The very first time I got the sling to work (with DIRT team's Matt), I could tell that it was slinging in HD. Now, even though I have set to Best/HD, it seems that it only stays on best, and never switches to HD. The picture is ok, but I can tell that everything has a very jaggy look to it; kinda like a videogame that needs to be anti-aliased. Any suggestions? My computers on the same local lan as the dvr/sling and it shows that it is streaming ~8000Kbps. Anyone else have trouble getting it to stream in HD?
Sling not slinging in HD on LAN
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On my Sling at home, any time I change to BEST/HD, I can see the improvement in the picture quality. How is your picture quality on your TVs? Are you seeing HD on the TV? Have you tried a hard reset on the receiver? If you change channels on your PC/Laptop, is the pq the same? Please let me know.
Yeah, the shows are definitely HD when I watch them on the TV. There is a difference in quality from Good/Better/Best, but even when on best, it still isn't as good as the first time I watched the sling. I've been using the same recording that I initially watched, so I know what it can look like. It's a recording of speed channel, and I can tell just by looking at the text in the recording that it isn't HD. That first time, when I put it on best/hd, it looked like it does now, but after a few seconds, it "clicked" into the HD mode and it looked awesome.
I've tried a hard reset of the receiver, my router/modem, and my PC. Also tried reinstalling the sling activex, and also tried from firefox.
I've tried a hard reset of the receiver, my router/modem, and my PC. Also tried reinstalling the sling activex, and also tried from firefox.
Also know that the plugins don't just send/receive data in your network .. there is feedback to Dish/Sling to identify the playback quality, the network's stream handling ability .. if your upstream connection is congested, it will cause problems streaming inside your network.
you'd need to look inside your websling player log file, at which servers its connecting too ... and then ping them when you're watching to see if they increase in latency or response time..
you'd need to look inside your websling player log file, at which servers its connecting too ... and then ping them when you're watching to see if they increase in latency or response time..
Ok, I'll look into that. I didn't want to spend too much time on this until I got my replacement 722. The one I had for several years had the hard drive crash, got a new one, and anything having to do with the DVR was super slow, loading the list of recorded programs, deleting a program, programs would just stop in the middle and say they have 0:00 time left, when I could restart and it would play through just fine. Anyways, got the new one today, will hook it up tonight. Then I'll start to worry more about the quality. But, for reference, I've got a fios connection that is 8Mbps down and 3Mbps up, with a wired 100Mbps connections to everything.
Definitely sounds beefy enough ... if you look at the log file you can trace and ping to the message server you're going to be using and see if there's any issue along the path ...
otherwise I can get you the code to trigger the newest plugin for IE ... still haven't gotten it fully figured out on FF's plugins... if you could tell me the version I'd know how far back it is.. open up the browser, start to view something from your DVR or Live TV and then right click in the view window and do "About"
otherwise I can get you the code to trigger the newest plugin for IE ... still haven't gotten it fully figured out on FF's plugins... if you could tell me the version I'd know how far back it is.. open up the browser, start to view something from your DVR or Live TV and then right click in the view window and do "About"
Windows XP
c:\Documents and Settings\ *xxxx* \Application Data\Sling Media\WebSlingPlayer\WebSlingPlayer.txt
Vista/7
C:\Users\ *xxxx* \AppData\Roaming\Sling Media\WebSlingPlayer\WebSlingPlayer.txt
the *xxxx* is your user name. the directories are hidden, so you have to show all files & folders ...
I prefer looking for data in the file after using IE ... the plugin when used with Firefox starts the connection with a lot of spaced out XML more so than the IE connection attempt does.
c:\Documents and Settings\ *xxxx* \Application Data\Sling Media\WebSlingPlayer\WebSlingPlayer.txt
Vista/7
C:\Users\ *xxxx* \AppData\Roaming\Sling Media\WebSlingPlayer\WebSlingPlayer.txt
the *xxxx* is your user name. the directories are hidden, so you have to show all files & folders ...
I prefer looking for data in the file after using IE ... the plugin when used with Firefox starts the connection with a lot of spaced out XML more so than the IE connection attempt does.
Ok, looked at the log file, and it says that the resolution when I stopped playing was 1280x720, so should be HD, but here's a screengrab of the image just before I closed the stream (click on it to see it 1:1 pixels):
In addition, my friend stopped over with his laptop, and I tested it there. It's a Win7 machine and I tested with IE8. It mirrors my experience almost exactly. I installed it, and the first time I streamed, the video was very obviously HD. The same area of the F1 broadcast above, the text was super smooth. Every time after the first that we started streaming, we never got any better than what mine looked like above.
For reference, my machine is a Core2Duo T7500 Win7 with IE9 and FF3.6
In addition, my friend stopped over with his laptop, and I tested it there. It's a Win7 machine and I tested with IE8. It mirrors my experience almost exactly. I installed it, and the first time I streamed, the video was very obviously HD. The same area of the F1 broadcast above, the text was super smooth. Every time after the first that we started streaming, we never got any better than what mine looked like above.
For reference, my machine is a Core2Duo T7500 Win7 with IE9 and FF3.6
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when streaming what did it show as the bit rate? any time it says "optimizing" you'd expect the video to be less than optimal ... once it stablizes.. on the "better" setting you should see the stream move at 6 to 9 megs for an HD channel, for an SD channel feed you'd max around 6 meg.
ie. see screen shot 8152k if I full screened the shot it would have been 'appropriate' not pure hd
ie. see screen shot 8152k if I full screened the shot it would have been 'appropriate' not pure hd
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And sorry.. I missed that in your first post..
I think the problem is in the plugins and the real capabilities of the Sling Adapter.
The sling adapter comes with a manual all of 1 sheet, with a supposed speed declaration of HD requiring 3 meg or more for bandwidth. Obviously as you've seen, you're pushing 8 meg or more.. my screen cap showing 8150 (8.1 meg) and I've had streams as high as 10 meg. Yet as soon as I set it for Best/HD ... while the picture improves, the audio slightly improves... within 10 seconds I start getting audio sync problems, then choppy video and it never gets above 11 meg on mine ...
I've proven I can push 18 to 22 megs of traffic across my wireless bridge (streaming on "Better" @8 meg, and moving a 500 meg iso at 10 to 14 megs) so this speed limitation isn't my computer, my network, etc.. but that something with the video data path.. be it the Sling Adapter isn't able to process, or a subset of features that come on higher end systems (quad core rather than dual, 4 gigs of ram instead of 1) or just the software itself is the reason *i* can't do HD in house.
Since your machine sounded more advanced .. its more than likely the plugin just won't activate HD properly, or what ever it needs to do, to get the stream to you... I would expect the stream to hit 16 to 18 megs for a full MPG4 HD stream (16 meg is quoted from other sources) and either the adapter really can't do it, or there's some combination of things that is not allowing the mode to be switched into, courtesy of dish/sling and its "administrivia" controls over our connection.
Would your video improve with a different video card and driver? sure... they have different feature sets different anti-alias and other features that are there to make the video look crisp and off load processing to the card.. but would it be worth it? would it really make the difference to getting the sling adapter to do HD mode? doubtful..
I'm laying odds that initially the sling is adapting to what its getting told is workable ... and until they give real meanings to the controls... there won't be a way to get it into true hd mode reliably.
I think for a full mpeg2 stream, you'd need in the ~16-19Mbps range, but if it's h264 or whatever the sling re-encodes to, you shouldn't need anywhere that high. I stream HD netflix all the time and have done so while downloading a linux iso. I think netflix says for their HD, you should have ~5Mbps. My gut says that it's the sling plugin. I find it odd that on two machines, it worked the first time (and both times there was someone else there, so I know i'm not crazy), and it hasn't worked since then. I've even tried uninstalling it, and deleting any reference to sling I could find, and reinstalling, and it still didn't work.
The two machines I've tested on, one was a Core2Due 2.2Ghz with Nvidia 8400M graphics (no hardware video acceleration), and an even older Turion x2 with radeon x1200 graphics (again, no hardware video decoding). I know that they can handle the feed, as they did the first time. I may try to scrounge up another hard drive, install a vanilla win7 and try again, and make use of the system restore to test if going back allows a second time in HD.
The two machines I've tested on, one was a Core2Due 2.2Ghz with Nvidia 8400M graphics (no hardware video acceleration), and an even older Turion x2 with radeon x1200 graphics (again, no hardware video decoding). I know that they can handle the feed, as they did the first time. I may try to scrounge up another hard drive, install a vanilla win7 and try again, and make use of the system restore to test if going back allows a second time in HD.
That sounds like a good plan...
I've also toyed with using a rivision or two back on the stand alone Sling Player ... the one designed for use with Sling Boxes ...
The stand alone player, sees three "connectors" when it looks at the sling. The default when I've attached after the fact is an "unknown" and the quality is the "Better" ... another of the supposed "connectors" is also called "unknown" and it appears to be the HD ... the 3rd connector port is actually named "composite" .... and it definiately shows its picture quality as the worst of the three.
Its aggrivating that Dish/Sling haven't lifted the restrictions to using the stand alone player ... the player also has an overlay that allows you to see a very good representation of the remote control.. and has a heightened "control mode" that makes the sling more remote responsive, though on my machine on the "better" setting, it caused the video to become choppy ... like it was over polling the remote..
I've also toyed with using a rivision or two back on the stand alone Sling Player ... the one designed for use with Sling Boxes ...
The stand alone player, sees three "connectors" when it looks at the sling. The default when I've attached after the fact is an "unknown" and the quality is the "Better" ... another of the supposed "connectors" is also called "unknown" and it appears to be the HD ... the 3rd connector port is actually named "composite" .... and it definiately shows its picture quality as the worst of the three.
Its aggrivating that Dish/Sling haven't lifted the restrictions to using the stand alone player ... the player also has an overlay that allows you to see a very good representation of the remote control.. and has a heightened "control mode" that makes the sling more remote responsive, though on my machine on the "better" setting, it caused the video to become choppy ... like it was over polling the remote..
i'm confused. my stream never gets even close to those speeds. best i ever had was around < 4000k but I get Best/HD setting all the time.
well .. in my screen shot above.. (bubba hotep) you can see the setting and the speed it reported.. I also have multiple screen caps of my bandwidth monitor which backs up those speeds.
To further define ... how are you watching it? Ipad? Phone/device? outside/inside your receivers' network?
For all I know.. this could really just be an issue on what the plugin does for local connections when the bandwidth is unlimited.. that's part of the problem with Dish/Sling not having tests and numbers to refer customers to for comparison.. your experience then would fit with the "hd requires 3 megs or more of uplink speed" which for "in-house" viewing shouldn't be as much of an issue.
I'd be very curious to see tests (yours, others, dish's, etc.)
So, I think I may have narrowed down why mine looks so bad. Open the shot I posted above at a 1:1 pixel, then open this one up, at a 1:1 pixel. The text of the tower on the left and time remaining are clear, the 'D' in the word SPEED (well all of that really) looks good, no jaggies on the diagonal, the circle around the 1 on the nose of the car is smooth, no jaggies:
And this was ~6400Kbps streaming at the time.
All I did was change the resolution of my laptop from 1440x900, to 1280x800. This made it so the sling software didn't have to scale the 1280x720 image. I noticed from looking at the log that the bad shot I posted above was a 720p stream. I was working on another computer and the TV in that room doesn't have dish, but I wanted to watch the F1 qualifying. So I hooked up the laptop and it defaulted to 1366x768, which I then changed to 1280x720, it looked good (besides the framerate hicuping).
So, it seems the sling plugin doesn't scale well at all, but it must be able to as it looked good the first time we ran it.
Edit: for reference, here's my 1440x900 screenshot. Even scalled down for the forum, you can tell a difference:
And this was ~6400Kbps streaming at the time.
All I did was change the resolution of my laptop from 1440x900, to 1280x800. This made it so the sling software didn't have to scale the 1280x720 image. I noticed from looking at the log that the bad shot I posted above was a 720p stream. I was working on another computer and the TV in that room doesn't have dish, but I wanted to watch the F1 qualifying. So I hooked up the laptop and it defaulted to 1366x768, which I then changed to 1280x720, it looked good (besides the framerate hicuping).
So, it seems the sling plugin doesn't scale well at all, but it must be able to as it looked good the first time we ran it.
Edit: for reference, here's my 1440x900 screenshot. Even scalled down for the forum, you can tell a difference:
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