Topic: MP3 Streaming is choppy

[Steven Thomson]

I installed the Jukebox Blade but have found that the music doesn't stream well.
What is the limiting factor ? CPU/Ram on the server or the Player receiving the stream or compression ?
I have a c333a with 64mb ram and 10 gig hdd. Using Windows media player from XP pro. MP3's are compressed at 128 bit.

[David Davis]

This is usually either a bandwidth or memory problem.  Are you streaming across an ethernet connection, or across the internet?  If you are streaming on an ethernet network where bandwidth is not an issue, then the next thing I would try is more RAM.  64 MB is probably not enough to run an MP3 jukebox.  What is probably happening is that the OS is out of RAM and is using the hard disk swap file, which would definitely explain your problem.  I have a PIII 850 and 768 MB of RAM and have no problem streaming music to multiple computers simultaneously on my local network.

[Steven Thomson]

I am streaming via ethernet.
I have a 256mb stick I was saving for another project but I guess it's time to use it.
Thanks for the help.

[Norrie]

Hi,

Choppy MP3 playback is often the fault of the client machine.  What spec. is it?  What else are you doing at the same time?  We can stream MP3s from our sme 5.12 - AMD k6 266 no problem over 10mb ethernet.  The machine only has 64 MB RAM. and most of the MP3s are 256kb/s.

It may be worth trying Winamp too as I belive it is one of the few players that will cache the full MP3 file before playing (I could be wrong though!)  Also, I couldn't get media player to play any more than 256kb/s MP3s but winamp could.

Hope this helps...

NTB
8o)

[Steven Thomson]

I am playing the MP3's on an Athlon 1600 with 768mb ram under XP pro over 100mbit ethernet.
I think you are right about media player....think I'll try winamp before messing around with hardware.

Thanks again for the advice.

[Steven Thomson]

Just as a follow-up:
I tried Windoze Media Player - Sucked ( Stop - Start all the time)
I tried Real One Player -  Sucked ( Stop - Start all the time)
I tried Winamp3 - Beautiful !!!! Perfect streaming.
I wonder what the difference is ?
Thanks for the help everyone.