Internet TV stuttering

[kaos_king]

Hi, my mates just signed up to Net TV Plus and got the motorola VIP 1003. He's on a 8mb line from sky with sky's router and its got an ethernet to that.

It works most of the time, but a significant part of the time it stutters (significant meaning enough to annoy him) he says its worse when his laptop is on. He seems to think its his router whereas I was a little dubious. He is after buying a new router and seeing if that works but I said before shelling out I would have an ask on here to see what you guys think.

Could it be his actual line speed or do you think he might be right with the router being at fault? He's replaced the ethernet to rule that out, but I cant think of a way of checking what bandwidth this motorola box is using up to see if its being chocked (8mb should be enough though right?) nor do I know how to check the router without trying a different one.

What you think?

* Edit * - Forgot to mention, this was the closest section I could find to post it in, apologies if there is a better one :(

 

[dan-ger-ous]

If he is on an 8MBp/s connection then that would mean near enough 800 kbp/s download speed.

You say its worse when his laptop is on, now it depends what his laptop is trying to do in terms of internet connectivity. If a torrent client is running to download files then this will take up a lot of bandwidth. That is the disadvantage to internet TV boxes, you need enough bandwidth to receive video and audio as it airs on TV.

Im not sure how effectively this content is sent to the box, but my guess is that it takes up a lot of bandwidth. Are you able to take it around to your place? Maybe you have a faster internet connection and can check whether it freezes there?

 

[kaos_king]

If he is on an 8MBp/s connection then that would mean near enough 800 kbp/s download speed.

Yeah i got him to check speedtest last night and he gets 1504kbp/s down and 503kbp/s up so that does seem ok.

You say its worse when his laptop is on, now it depends what his laptop is trying to do in terms of internet connectivity. If a torrent client is running to download files then this will take up a lot of bandwidth. That is the disadvantage to internet TV boxes, you need enough bandwidth to receive video and audio as it airs on TV.

He literally opens firefox and then it can start stuttering, he's not doing anything intensive for the bandwidth.

Im not sure how effectively this content is sent to the box, but my guess is that it takes up a lot of bandwidth. Are you able to take it around to your place? Maybe you have a faster internet connection and can check whether it freezes there?

I cant bring it mine, im on a 2mb line! (Shocking I know but its the max the exchange does round my way) unless that might still work, depends on quality really because I can just about stream youtube at 480. What I could do is take my router round to his and try that?

 

[dan-ger-ous]

I understand.

I know with Sky broadband, they give out the hubs? If his BT wire goes directly into that hub then I do not think there is any point in you taking your router down his, as a separate modem would be required if you wanted to connect your router too it, and as far as I know Sky do not dish out setups where the customers has there own modem and can therefore use there own router?

Has your friend tried to contact Net TV Plus for a solution? Has your friend tried to reboot the hub to see if this solves the issues?

 

[kaos_king]

lo

Cheers for the suggestions, I'll ask him what the setup is with the sky router at the mo and get back to you. Contacting the company crossed my mind but they tend not to be that technical and i'd just expect them to blame something rather than giving logical suggestions. I'll tell him to contactg them though if its not the router.