Movie watching: lag and connection problems

We have a theater on our land (class 5 sim) when the theater is rezed we still have about 360 prims available.

The screen is iPlasma TV v1.2 (XXL) deeded to our group per the instructions. The first time we watched a movie everything was fine, no problems. However now when we watch movies or should i say attempt to watch, she can start the movie just fine and have no problems. I however experience SL problems such as SL not responding, it flashes on and off for about 3 mins and then my screen is back to normal. The movie will play fine for me for about 5 mins, then it will automatically pause for a few minutes, then it will start back up and play again. I experience lag, i can see her typing, yet I can't respond, my comp isn't frozen it just slows to a crawl and then after about 4 mins I'm OK and things are back to normal except the move starts and stops for me.

It's not my graphic's card, this is a brand new 2 month old lap top and when i bought it I specifically made sure the graphics card would be more than enough to handle SL or anything else thrown my way.

We can't figure out what's happening. We hit play and the movie will start right away for her, yet for me it takes about 4 minutes for it to start...even when it's sync.

Any suggestions? Has anyone else experienced this type of problem?

Who hosts these movies that you are attempting to play?

Well it really wouldn't be dependant on your card. Is the movie, I assume .mov, compressed for buffering and streaming? SL is very limited, if it is either too large, or not compressed with a quickstart built into the stream, it will easily fail.

Could be low bandwidth from the hosting site. It could be high packet loss on your machine (which is my guess). Are you using a wireless connetion to the internet? What is your download speed with our ISP (not the advertised speed, the actual speed)? How high do you have youar bandwidth slider set in preferrences? If's set higher than your actual speed available to your modem then you could get excessive packet loss.......which translates to lag or even loss of the connection.

And dispite what you think, it could be your graphics card.......drivers not up to the task. Check for more recent versions at the card's manufacturers site.

As this thread is similar to mine in some ways, i thought i would comment I converted all my divx movies to 1237 bits high quality widescreen, i only want crystal clear movies and no stopping and starting, do not dvds in sl runs as a real dvd, they dont stop and start do they?....very confused by all these terms "Buffering" "compressed" what do they all mean!

My actual speed normally is 700kbs a sec on d/loads from my file sharer i use, sometimes i get 1026 for a brief time.... i use an ethernet cable not wireless. Also whats a "packet loss"?

It seems that media running is not really viable in second life and may have to give up on our little cinema, as i expected the same results on my tv screen in sl as i do on my computer at home, and that means high qaulity HD movies playing without a stopping and starting....is there no way of getting my movies into sl thro uploading them into my inventory from my h/d and just playing them thro the sl dvd player..?

grrr

mich

Media streams directly from the hosting webserver to your PC.. so it's unlikely to be an SL issue. Since your friend has no issues with the streaming then it must not be an issue with the hosting server. The reason SL is slowing down.. ie lag... is the movie is chewing up some of your bandwidth.

Perhaps your Internet Provider is having some bandwidth issues. You can go to http://www.Speedtest.net to test your connection to different parts of the US.


Michael... movies cannot be uploaded to SecondLife and played there. As I said, the movies do not stream from the SecondLife servers but directly from the hosting webserver to your PC.

You say you converted movies from DivX.. do you have those uploaded to a webserver and then trying to play them in SL? Did you convert them to Quicktime?

Buffering is what your computer does in order to show you the movie continuously. Your PC downloads portions of the file and then feeds it to you as it's playing. The Stopping and Starting occurs when you reach the end of that buffer.. ie you are not downloading it fast enough for it to stream continuously.

a DVD is a physical device attached directly to the TV/monitor. Nothing streaming across the internet could possibly compete. Even digital cable is compressed some compared to a physical DVD. Various streaming technologies can fake it to a level where the human eye is "happy" with the result, but if you do the math it's not even ballpark. Streaming technology is also based on the assumption that that's all you are doing. A video stream will want to take up your whole available internet connection. Now add in that SL also wants to take up all the available bandwidth. So by running video thru SL you are effectively cutting your connection in half between two very data intensive things. Video streaming in SL is a bit of a novelty at best, I really don't think it's viable for what you've envisioned.

This is also pertinent to Montana's original post. Your problem sounds very much bandwidth related to me. I also have to chip in on the question is your laptop wireless or wired? I would recommend a physical ethernet cable if it not already.

yes thanks for replies, sorry for crossed threads in my other questions, not trying to hi -jack original poster But its all relavent, and we can only hope sl imroves the media performance.

Vamp, your answer there i understand more fully now, its like me running a file sharer in the background and using Second life at the same time, i do a lot of multitasking, playing a vid, doing shopping in slex and d/l from a share filer...i have a lot of probs with some of these freezing, especially my ozum newsreader i use at the same time as second life!!

But when i first went into a sl television store, i just saw a dvd player, and obviuosly just thuoght it worked just liked a normal dvd player at home, not many media outlets who sell these things have much to offer in the way of "how it works" until u buy the product and find out its not what u thought it was. Finding any help in the daytime from them personally, is like finding a needle in a haystack...most of the vendors just let the store run with no staff on hand,, an annoying thing that other shoppers have said as we troll round, trying to find a none exsistant assistant!!

As far as uploading is concerned, well if u can upload a picture, why cant u upload a vid, like u would to u tube, and put in your inventory, and just drag the movie into a sl dvd to play, thats the future I would like to see, then there would no need for a sep website, and the sl dvd player could play all formats like divx and wmplayer. heres hoping lol

I dont see media streaming as a novelty, its an important part of SL now, and in general throughout the internet community. I belive sl is lagging behind in this field and should be embracing new tec to be able to use a cinema like it should be...It cost me a huge amount to make the cinama and buy all the flip up seats, the drapes and other stuff, plus they take up quite a few prims on an opensim..!

so a novelty no, not at all!

mich

I have been experiencing some problems with my router, i've been thinking for a while it's time to get a new one...something a little more powerful.

Thank you to all for your suggestions. It's been a great help.