Simple Netflix/performance question

[graesen]

Last night my family was watching a movie on netflix and we ran into some issues and I want to try and narrow down the problem. I think it might be hardware related, but not sure yet. Everything else appears to be working fine on this particular computer, but this was the first time trying out Netflix with it. Now I am running beta on 2 computers (1 for the family room, 1 in my bedroom) and at the time both were streaming off the same account at the same time, except 1 from netflix, the other from the tv library (south park if it might matter)

What was happening was after a few minutes into the netflix movie, it would freeze all of boxee, but the audio would keep playing as if nothing were happening. It would take 1-2 full minutes for boxee to respond to any attempt to pause the movie, but once the movie was paused everything started working again. Then I'd continue the movie and return to my show in the bed room. Shortly after this happened again. I later figured it might be a network issue with both computers on wifi and us only using a wireless G router, so I stopped my show and shut boxee down to test that idea. It helped, but our internet service cut out completely shortly after that to fully test the network causing the problem.

The computer is slightly underpowered with RAM at the moment, but Boxee didn't appear to be affected by it until possibly now.

Running Windows XP
512 RAM - had 1GB, but a chip went out, need to replace it
AMD Athlon x2 (dual core) CPU
ATI Radeon 2600 HD (512 RAM) - want to swap cards with the 1 in my room since I use that computer for video production work and gaming too
Replacement card would be Nvidia 7300 GT (515 RAM) and reviews say the radeon is better. my nvidia runs boxee perfectly

I also want to note I do have a wireless N router I haven't set up yet, but I just wanted to know if the RAM or network would cause this problem. It just doesnt make sense to me that all of boxee would freeze if the network can't keep up. Thanks

[judgeschambers]

Well, netflix is not playing well with XP and Beta for some. I can't get it to even work on my XP test machine. But my Win-7 64 Revo plays it perfectly. I want to chalk up the locking of Boxee on the issues with Netflix and Beta. The test would be to connect them by wire and see if anything improves. I bet they lock up again.

Your're wireless connection is 54 mb, which is more than enough to stream two netflix shows at once. Heck, you should be able to stream full HD content from your home share too. But, many a people have issues streaming ANYTHING wirelessly with any pc or player. That's why my house is hard wired with cat-5 and I run a Linksys WRT54G wireless and wired router. I don't even bother with wireless for media myself as there are soooo many things that can affect the stream.

A N set up may help patch a week overall network (lots of walls and no line of sight for the router antenna and pc, interferance etc.) and get things working wirelessly for you. But you'll have to upgrade your routers and network cards to do Gigabit N.

Just some suggestions and history. ;)

[graesen]

Thanks for the tips. My bedroom computer is already using N, the wind xp one is using a MIMO card. Both already have improved signal strength (i know not speed) with the G router. I've just been lazy in setting up the N router and felt like it wasn't necessary right now. If 54mbs should be plenty to run with, then I may not jump to it right away... both computers are at 75-90% signal strength. Was much much lower before using these wireless cards.

But it's in general a netflix+boxee+win XP issue? other than upgrading the OS, are there any options? is it stable in alpha? perhaps a temp downgrade would be a solution for that computer.

[judgeschambers]

Just remember, technically, there is no need for N wifi as you have plenty of bandwidth. But, not everyone expereinces the full bandwidth of their wifi for many, many reasons. That's why I mentioned that a N network upgrade may, may help make up for any shortcomings. Basicaly, overkill. ;)

I don't believe Netflix worked on XP with Alpha either. I seem to remember I had the same issues with white screen there and lock ups too. I've never been able to watch Netflix on boxee until I installed Beta on a Win-7 machine.

I'd hold out for further Beta improvements or step up to Win-7 32 or 64 bit. Don't go back to Alpha.

[graesen]

alright. thanks for the info