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jcap
February 20th, 2010, 11:10 PM
Ok, I'm changing the direction of this topic. Originally it was about finding a media streaming solution, but now I have more problems.

I decided to go with installing Windows Home Server, which, to my unexpected surprise, is based on Server 2003.

So anyway, I installed that, and the problems I have on Windows Vista/7 don't occur when the adapter is maxed. HOWEVER, one thing that has been bugging me still remains.

With some movies, the Xbox plays them back choppy. Monitoring the network usage, when the video starts, it uses 50% of the 100 Mbps network for about 5 seconds, then settles down to 0.02%. It sits between 0 and 0.02% for about 3 minutes, then it starts showing around 2.5% activity, still smoothly playing. After about 3 more minutes, it shoots back up to 50% and glitches for about 2 seconds. Then, it goes back down to 0 and the cycle repeats.

This has been happening on Server 2003, XP, Vista, and 7, and I've tested it with two separate Xbox 360 consoles.

Alright, here's what I want to do:

I am getting insanely pissed off with the shittyness of Windows Vista/7's revised networking. Whenever my connection maxes out 100%, the adapter will endlessly drop the connection until it is disabled and enabled. This really sucks for streaming HD video. And before you say it's probably just my computer, I have been able to reproduce this on every computer in my house, all different models with different hardware. Two of my friends have the same problem with their setups - one a laptop and another a desktop. (This was NEVER a problem on XP.)

I have this computer that's been sitting next to me for a month. After getting super mad while watching a movie yesterday, the idea just clicked to turn it into a media server! Now, I want something that will be low power and spin down the hard drive when it's not in use. I want to be able to use it as a network share for uploading movies for streaming. Ease of setup is necessary, because I don't want to be struggling with Linux. I don't care about the desktop at all, since it will never be connected to a monitor. I just want something that can act as a NAS unit, with hopefully a web control panel for IP configuration, and a small memory footprint.

If anyone has any distros they would recommend, please post here. I'm doing more research after I post, so I'll post back anything I find that is of interest.

Also, if there's a distro that can do transcoding, that would be cool too. I'm not sure how much it would be able to help with HD video, though, as this computer has a 1.6 GHz P4 processor and I don't want to put a lot of RAM in it.

InnerGoat
February 20th, 2010, 11:40 PM
Linux, streaming, easy. Pick two. :downs:



Run XP in a VM and use that

jcap
February 21st, 2010, 12:02 AM
I might just install XP on the machine since I know it's easy to set up. I'm going to try Windows Home Server first, though, since it's more up-to-date and has out of the box support for media sharing. However, it IS based on the shitty revised networking Microsoft introduced in Vista, so idk how it will pan out.

ThePlague
February 21st, 2010, 01:28 AM
You can use Ubuntu for mostly easy Linux using.