# OnDemand super fast on HR44, slow on HR24



## matty8199 (Dec 4, 2005)

i moved a month or two ago and had the genie installed as part of the move...i have a genie, two minis, and a HR24 connected, and a few other receivers in spare rooms that aren't installed yet. the HR44 is wireless and is lightning fast when watching VOD...but, the HR24 seems to stutter and take forever to download anything. on the genie, i can hit play and watch an entire movie without it ever stopping to buffer...on the HR24, i can't even get through a half hour show without it freezing and hanging.

is there anything i can do to fix this? would connecting the genie via ethernet help?


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## dennisj00 (Sep 27, 2007)

The wireless through the Genie should be as fast on the 24. You could have a bad connection or cable.

On the genie frontpanel press right arrow / guide and post the numbers from the two pages of Coax Network.

Also be sure there's no other splitter or diplexers on the coax and all D* green label splitters are terminated - no open ports.


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## matty8199 (Dec 4, 2005)

dennisj00 said:


> The wireless through the Genie should be as fast on the 24. You could have a bad connection or cable.
> 
> On the genie frontpanel press right arrow / guide and post the numbers from the two pages of Coax Network.
> 
> Also be sure there's no other splitter or diplexers on the coax and all D* green label splitters are terminated - no open ports.


there are no other splitters or diplexers on the coax, it's a brand new house with all coax runs going to the closet where the d* splitter is. the splitter is exactly how the installer left it, i haven't changed anything in the closet...the only things i changed was to put my keystone jacks back on where the installer just had the cable w/ new barrel connectors running through the hole in the wall. no way in hell was i leaving it like that...

coax network info:
node 0 phy level -12
node 1 phy level -13
node 2 phy level n/a
node 3 phy level -14

node 3 is the HR24, based on the mac address.

phy rate mesh:

nds 0 1 2 3
0 241 275 285 249
1 275 240 285 245
2 275 285 240 244
3 244 241 249 241

also of note, MRV works just fine. no stuttering or anything like that when watching recordings from the genie on the HR24 or vice versa...the only problem seems to be with on demand.


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## dennisj00 (Sep 27, 2007)

Can you change locations or hook up the 24 directly to Ethernet (reboot it) to see if the problem changes?


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

You may have found what I did over a year ago.
The 44 wasn't being a "good server" to the other DVRs on the coax network.
I just went back to using a WCCK for the whole network.


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## matty8199 (Dec 4, 2005)

i do have an ethernet jack behind the 24 (two coax and two ethernet to every room in the house), so i'll try hooking it up via ethernet and see what happens. i'll report back here...


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

matty8199 said:


> i do have an ethernet jack behind the 24 (two coax and two ethernet to every room in the house), so i'll try hooking it up via ethernet and see what happens. i'll report back here...


The 24 will disable its DECA with an ethernet connection, so that may not be your best choice.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

If there's a CAT 5 behind the Genie as well, I'd connect that to disable the wireless. No matter how good the wireless performance is, wired will be no worse and likely better. With that set-up, I'd also connect the HR24 Cat 5 and just leave the Genie clients connected MoCa. Just me, tho.


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## matty8199 (Dec 4, 2005)

alright, interesting update...i went to the 24 this morning and tried to play an episode of silicon valley, which is what kept hanging on me yesterday (although i tried a different episode this morning). wanted to make sure it wasn't a momentary internet glitch yesterday...well, it hung up on the episode, about 3 minutes in. so, i hooked it up via ethernet and rebooted...tried to re-play the same episode. it froze at exactly the same point...i pressed play to see how much it had downloaded, and there was a good bit of the buffer left - so it doesn't seem to be an internet issue at this point.

also of note: when it hung at the same point, i had deleted and was re-downloading the episode...


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## matty8199 (Dec 4, 2005)

another note, not sure if it matters - the power inserter is behind the HR24.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

I've seem "glitches" too in OnDemand lately.
It's happened to more than one show off different channels.
Sometimes I've skipped past it and then skipped back to it and it played fine.
It hasn't been every OnDemand, but has been enough to "almost be normal".
I chalk this to something on the DirecTV end, like a Rake recording that was Guitar Session instead.


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## matty8199 (Dec 4, 2005)

in that case, perhaps there have just been momentary glitches going on at exactly the moment when i've been trying to watch on the HR24 that haven't been present on the HR44 - this afternoon, i tried to watch something on the genie and it told me there were network issues and the system test indicates regular wireless disconnects. however, that doesn't make any sense since the wifi signal is > 80% according to both the router and the computer i'm on right next to the genie.

regardless, i'm going to hook the genie up via ethernet and put the HR24 back on coax and see what happens for a while...i'll keep everyone updated here with any interesting developments. i need to get myself a switch first, so it might take a few days for one from amazon to get here.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

matty8199 said:


> i'm going to hook the genie up via ethernet and put the HR24 back on coax and see what happens for a while.


That "should be" bullet proof.


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## matty8199 (Dec 4, 2005)

mixed results so far...i watched an episode of silicon valley earlier that seemed to play just fine, fiancee is watching an episode of true blood right now that she said skipped a few times on her.

any other ideas? i have it set up now with the genie hard-wired to the router via ethernet and the HR24 on the coax network...


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

Is the recording on the Genie?
If so does the Genie have the same problems as the 24?
Or is it on the 24 and does the Genie also have the problem.
If both have it, this suggests it's on DirecTV's end.
If only one has it and the other doesn't, then it's on "your end".


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## matty8199 (Dec 4, 2005)

veryoldschool said:


> Is the recording on the Genie?
> If so does the Genie have the same problems as the 24?
> Or is it on the 24 and does the Genie also have the problem.
> If both have it, this suggests it's on DirecTV's end.
> If only one has it and the other doesn't, then it's on "your end".


i have yet to have any issues on the genie or any of the minis...it's all on the HR24 only. when i do ondemand on the genie or minis they play flawlessly...on the HR24, a lot of the time they skip and/or freeze and/or buffer.


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## matty8199 (Dec 4, 2005)

alright, fiancee has been watching true blood on the HR24 all afternoon and has said it has been skipping and buffering periodically all day. so, clearly connecting via ethernet hasn't worked...

what's next to try to fix this?


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

matty8199 said:


> i have yet to have any issues on the genie or any of the minis...it's all on the HR24 only. when i do ondemand on the genie or minis they play flawlessly...on the HR24, a lot of the time they skip and/or freeze and/or buffer.





matty8199 said:


> alright, fiancee has been watching true blood on the HR24 all afternoon and has said it has been skipping and buffering periodically all day. so, clearly connecting via ethernet hasn't worked...
> 
> what's next to try to fix this?


Just to understand what's what here:
The OnDemand is stored on the Genie, and plays fine there and on clients, but the 24 doesn't play well from the Genie?
This would suggest the 24 is the problem.
What happens if the OnDemand is stored on the 24 [or is this the way she was doing it all along]?


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## matty8199 (Dec 4, 2005)

veryoldschool said:


> Just to understand what's what here:
> The OnDemand is stored on the Genie, and plays fine there and on clients, but the 24 doesn't play well from the Genie?
> This would suggest the 24 is the problem.
> What happens if the OnDemand is stored on the 24 [or is this the way she was doing it all along]?


that's where the problem is. let me try to clarify...

if i'm sitting at the genie or any of the minis, and i play on demand, it runs without hiccup. i've even watched 2 hour movies like this...without even waiting for it to buffer. just scroll to it, and press play - i get the "preparing for playback" green bar, and then the program starts. plays all the way through with no hiccups.

if i'm sitting at the HR24 and do the same thing, i get occasional hiccups / freezes / buffering pauses, almost all the time. once in a while it will play without incident, but almost all the time it will do some form of breaking up...

whole home viewing of stuff stored either on the genie or HR24 have had no issues, regardless of where i'm playing them from. the problem seems to only be with on demand.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

AHHH this is all "Watch Now" OnDemand.

It does seem to be the 24, "but" a watch now gets recorded, so what might help is does the recording when played later have the same problems in the same places?


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## matty8199 (Dec 4, 2005)

veryoldschool said:


> AHHH this is all "Watch Now" OnDemand.
> 
> It does seem to be the 24, "but" a watch now gets recorded, so what might help is does the recording when played later have the same problems in the same places?


possibly...on more than one of the occasions where the 24 went haywire i skipped backwards to the point where the playback froze, and it did indeed freeze up at exactly the same spot again (and in this case, there was plenty of buffer available...i checked that too to make sure). i haven't tried yet checking to see if the playback would freeze at the same spot on the genie...


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## matty8199 (Dec 4, 2005)

alright, it actually seems as if it's getting worse. is there any way to fix this other than replace the HR24? at this point, "on demand" is pretty much useless on the HR24, it takes 5-10 minutes before i have enough of a program downloaded to watch without buffering/skipping...and that's for just a 30 minute show.


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## matty8199 (Dec 4, 2005)

is it possible the connector is what's causing this? when the installer came, he replaced my keystone jacks with barrel connectors but he left them just running through a hole in the wall...so when he left, i put the keystones back in. could the connectors be causing problems?

i don't think this is necessarily the issue, considering the minis work and i still had issues when i plugged the HR24 in via ethernet, but i'm curious...


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## matty8199 (Dec 4, 2005)

Bump


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## jimmie57 (Jun 26, 2010)

matty8199 said:


> is it possible the connector is what's causing this? when the installer came, he replaced my keystone jacks with barrel connectors but he left them just running through a hole in the wall...so when he left, i put the keystones back in. could the connectors be causing problems?
> 
> i don't think this is necessarily the issue, considering the minis work and i still had issues when i plugged the HR24 in via ethernet, but i'm curious...


The only way to answer this is for you to put the connections back like the tech wired it and see if that fixes the problem.


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## dennisj00 (Sep 27, 2007)

VOS could tell us more if you post the part number but it could easily insert too much loss.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

dennisj00 said:


> VOS could tell us more if you post the part number but it could easily insert too much loss.


If the Phy levels and mesh posted earlier are with the keystone jacks, then they're not causing a problem.
Perhaps swamping receivers/locations might show which is the problem.
"If one follows the logic" posted in the thread, it suggests it's the 24.


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## matty8199 (Dec 4, 2005)

veryoldschool said:


> If the Phy levels and mesh posted earlier are with the keystone jacks, then they're not causing a problem.
> Perhaps swamping receivers/locations might show which is the problem.
> "If one follows the logic" posted in the thread, it suggests it's the 24.


does this mean I need to call DirecTV and see about getting it replaced? I'm hesitant to do that because I replaced a crappy old slow HR23 with this and paid for it myself from solid signal to make sure I got a 24...

Are there any other troubleshooting measures you want me to try?

Sent from my XT1060 using Tapatalk


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

matty8199 said:


> does this mean I need to call DirecTV and see about getting it replaced? I'm hesitant to do that because I replaced a crappy old slow HR23 with this and paid for it myself from solid signal to make sure I got a 24...
> 
> Are there any other troubleshooting measures you want me to try?


Early in this thread, I mentioned my experience that was similar and "fixed mine" by using a CCK instead of the Genie for internet access.


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## matty8199 (Dec 4, 2005)

veryoldschool said:


> Early in this thread, I mentioned my experience that was similar and "fixed mine" by using a CCK instead of the Genie for internet access.


will they give me one for free with a genie already installed? I'd rather not throw money at it if I'm not 100% sure it will fix the problem...

Sent from my XT1060 using Tapatalk


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

matty8199 said:


> will they give me one for free with a genie already installed? I'd rather not throw money at it if I'm not 100% sure it will fix the problem...


:shrug:


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

matty8199 said:


> Are there any other troubleshooting measures you want me to try?


I'm not trying to be rude, and the honest answer to this question is no, because it implies I have some vested interest in this.

To answer this question:
"Are there any other troubleshooting measures _I can try?_"
Within the constrains you've expressed, _My last suggestion _would be to connect ethernet to the 24 and see what it does.
With the Genie also connected to your router, MRV will be through your home network, and you can compare your _Watch On _performance equally between your Genie & HR24.


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## dennisj00 (Sep 27, 2007)

Reboot the 24 when you connect Ethernet to it directly.


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## matty8199 (Dec 4, 2005)

dennisj00 said:


> Reboot the 24 when you connect Ethernet to it directly.


already tried that...no luck. i haven't yet tried hard-wiring them both, but i can't imagine the results would be different from when i had the genie on wifi and the HR24 hard-wired.


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## matty8199 (Dec 4, 2005)

veryoldschool said:


> I'm not trying to be rude, and the honest answer to this question is no, because it implies I have some vested interest in this.
> 
> To answer this question:
> "Are there any other troubleshooting measures _I can try?_"
> ...


is having them both hard-wired via ethernet that much different from when i had the genie on wifi and the HR24 on ethernet?


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

matty8199 said:


> is having them both hard-wired via ethernet that much different from when i had the genie on wifi and the HR24 on ethernet?


It shouldn't be but frankly there just isn't much more to try.
When I used my Genie as "the gateway" for my HR24, the Genie had no problems with OnDemand, but the HR24 did.
Taking the Genie out of the loop, and going back to my WCCK for internet to the DECA network resolved the problems with the HR24.
Running the 24 off ethernet "should be" the same thing.


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## matty8199 (Dec 4, 2005)

interesting thing i've just noticed...it has gotten better lately in that it's not just completely freezing up, but it still buffers like crazy. however, i did notice just now when trying to watch an episode of silicon valley on the HR24 - about 3 seconds in, it stopped to buffer. the buffering message popped up on the screen...BUT, the little red bar at the bottom was long enough that there was more room for it to keep playing. then, a split second later, the red bar dropped back to where the current time marker was...

this leads me to believe that it is the same problem VOS has been talking about, where the genie isn't being a good server to the rest of the network...would you agree?


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## matty8199 (Dec 4, 2005)

@VOS, let me make sure i understand this idea correctly before i go throwing money at it...

step 1) i pick up an old DECABB1MR0 from ebay, or a wireless CCK from amazon (although since i have ethernet everywhere in the house, there's really no reason to do this...right?
step 2) connect it to my wired network behind the genie (or in my closet at the router? if i connect it behind the genie how do i get the coax to the genie?)
step 3) disconnect ethernet from genie
step 4) reboot all receivers

after doing that, i should be running everything on the coax network from the deca adapter...right? if so, i might give that a shot...$15 or so (what i've seen the old deca adapters going for on ebay) is alright if it ends up not working (although that's why i'm considering the wireless CCK from amazon, since their return policy is awesome and i can always send it back if it doesn't work)...


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## dennisj00 (Sep 27, 2007)

Amazon even has the latest DECA with power supply for 8.25.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

matty8199 said:


> @VOS, let me make sure i understand this idea correctly before i go throwing money at it...
> 
> step 1) i pick up an old DECABB1MR0 from ebay, or a wireless CCK from amazon (although since i have ethernet everywhere in the house, there's really no reason to do this...right?
> step 2) connect it to my wired network behind the genie (or in my closet at the router? if i connect it behind the genie how do i get the coax to the genie?)
> ...


Ethernet to the Genie, and ethernet to the HR24, "should be" the same as removing the ethernet from the Genie and adding a DECA bridge to your router.
I didn't go the ethernet route as I had a WCCK, so I just went back to using it instead of the Genie WiFi for the bridging to my router.


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## matty8199 (Dec 4, 2005)

alright, i'll try that first...but assuming that doesn't work, do i have the rest of the equation right if i want to try the CCK just to make sure i've tried everything?


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

matty8199 said:


> alright, i'll try that first...but assuming that doesn't work, do i have the rest of the equation right if i want to try the CCK just to make sure i've tried everything?


yep


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## matty8199 (Dec 4, 2005)

Both connected via Ethernet, same problem...the 24 does fail a test complaining about being "connected via Ethernet but receivers found on the coax network" or something like that though. Do I need to resolve that before concluding my HR24 sucks? If so, how?

Also note: whole home is not working. I can't see recordings on the genie...

Note 2: this is just ridiculously slow. Its been downloading a 30 min show for around 10 mins and is only at 17% ( bar is still red ). My internet is faster than this...for some reason the 24 is just not using the bandwidth it has available to it right now.

note 3: ran upstairs and played the same exact episode on the genie...no skips at all. same amount of download time, and i'm at almost double the downloaded percentage as the HR24.


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## matty8199 (Dec 4, 2005)

...suddenly whole home works. The error on system test is still there though.

This is maddening.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

matty8199 said:


> ...suddenly whole home works. The error on system test is still there though.
> 
> This is maddening.


On the 24, reset the network defaults, and then reboot.
Give it some time and then check/test it.
If you're still having problems the only thing I can think to do next is try another HR24.


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## matty8199 (Dec 4, 2005)

veryoldschool said:


> On the 24, reset the network defaults, and then reboot.
> Give it some time and then check/test it.
> If you're still having problems the only thing I can think to do next is try another HR24.


I ordered a first gen wired CCK from amazon...we'll see if that works I guess. It was only $17 and I can return it if not...


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## matty8199 (Dec 4, 2005)

new information: just thought of this (don't know why i hadn't thought of it before) - my router w/ dd-wrt has bandwidth monitoring...so i decided to load that up and do an experiment. went to the genie and went into hbo on demand, silicon valley episode 1...didn't even use "watch now," just went into the thing and told it to record. checked the bandwidth monitor...hovered around a 20Mbps average, with occasional spikes to 30 and occasional drops to around 15. i didn't see it go lower than 15.

same thing on the HR24 - same episode of silicon valley, same way of going into it and telling it to download. watching bandwidth monitor...hovering right around a 7.5Mbps average, occasional spikes to 10-12, occasional drops to 3-4. has never gone above 12.

so, the download rate on the HR24 isn't even getting to what my drop-out rate was on the genie, and the average speed is less than half of what it was on the genie. this is why i can't get anything to play now without constant freeze-ups and buffering...the question now is why the hell is it doing this? shouldn't they be equal? is there something different about the HR24 that would cause this?

my wired CCK should be here tomorrow...if that doesn't fix it, i guess i have no choice but to have directv send a tech out. i have the protection plan at the moment so it won't cost me anything, but it's annoying...


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

This is very interesting because this is the first time anyone has seen OnDemand above about 9 Mb/s.
If you search the forum, you'll find "countless threads" about how OnDemand doesn't use the bandwidth the user has available.

It would be worth looking into this more as "now it looks like" there isn't anything wrong with your HR24 and it's the Genie that is able to do what the HR2x can't.

I've changed the topic to reflect this change.


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## matty8199 (Dec 4, 2005)

alright, more interesting observations...

1) connected the CCK to my network, have both the genie and HR24 running on that now. no noticeable improvements. genie is still downloading at the same speed, as is the 24.

2) this is the confusing one...all along, i've been testing with episodes of silicon valley - since that's where i noticed the issue. for S&G, i decided to try a different hbo series (john oliver's show) to see if i had the same problem...and i don't - play now works with no buffers. here's the kicker...silicon valley is downloading FASTER (based on the rate shown on my router) than john oliver's show, yet it skips and oliver doesn't.

this makes no sense to me. why would that happen?


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

You're wandering way off the range by now, and as such I'm not sure what's going on.

With the CCK, you have both the Genie & HR24 being fed through a common point.
If they're acting the same, then this suggests "some normality".
A wildcard may be the OnDemand recording itself, so comparing others should help to weed out a bad OnDemand file on DirecTV's end.


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## matty8199 (Dec 4, 2005)

veryoldschool said:


> You're wandering way off the range by now, and as such I'm not sure what's going on.
> 
> With the CCK, you have both the Genie & HR24 being fed through a common point.
> If they're acting the same, then this suggests "some normality".
> A wildcard may be the OnDemand recording itself, so comparing others should help to weed out a bad OnDemand file on DirecTV's end.


i have an old HR20 that i haven't deactivated yet, maybe i'll hook that up tomorrow and give that a shot to see if it acts the same as the 24...


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## damondlt (Feb 27, 2006)

I've noticed HBO and Cinemax on demand takes longer by far than most other on demand channels.
I have 30 mbps service and a sopranos episode takes longer to download than the show is long.


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