DS409 UPnP question

[danshome]

Hi Guys,

I've just bought a DS409 and picked up a D-Link DIR 655 to handle gigabit routing duties. Having moved over a load of videos to the NAS, I've just been testing streaming to my XBox 360 and noticed that videos take 30 seconds to a minute to open/buffer and start playing. Is this normal - I've been playing things off a USB hdd to this point and got used to videos opening pretty instantaneously. I know the 360 only has a 10/100 network connection, but wasn't sure if this was the cause of the slowness or whether it's using UPnP rather than DLNA (which I hear is in an upcoming firmware), or just a side-effect of playing stuff over the network on the xbox.

I was also considering of getting hold of something like a Popcorn Hour media tank in the future (possibly one of the newer ones with a gigabit connection), but obviously don't want to spend the money without some idea that it'll imrpove matters.

Anyway - if any one can give me some assurances that this is normal; or alternativel, if I'm doing something wrong point me in the right direction that'd be appreciated!

Dan

 

[danshome]

I've also just discovered that after 5-6 mins of playing video, the Xbox presents me witha helpful "Unplayable content" message indicating that the connection to the NAS was lost. Not entirely what I was hoping for...

 

[thiggins]

100 Mbps Ethernet should handle streaming just fine. From the little I know, those products have special needs that streaming sources must support.

Looks like you have also posted this in the Synology forum. From this thread, looks like an ongoing issue with both Xbox and PS3.

One suggestion from Synology is here. But looks like a real fix still isn't available.

 

[danshome]

Hi Tim,

Thanks for your response - I did stick something on the synology forum in the hope someone there might have an idea too. I had a look at those threads you mentioned - some of them seem to be related, but i'm not sure if they're exactly the same problem. I'll give switching UPnP on and off and reindexing and see whether that has an effect and update the thread here.

Dan

 

[thiggins]

I think they may be related. The PS3 and Xbox 360 depend on UPnP / DLNA to play files across the network. Other media players can browse network shares and select files for play using SMB/CIFS, i.e. normal file sharing.

 

[danshome]

Hi Guys,

Just to follow up here - I tried turning UPnP off, restarting the DS409, turning UPnP back on and re-indexing. The good news is that I no longer get a connection dropped message. However, it still takes almost a minute to open videos and instead of the connection issue, after about 10 minutes the video freezes up but audio continues.

That seems very similar to what other people were mentioning in the threads that Tim referenced, so I assume it's the same problem. I sent off an email to Synology support a couple of days ago but haven't had any response as yet. I'll keep updating things assuming I get a resolution so that people have some idea if anyone comes across this in the future.

Dan

 

[thiggins]

I asked my contact at Synology about the streaming issues described in this thread.

Here is the response:

I checked out the issue from 'danshome' you're referring to in our forum and it seems to just be a network issue. I also checked with our support team about any ongoing issues regarding Xbox and PS3 streaming and there don't seem to be any at this time. The upcoming DSM 2.2 beta should help to smooth specific users network issues with the DLNA compliance for 09 models as well.

This seems contradictory to me, which is what I said to Synology. If there are no ongoing issues, then why would the DSM 2.2 Beta help?

This also could be related to specific format files. What formats are you playing and have you tried others?

 

[danshome]

Hi Tim,

Thanks for checking things out with your contact - I agree, the statement is rather contradictory.

I've been trying avi files (I think they're all XVID encoded so far). I'll try and make up some using a different codec that the xbox supports (not as easy as you'd hope!) and see how it goes.

I've still not had any response to my original support request to them, so I guess that their definition of "ongoing" and mine are slightly different! Either way,the setup is pretty basic, so I'd be surprised if I'm the only one seeing this sort of behaviour.

Your help is much appreciated!

Dan

 

[thiggins]

I suggest trying some straight Mpeg2 ripped dvd files.

 

[danshome]

I suggest trying some straight Mpeg2 ripped dvd files.

The Xbox 360 doesn't support MPEG2 directly in the dashboard media player (it does in the Media Centre Extender view, but this only works with Windows pcs as the source). It does support WMV though - I ripped a DVD and converted it to WMV and gave that a go, but got the exact same thing (the file was only 32Mb but took 30s even to think about buffering, which then took another 40-50s).

It's probably worth me updating the thread on what's happened with Synology support. They have suggested I try turning off the write-cache option and check whether the drives need an updated firmware (as they are both Seagate 1.5Tb drives). However they appear to have the latest firmware (as they were manufactured this year) and the write-cache option had no effect.

Someone on the forums also suggested bumping up the UPnP buffer size from the default, but again this didn't have any effect.

So it's still an on-going issue - will keep people updated!

Dan

 

[thiggins]

Thanks, Dan. Synology just announced the 2.2 Beta that they said might address some UPnP issues.

At the top of the Release notes:

New Features

1. New DLNA Compliant Media Server:
   • Disk Station Manager 2.2 has been certified DLNA compliant (certified on DS209 and will work with all Disk Station models). It further ensures interoperability between Synology Disk Station and your DLNA home devices.
   • Supports customization of the DMA browsing menu for your multimedia files. 3 default menu styles are provided and you can customize 3 more styles based on personal preferences, including using iTunes smart playlist.
   • Supports streaming music, photo and video with Windows Media Player on Vista.
   • Supports MP3 and M4A metadata indexing including composer, disc number, track number, album artwork, and comment.
   • Supports more video formats, including MKV, TS, M2TS, M2T, MTS, M4V, 3GP, 3G2, QT, SWF, DVR-MS, MOV, TRP, TP, and ISO.
   • Supports PCM audio format.
   • Supports on-the-fly transcoding of FLAC, OGG, AAC (.aac, .m4a, .m4b) and AIFF (.aif, .aiff) to WAV or PCM to enjoy high quality lossless music on compatible DMAs.

 

[danshome]

Thanks Tim! I've just applied for the beta and if they accept me, I'll give it a go and see if it improves matters.

 

[danshome]

Ok - so I've just tried installing the 2.2 beta. The good news is that the install was completely painless - unforutnately, it's made the problem even worse. Before where it took 1min or so to load a movie, it's now pretty much extended to forever (for all intents and purposes - I'm sure something is happening, it's just taking a very, very long time). I suppose it's no more unwatchable than before though!

I think the next step is to turn everything off, wait overnight and come at it with a fresh head tomorrow!

 

[maxwell]

Hi Dan:
Did you try anoher router ? It's looks like a network problem.

 

[danshome]

Hey guys,

Bit of an update here. So I've tried with my old router and also done a few tests using my laptop and installing XBMC to act as a UPnP client.

The results are:

Wired UPnP DS409 to Xbox 360 using DIR-655 - FAILS
Wireless SMB DS409 to Laptop using DIR-655 - PASS
Wired UPnP DS409 to Laptop using DIR-655 - PASS
Wired UPnP DS409 to Xbox 360 using Netgear WPN824 - PASS

(where passing means that the video starts instantly and plays without any problems, failing is as described previously - takes ages to start and then later playback issues).

So it seems that if you use another router, everything works. However if I use the laptop via wired or wireless connections with the DIR-655 to stream UPnP video to XBMC, then it works as well. Changing ports has no effect.

I guess it's not merely a matter of it not working over wired connections - it's only the combination of the XBox and DS409 with the DIR-655 gigabit router that causes problems. I'm not sure if it has anything to do with the DS409 operating at 1000mbits but the Xbox only operating at 10/100. The laptop also only operates at 10/100 but presumably has a slightly better quality network chip than either the DS409 or the Xbox.

Any thoughts?

Dan

 

[thiggins]

Try disabling WMM and/or WISH features.

 

[danshome]

Hi Tim,

Everything apart from UPnP and one port forward to another machine is disabled - WISH, WMM, SPI Firewall, QoS. I've tried combinations of options just in case I could spot one of them, but ended up just leaving them all off since I don't really use the features anyway.

Dan

 

[thiggins]

Interesting. So I guess that Synology was right that the problem is network related...

 

[danshome]

We're still not really sure - there's an updated firmware for the DIR-655 that apparently fixes an unspecified UPnP problem. However it's only available in North America, and D-Link won't provide it to me for my EU version of the DIR-655. They have sent me a beta version of another EU firmware and I'm going to try it out this evening to see if that fixes things - no clue as to if it contains the relevant fix.

D-Link wanted me to try reducing the port speed of the DS-409, however Synology have not provided any advice on how to do that. There is a post in one of their forums that says that it should be possible by logging on as root and using ethtool, however trying that only gives me an Operation Not Permitted error from ethtool (even with a script to take down the network interface before making the setting change and then bringing it back up afterwards). So at the moment, there's no way to even give that a try.

I'll see how the new firmware gets on and let people know!

 

[danshome]

Just tried the 1.30EU firmware and predicatbly it doesn't solve the problem (probably because the UPnP bug fix is in 1.32NA which they won't let me install). The good news is that D-Link have passed it on to their second tier support team so we'll see how things go.