[SOLVED] Network 4K movies streaming

Feras Kh

Honorable
Mar 19, 2014
18
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10,515
Hey guys
I've been facing a problem for a while and couldn't identify it but I have some concerns.

I've been streaming movies in Kodi and plex through network from my PC. It was working fine until I have upgraded my TV into 4k.
When streaming 4k movies after few seconds it starts stuttering and not working well.
I have suspension that my router is not capable of doing this. My router is linksys WRT-1900AC.
Could it be the problem?
If yes, what is the best suggested router for streaming. Else, what could be the problem? My CPU is AMD FX-9370. GPU Sapphire AMD Radeon R9 200 series. RAM 16GB.

I Hope someone could help to get over this problem.
 
Solution
Make sure you do not have any of those "gamer" network accelerators. They are mostly on intel boards with killer network chipset.

There really should not be much actual traffic. I think tv only support compressed video so maybe 40mbps at the high end. If you were to send uncompressed data it would be much more but I don't think any tv support raw 4k data streams.

Now if all you are doing is "playing" precompressed files the computer is pretty much just doing a simple file copy except over the network.
How are the TV and the PC connected to the router. Wifi is pretty hit and miss, all depends on your house, distance to the router, how many neighbors you have, etc etc,

If both the tv and pc connect via ethernet you should have no issues. The lan ports on the router act as a small switch. The traffic never actually leaves the switch function so it is not affected by the CPU chip.

The switch should be able to pass 1gbit of traffic up and down on all 4 ports at the same time. So 8gbit of traffic total which there is no realistic configuration that can even think to use it all.

Your problem is likely something else if you are using ethernet cables.
 

Feras Kh

Honorable
Mar 19, 2014
18
1
10,515
It is connected Using CAT6 ethernet cable.
I assumed it was the CPU because when streaming using Plex it shows in the task manager that CPU is working around 40% capacity.
 
Make sure you do not have any of those "gamer" network accelerators. They are mostly on intel boards with killer network chipset.

There really should not be much actual traffic. I think tv only support compressed video so maybe 40mbps at the high end. If you were to send uncompressed data it would be much more but I don't think any tv support raw 4k data streams.

Now if all you are doing is "playing" precompressed files the computer is pretty much just doing a simple file copy except over the network.
 
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Solution

atljsf

Honorable
BANNED
as mentioned, yes, use always ethernet cable, avoid wifi to stream videos

about cpu usage, plex might be using only one or two cores, it is not 100% of the cpu but the fx cores are not fast cores, the slowest ryzen core is twice as fast as the fastest fx core, and then you overclock ryzen, so gets even worse, check if you can force plex to run on more cores or the stream settings on plex, i never checked the stream settings on plex so i can't guide you there

a 4k stream uses around 30 megabits, is the original content 4k? otherwise you are wasting time, network and cpu power, let the 4k tv do the upscale from 1080p to 4k
 

Feras Kh

Honorable
Mar 19, 2014
18
1
10,515
It is an original 4K content.
CPU usage is maximum 40% I don't think it's the problem.
I narrowed it to network connection I guess. I just need a confirmation before I rush into getting a new router for nothing.
I've seen some routers like Netgear Nighthawk R9000 which streams 4K videos smoothly.