Canadian TV, Computing and Home Theatre Forums banner

broadband capacity (gigabit) and HD streaming

2K views 6 replies 6 participants last post by  Danno100 
#1 ·
Is my understanding correct:

If I have a 4 port gigabit router connected to an 8 port 10/100 router am I correct that if I have a pc connected to a gigabit port (pc has gigabit ethernet) and also a HD Homerun tuner connected to a gigabit port, then there is approx 900 mbits bandwidth with 100 mbits bandwidth allocated to the 8 port router. Ie anything fed in and out of the gigabit router will have ample (900) capacity?

I am trying to stream 3 hd streams (60 mbits?) through my gigabit pc (2 from HDHR and 1 out to an extender) without any bandwidth issues while having several other pcs (10/100) online at the same time?

Thanks
 
#2 ·
Not as simple as that

Each packet of info has "overhead" packet info,
IE: time date address to and from etc, it can use up
to 20% of the packet.
100 meg port in a router is hard pressed to
maintain a flow of 60 meg on a continued basics.

The specs are for best case in an engineering
paper.
 
#3 ·
JonSS, if I understand your plans correctly, you'll be OK.

Most likely either the gigabit router or the 10/100M router (or both) have "switched ethernet" ports, meaning traffic is not sent to a port unless it is destined to the device on that port.

So any traffic between your gigabit PC and the HDHR will stay on the 1G router and won't use up any of the bandwidth on the 10/100M router. And likewise traffic between PC's on the 10/100M router will not use up bandwidth on the 1G router.

As long as you don't try to stream more than about 80 Mbps between the two routers, you should be fine from a bandwidth perspective. And assuming your gigabit PC is up to handling 3 HD streams at once.
 
#4 ·
Thanks. I really want to keep 2 computers separately on the 10/100 router (laptop that the wife uses to surf as well as an old pc that is used for video calling relatives) so that nothing will cause problems with my multiple HD recording and streaming.
 
#5 ·
In my experience, 1Gb connections are more sensitive to connection issues than 100Mb connections. So while yo might get close to 70% capacity on a 100GB connection (70Kb), you will not likely get anywhere near 700Kb on a 1GB connection. In some circumstances, you might not even get 180Kb (3x60Kb.) (I've seen 1GB connection as slow as 20Kb under some conditions.) The PC could also be a bottleneck if the CPU cannot keep up or there is a hardware or software issue. Task manager can provide an overview of connection speeds but a more detailed analysis is required if there are serious problems. OTOH, if everything is working Ok, there shouldn't be an issue with this setup.
 
#6 ·
You definitely want a switch vs a router and look for a non-blocking one. One (cheap) example is the D-Link DGS-1008D

Use the best cables you can get and keep them relatively short and you should have no problems. Each device is isolated from the others traffic *and* speed unless they are actually communicating - This is what you wanted, right?

If you find you have an issue (doubtful) the device above (and others, surely) support QOS and has 4 queues. Depending on support for QOS on the attached devices, this can also help.

m
 
#7 ·
I just switched to two D-link DGS-1008D switches and a DIR-655 router. I put my server on the switch and the router connected to the switch. At first I had terrible stuttering playing SD video. Found out it was the router because I connected the server directly to it. Plugging the server into the switch fixed the problem. Perhaps it is because I hadn't updated the router firmware. I have updated the firmware since then, but haven't tested if it fixed the video problem.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top