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Playmaker Dropouts - Not What You'd Think (Long Post)

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Jeff
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Jeff Posted: Thu, Feb 6 2014 4:48 PM

OK, thought I'd write up my recent Playmaker experiences in case it helps anyone else on here. I know there have been issues with dropouts and other items so more info and experience can't hurt.

I have a Playmaker Mk II. I had it set up in the main dining/kitchen/sunroom area of my home when I had the stereo setup in there while finishing the living room repairs (walls, skylights, etc.). It worked fine there streaming either from my PC and iTunes, or from my iPad or iPhone via Spotify. Occasionally I'd get a brief dropout, but very rarely.

So, I move the stereo into the living room and get setup. Laptop is usually in the sunroom area, and the wireless router is in the closet in the same area, living room is next to this, behind a wall, PM was about 25 feet farther away from the router.

Lots of dropouts when streaming from the PC. From one or two brief ones in an album, to lots of long ones and occasional complete dropouts. I was upset to say the least. I checked signal strength, it reads "good" whereas in the sunroom it read "excellent." I took my network analysis s/w on the laptop and looked, sure enough signal strength is down in there a bit, and I see some other networks, only one of which is even registering on a signal strength meter. And naturally they are spread all over channel wise. Anyway I set channel to 11 which should have the minimum interference, still dropouts.

So, I decide do do the usual, update firmware on the PM, and assign a static IP address to it. Before I did that however I noticed something unusual, I almost never get dropouts, and when they occur they are less than one second brief ones, when streaming from Spotify and the iPad, even when the iPad is in the same room as the PM (which makes the iPad farther from the router too). Curious, why would the PC dropout and the iPad not? Both were running 2.4 GHz band (my PC won't support 5 GHz).

So, as an experiment, I shut off the wireless card in the PC and direct wired it to the router using a cable. No dropouts, PM plays with only occasional, like maybe once in a day or two, very brief dropouts from the PC. I've been running it this way for several days now successfully. I also moved my iPad to 5 GHz and it seems like I don't even get brief dropouts from it, but they were so infrequent it's hard to tell.

So, in my case the PM was dropping out due to something in the PCs network wireless rather than it having an issue. I don't know what it is, something else vying for attention from the card, or the fact (not uncommon) that a fair number of PC network wireless cards have issues, a few years back there were some Intel cards that were infamous for being problematic.

I went ahead and updated the firmware and assigned a static IP anyway, as it is "best practice" apparently for the PM. No change in functionality though, still works fine.

I did notice one other peculiarity, in the Beo Setup app for the iPad. It's stopped showing the status of the PM. It shows the PM but no info on it, and if you click it it brings up a blank page. On my iPhone the app works fine, it shows PM status and such when you click on the PM icon in the app, and my iPad app used to, it's how I setup the thing originally. I just downloaded the app to the phone to check if it worked and it works the way the app on the iPad used to. I redownloaded the app to the iPad, same issue. That one is still a mystery.

So, if your PM is dropping out try and eliminate the PC as a reason first before pulling your hair out. I'm using the laptop as an interim music server until I get my main one resetup, a little Lenovo PC that mounts to the back of my monitor, it's about the size of a Mac Mini. Whether or not it will have the same wireless issue remains to be seen but if it does it's small enough to put in the cabinet and direct wire.

Hope this helps someone.

Jeff

I'm afraid I'm recovering from the BeoVirus. Sad

Ryan
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Ryan replied on Thu, Feb 6 2014 9:09 PM

Good summary Jeff and it's worth noting that by hard wiring the PC you have also halved the amount of traffic on your wifi network so this may have helped with the dropouts.

Jeff
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Jeff replied on Thu, Feb 6 2014 11:16 PM

Good point, it can't hurt, although when I was streaming from the iPad on Spotify it was all wireless, and most of my iTunes music is 256kbs while Spotify is on max quality at 360kbs. 

I wonder if I'm getting dropouts that are ordinarily below the buffering threshold of the PM but if you add dropouts from the PC they get long enough to exceed the recovery limits. 

Aint wireless networking wonderful? 

Jeff

I'm afraid I'm recovering from the BeoVirus. Sad

Beobuddy
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When using static ip-addresses, here's a usefull hint: give the device you're assigning an ip-address outside the dynamic range of the modem/router.

So when your router or modem has a dynamic range from e.g. 192.168.1.100 - 255, then give the device an address below 192.168.1.100.

I've had the experience with a Huawei router which gave an ip-address which already was used by another (active working) pc in the network.

Shitty firmware in the router, but took some time to find out.

So, the idea is to assign/use a static ip-address below the dhcp range of the modem/router.

Jeff
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Jeff replied on Fri, Feb 7 2014 4:16 PM

I've had IP address conflicts in the past using other routers even using DHCP and no static IPs assigned. I have a Netgear WNDR4500 dual band router now, and am very happy with it. I had been trying to get by with cheaper routers in the past, there's no comparison in performance. This is one area where the money spent seems to be worth it.

The Netgear has a reserved IP table, you enter the name, IP address, and MAC address of the device and it reserves that IP for any static IP devices you have. So far the only one I have with a static IP is the PM, but I may try assigning a static IP to the laptop and see what happens.

On the 5 GHz band I get about 29-30 MBS download, which is not bad as I am only paying for 30 MBS from the cable company. Back in Florida where I used to live I was not on a fiber trunk unfortunately, as my coworker was and he was getting 1 GBS service.

Jeff

I'm afraid I'm recovering from the BeoVirus. Sad

tournedos
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Jeff:
I've had IP address conflicts in the past using other routers even using DHCP and no static IPs assigned.

This is often due to bad clients using an old DHCP lease even after the original lease time has expired. A device crashes (or sometimes even is shut down properly), and doesn't announce to the DHCP server that it is going away. Perhaps the network was down at that time. Then, the server assigns the same IP to another device, and the former one reappears and starts shouting around with its old IP address -> conflict.

Some server implementations are more eager to recycle released or expired IP addresses at the start of the range, while some keep them reserved for a particular MAC address that formerly held it, for as long as there are new unused slots in the range.

Anyway, it is crucial to pick the static IP addresses from outside the local DHCP address range, as already stated.

--mika

DoubleU
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DoubleU replied on Fri, Feb 7 2014 7:16 PM

If you look at the drawings of every NL-product, you can see that in all scenario’s, B&O uses a 2nd router. A network link router, on top of the ISP router. This is an approved router that B&O recommends for a trouble free subnetwork. 

I think lots of problems that were reported here could be prevented if that advice was taken more serious, including Jeff’s experience. (no pun intended!!)

 

Beobuddy:

When using static ip-addresses, here's a usefull hint: give the device you're assigning an ip-address outside the dynamic range of the modem/router.

So when your router or modem has a dynamic range from e.g. 192.168.1.100 - 255, then give the device an address below 192.168.1.100.

I've had the experience with a Huawei router which gave an ip-address which already was used by another (active working) pc in the network.

Shitty firmware in the router, but took some time to find out.

So, the idea is to assign/use a static ip-address below the dhcp range of the modem/router.

Good hint, but I would leave all devices in default, and let the router assign static ip addresses outside the DHCP range, based on the unique MAC-address of the devices. Different approach, but with the same result. Your PlayMaker for example would also work out of the box in a different (W)LAN network, or when your NAS comes back from repair. It also gives you a better summary which IP, every device has in case of troubleshooting.

Sounds difficult if you never done this, but actually fairly easy with the routers B&O recommends. 

Beobuddy
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Nope, totally clear.

It's the other way around. Instead of assigning through the device, reserving an ip-address at the ip-table inside the router, recognized by it's MAC address.

BTW, if have 2 routers. More features/security then the standard router from the ISP.

Ryan
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Ryan replied on Sun, Feb 9 2014 3:26 AM

Jeff:
Good point, it can't hurt, although when I was streaming from the iPad on Spotify it was all wireless, and most of my iTunes music is 256kbs while Spotify is on max quality at 360kbs. 

Hi Jeff I think airplay transcodes the audio into Apple Lossless format before sending so the actual data rate over your network is much higher than the source music may be. In any case, yes wifi can be temperamental so the more things you can attach to wired ethernet the better. I'm an IT manager by trade and the number one question I get about people's home networks is about why their wifi is unreliable or slow. I've seen all kinds of crazy problems such as - it will work on the 3rd floor of someone's house unless someone starts using an iPad on the 1st floor and then the wifi becomes unusable on the 3rd floor.

I've also helped many friends set up airplay for parties so they can have the same music playing in 2 or 3 parts of their houses and I've yet to see it actually go the whole night without dropping out or failing when using wifi - especially with a house full of people absorbing the wifi signal. The bose soundlink units are particularly troublesome.

By the way if anyone has a big house that needs a bunch of wifi access points, the Ubiquity networks unifi product is great - it does require a computer to be left on for full functionality in controlling all the access points though  http://www.ubnt.com/unifi

Jeff
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Jeff replied on Sun, Feb 9 2014 5:48 PM

Interesting, why would they do that? Transcode it to lossless? So that things like the Airport don't have to decode anything but one codec?

In my last job we worked with a guy who was with the Navy simulation division, he developed audio servers for training areas, such as houses for the law enforcement and emergency services training, etc. The idea was that there were projected people to interact with, and also audio distributed in various rooms to act as training cues. You would have the trainees searching the house, and hear either a cell phone ring, or the sound of someone in a room if you were searching for people ala fire and rescue, whatever, to direct the trainees to go into a room. He built these IP addressable boxes that contained a small amp, and an MP3 decoder and sent audio via IP address over one common network. He used the MP3 to limit the amount of data each room took to send audio, he sent it over the network compressed to lower load. Worked very well, I wonder why anyone would send it in a bulkier format?

I've had discussions with a friend about wireless previously, he's an IT manager for a college. The horror stories he tells of various wireless problems, many stemming from "standards" that are taken more as "suggestions" by various vendors, are legion. And for a college he has to deal with about every combination of device you can imagine, myriad PC vendors, tablets, Apple products, etc.

Jeff

I'm afraid I'm recovering from the BeoVirus. Sad

beotkn
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beotkn replied on Wed, Feb 12 2014 6:59 AM

Interesting. I have my Playmaker now since 5 weeks and had ZERO dropouts.

I have my music library on a WD Live Book, served by the built in Twonky server.

My DLNA device is a Lenovo Yoga Tablet, running BubbleUpnp.

Everything (except the WD Live Book) is linked wirelessly. I am using a dedicated router as a wireless access point (WAP). The WAP is 5 m away from the Playmaker, which gives it a strong signal.

All devices never change their IP address. I am using the router built-in feature "Always use same IP Adress for device" (based on MAC address).

Bernd

Flappo
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Flappo replied on Wed, Feb 12 2014 6:51 PM

Op shoulda bought a mac

Pc's are more hassle than they're worth

rxcohen
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rxcohen replied on Wed, Feb 12 2014 9:51 PM

Hi Jeff - i work in the field and you should really have zero drops in your wifi network, otherwise you have some problems with the device or the access point. At a very high level would recommend a few things which you may already be doing - move what you can to 5GHz, this all is a huge improvement; add an access point in front of the cable router. The wifi built into these routers are the worst. would recommend Aiport Extreme, Aiport Time Capsule or if you want a business grade solution with multiple access points throughout the house you can go with Cisco or Meraki (and there are other vendors too). And finally whether you go with AP other keep your wifi cable modem, move it out of the closet. You mat have all sorts of interference that cause signal problems. I don't know how large your place is, but you would probably want an access point per 2000-2500 sq ft depending on walls and how much metal you have, and levels.

Practically all my connections (with the exception of the BS9000) are wireless - and I transmit about 10GB a day with never any issues or drops.

BV11-55, BS9000, BL1, BL19, Transmitter 1, Beo4, Beocom 6000, BeoTalk1 200, Sennheiser HD600, McIntosh MHA100

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