on the "better" quality where there are no audio issues but then the quality of video is not as great as HD.

I am also going to try one more thing. All my data is flowing through a netgear USB (WNDA2100) wifi adapter. I am not sure if this adapter can handle high bit rates and maybe there are some buffer issues. I am going to try pluggin in a cable on the on board ethernet controller and checking. I am pretty sure it will make no difference but will still give it a shot.

 

[don_b]

Ok.. I verified that removing the wifi adapter and using a wired connection has no effect on the audio issues in HD or AUTO mode. One more thing to cross out.
The only thing I can think of is the AMD Athlon X2 can't handle streaming of the bit rates above 3Mbps.

 

[don_b]

ok.. i got a ASUS 1gb DDR3 video card from Fry's, installed it (disabled the onboard video) and tried. the audio issue still remains. .

I checked the CPU utilization . Both CPUs were running 100% !!!.. so this means that it has nothing to do with the video memory. the only thing I can think of is installing a quad core processor. that will make my system similar to my other desktop machine.

By the way, i watched a netflix movie on my HTPC (without the external video card) and I had NO audio issues.

 

[TheKrell]

Thanks for this update, even though I don't like the results! Does anybody know what codec is being used to stream to a PC?