topic Re: Android TV 1 (very) poor Network performance in Android TV

Android TV 1 (very) poor Network performance

nicogri — Thu, 22 Dec 2016 19:24:50 GMT

Hi guys,

just a new thread to tell you guys how I am disappointed (sort of) with my new Android TV from Sony KD65XD9305.

I just bought this TV with a pretty great discount (2000€) and picture quality is very good.

For Android TV, I find it stable and fine. The main reason I chose Sony was for Android TV (I didn't wanted WebOS or Tizen).

So as I use the TV ONLY with network stored media, I plugged the Ethernet cable to get something reliable and fast...

HORROR !!! Ethernet port is not Gigabit... Sony are you kidding me ??? How do you plan to stream 4K HDR content to the TV with 100 Mb link ???

Let's do some math : Movie 2h00 / 63 GB = 64512MB to send to TV in 2 Hr so / 7200 = 9 Mb /s we are pretty close of the max we can output on 100mb network so as the bitrate is variable and some actions scene require much more of it you get bad picture lag and audio drop in half of the movie.

To confirm that it was not decoding problem, I putted the file on an external HDD plugged directly into the TV and had no problem at all.

So I wrote you a mail Sony, to explain that to you... 1 week later I got a person with no knowledge whatever who told me that I needed to run a speedtest because it was my internet (WAN) connection that was slow.

Just LOL ^^

I told myself that I was doomed.

So I search again and discovered that the Onboard wifi was 5 Ghz AC compatible. Maybe a way out.

So I droped my Cisco Meraki 300N Wifi and I got a TPLink Archer C7 C1750 (so it meens 900 Mb theorical on AC 5 Ghz)

It could have solved my bandwith problem on local network !!!

And guess what... it didn't because I think wifi chip or driver or ??? is total crap...

The TV is at less than 1 meter of the access point (no wall...), connected at 5 Ghz and I can't get download bandwith to a minimum of 100 Mb (a joke).

If I do the same test from the same spot with the same app at the same time on the same wifi of the same network with my phone (Google Nexus 6P) I get approx 230 mb of bandwith.

Screen cap are just at the bottom

What do you want to answer to that ???

So your Smart TV of 2016 is just to slow to play a 4k movie of 2016 (I tried Mad Max and Deadpool) on local network (no matter how good network connection is, I have full gigabit network at home).

So now my very precise question : Do you plan to adress this problem Seriously upgrading Wifi driver / firmware to get real fast connexion (as I am sure you cannot upgrade wired card to gigabit with software upgrade) ?

I am available if you need more statistics and / or informations with the test environment.

Re: Android TV 1 (very) poor Network performance

Anonymous — Thu, 22 Dec 2016 22:49:14 GMT

Hi there

Sony do not generally post on this forum, hence the reason why its called a "Community Forum". Having said that, the users who have the ranking of "Expert" do have direct contact with Sony. If you have a Case ID number, I will re-escalate this back to Sony.

Your TV is still on the Lollipop version of Android (version 5.1). I am hoping that the new Android version - Marshmallow (Android 6.0) may improve things (ETA unknown) in regards to poor wifi signal and performance.

Cheers

Re: Android TV 1 (very) poor Network performance

Kuschelmonschter — Fri, 23 Dec 2016 05:40:30 GMT

Yes, 802.11ac WiFi performance unfortunately is also pretty poor. Here is my review on the matter.

Re: Android TV 1 (very) poor Network performance

Centurionman — Fri, 23 Dec 2016 09:08:54 GMT

I have the same problem with my KD55XD7005. I bought a 4k Android TV mainly so that I could play 4k content over my network. I am hugely disappointed about this - in this regard it is basically not fit for purpose.

Btw, my TV is running 6.0.1, so Android 6 is clearly not the answer.

Re: Android TV 1 (very) poor Network performance

nicogri — Fri, 23 Dec 2016 10:19:00 GMT

Man I just read your doc and if I had found it before buying the TV maybe I had bought a Samsung ^^

So Wifi "cheap" (ok chip) is connected on USB2... it's not sexy but it shouldn't be a problem.

In real life USB2 can substain 30Mb stable datarate (when you transfer data from / to external HDD for examble).

So with 18 Mb bitrate movie we have some 10 Mb margin.

For network purpose it leeds us to 30*8 = 240 Mb bandwith so it should be good (as the screen cap of my phone)

Problem is that we are very very far from AC rate or USB2 rate on this chip.

As we can see on the picture of my TV, the bandwith is better when we perform an upload test. It is strange because a TV is by essence a device design to receive media and display it not the other way.

So as it has been stated that Marshmallow (6) is not a solution to this problem, how can we do to have Sony looking into it ?

I don't ask much, I just want wifi to operate normally with normal data rates.

PS : My case to sony support was 15153108

PS2 : I also tried to plug a USB3 Gigabit Ethernet adapter (TPLink) on the side USB3 port of the TV but it was not Android compatible so I get nothing (I have it at disposal so worth the try) I saw some Adapters on Amazon that states to be Android compatible but don't want to invest more money to waist... (can be Android compatible but not Android TV...)

Re: Android TV 1 (very) poor Network performance

rooobb — Fri, 23 Dec 2016 11:13:34 GMT

Maybe I do not undestand the problem in the right way..... Probably technology will enhance in the future but streaming more than 100 mbps to a TV is too much in anycase considering that most of the services are via internet. Actualy Netflix use 15mbps to stream 4k/HDR contents, I've read that UMAX in Korea can stream 4k 60fps at 32mbps so the real future is the compression alghoritm not to use a very huge bandwith.

So coming back to the problem, what kind of encoding/compression have the files you cannot stream on your TV via cable? Or if you don't want to use any compression in order to have the best possible quality, probably streaming is not the road (UHD BD player?)... just my personal impression

http://blog.streamingmedia.com/2015/01/4k-streaming-bandwidth-problem.html

Re: Android TV 1 (very) poor Network performance

nicogri — Fri, 23 Dec 2016 11:42:43 GMT

I don't have a correct answer to that because... it depends !!!

For my personnal case, I cannot stream anything at all from internet (live TV, netflix, youtube) even on full HD and slowly on 720p.

My house is in France in "the countryland" so my DSL relay is at 4.8 kms and I get an incredible 2Mb downstream (that make 300 kb/s)

So now for the local network bandwith matter (Gigabit power).

We have to make a difference beetween Bits and bytes (in Frenches it's Mo or Mb).

A movie like the Korean one with 32 Mo /s can require 32*8 = 256 Mb network to stream...

For the bitrate itself it's a thing that cannot be overlooked.

Anything can be 4k if it match the 4k resolution but it won't make the most of the picture.

The quality will come more from the bitrate the file was encoded than the resolution.

For the files I tried they were heavely encoded with new h265 codec but 10bits HDR have a price in Giga 😉

So Yes I ask a lot to this TV but it's a high end Sony prodcut so I hoped it can provide (and it can decode it on USB harddrive so why not on LAN)

Here are the details of the 2 movies I tried :

Qualité : Bluray 4K
Format : MKV
HDR: Yes
Codec vidéo : HEVC à 60.5 Mbps
Langue Version :
English (VO) Atmos / TrueHD @ 5694 Kbps
English (VO) AC-3 @ 640 Kbps
French (VFF) DTS-HDMA @ 4668 kbps

Qualité :BluRay 4K/UHD
HDR : Yes
Information sur la 4K/UHD :Digital Intermediate (4K) (master format)
Format :MKV (HEVC - x265 - 2160p/4K/UHD - 10bits) - (60,9Mb/s)
Langues :
ANGLAIS DTS-HD Master 7.1 (4 893 Kb/s) - ANGLAIS AC3 5.1 (640 Kb/s) - FRANÇAIS VFF DTS 5.1 (768 Kb/s) - FRANÇAIS VFF AC3 5.1 (384 Kb/s)
Sous-titres :Anglais (SRT) - Anglais Forcés (SRT) - Français (SRT) - Français Forcés (SRT)
Taille :51Go

Re: Android TV 1 (very) poor Network performance

rooobb — Fri, 23 Dec 2016 12:03:05 GMT

I do not have the right answer too, the problem is quite complex

In any case I'm always speking about Mega bit per seconds (and the Korea example is 32 Mbps not 256).

If I understand correctly your file infos it should be 60 mbps video plus 10mbps of audio tracks, so not heavily encoded but still beyond the physical limit of the network card of 100 mbps.

the bottleneck could be (just could...) anyware in your network setup (router, cables, interference, the TV itself). I'm always referring to wired LAN, because wifi (even on 5ghz) is highly not reliable for such kind of streaming and the bandwidth declared is just theorical.

I did not try to stream any 4K content to my TV via LAN, but i had some problem even streaming FHD 60fps with 32mbps bitrate coming from my own camera recording. I've solved, whenever occurred, via the following resolution:

streaming via wired network(not having the possibility to pass the LAN cable, I'm using a TPLINK 500mbps powerlink)
sometimes the powerlink needs to be reset, in order for the video not to stutter
use only the Video stock app, other player cannot reach the same performance (Kodi, Archos, VLC)
sometimes the TV itself needs to be rebooted (via pressing the remote poweroff button for 5 seconds)

Re: Android TV 1 (very) poor Network performance

nicogri — Fri, 23 Dec 2016 13:30:34 GMT

I doesn' like Wifi either (as for CPL)

As an IT professional I only rely on wired connexion and I would have for the TV if it has been Gigabit (I still can if Sony points me to a working USB3 adapter).

As for my home network, I confirm that it has no bottleneck (confirmed by the speedtest on my phone on Wifi @ 240 bps)

Files are stored on my computer on a 2Tb sata drive, Ethernet chip is Intel Gigabit plugged into a 8 ports Gigabit Netgear Switch, This Switch is plugged to the "core" switch of my house a 16 ports Netgear Gigabit itself plugged into a last 5 ports Gigabit Netgear Switch in the drawer under my TV where I have my New Archer C7 (gigabit LAN AC1750).

All switches are managable and managed and are all operating at Gigabit Speed when available (so on all uplinks at least). I dont use my router as switch to separate roles and prevent performance issues.

For Kodi or VLC, I think at first that they could have been guilty that's why I took the pain of installing a dedicated app to test performance and compare to my phone.

This give real numeric statistics and 50 mb download on a AC Wifi is not good.

Here is the app I used. There is a server component that runs on my computer in a command shell (no installer it's standalone) and "publish" a generic tcp server on the network.

The client android side connect to this server to simulate upload and downlods of files with various options.

As this app is not compatible with android TV, I installed it manually with ES Explorer after allowing anonymous sources.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pzolee.android.localwifispeedtester&hl=fr

That's also why I really want Sony to look into it. I don't find logical that we (the customers) need to do there work of diagnostics. This TV shouldn't have leave engineering office lacking descent network performance. What would have be the price tag to upgrade from 100 to 1000 wired card ? 5$ per unit ?

Re: Android TV 1 (very) poor Network performance

Anonymous — Fri, 23 Dec 2016 13:37:39 GMT

HI guys

I know that you have spent quite a bit of money on the TV and additional equipment - but I also consume most of my content via HDDs on my network. However a long time ago, I gave up streaming high bitrate files over my network (also gigabit), but I invested in a dedicated Media player that attaches to my TV via HDMI. I can stream files to it if needed (also gigabit) even via a NAS drive but for me I chose HDDs attached to it (due to the cost factor which was spread out over time).

I chose a company called Mede8er and the media player model is MED1000X3D - yes it a few years older now and does not do 4K (which I understand a new product will be released next year!) - however there are other various media players out there.

http://www.iboum.com/net-media-players.php

Potential solution?

Cheers

Re: Android TV 1 (very) poor Network performance

rooobb — Fri, 23 Dec 2016 14:01:10 GMT

So @nicogri you have a pretty business-like network configuration at home

I would not rely to much on app that measures the speed of the network (my other own TV has an app on Opera Store that states I have a 13Mb download bandwidth on my 30Mbps Fiber connection, and I can assure you that Netflix in 4K HDR is playing smoothly over it...)

If I understant right you are still rely on WIFI for the TV being that it is not able to have a gigabit connection, what about the NAS? How it shares the file to your TV?

I would suggest (if you want to) to try the following:

assuming your NAS doesn't have any DLNA server, share it via a powerful PC using a DLNA server (I use serviio www.serviio.org) or activate the embedded DLNA if it is available
connect the tv via a good CAT5/6 cable (if not already available or just a flying one for testing purpose)
play your video via the Video app (after a good old reboot of the TV)

I know DLNA is adding up resource consuming step to the setup, but Video is able to play only via this protocol

PS: just re-read your post and understood you don't have a NAS but just an HDD connected to your PC, so it should be easier adding up serviio

PPS: being a professional I'm quite sure you are not sharing your files via DLNA already using WMP....

Re: Android TV 1 (very) poor Network performance

Kuschelmonschter — Fri, 23 Dec 2016 13:50:07 GMT

I am with @nicogri. A self-proclaimed premium HDR TV set should at least support the streaming of up to HEVC level 5.2. But it should also support VP9-profile 2, which it does not either...

Re: Android TV 1 (very) poor Network performance

Kuschelmonschter — Fri, 23 Dec 2016 13:52:00 GMT

Concering the Video app... I got higher rates via DLNA when using Kodi.

Re: Android TV 1 (very) poor Network performance

nicogri — Fri, 23 Dec 2016 14:19:49 GMT

@rooobbThank you for the compliment.

Fact is I also have a NAS (a QNAP TS something also Gigabit) but I don't like NAS at all. Professionnaly I like SAN (Fiber and iSCSI) or vSAN (with 10 Gigabits switchs of course) !

So my files are stored on my computer (Windows 10) and for Kodi / VLC, I use a SMB share because I find it more practical.

As Windows 10 is also UPNP / DLNA natively capable, I already activated it and tested but results where not different that using SMB.

For your remark on speedtests, like you I don't rely on them to test a broadband connection as many point can change the result : concurrent charge on the remote test server, unknow quality of the remote test server, time of the day, concurent load on the pearing points of your ISP...

With the little program and on my own controlled network, the metrics I get must be pretty accurate 😉

Re: Android TV 1 (very) poor Network performance

rooobb — Fri, 23 Dec 2016 14:38:28 GMT

@nicogri as a matter of fact it's very interesting this discussion with you... hope that we may find a solution

Regarding SMB it's for sure less impacting than DLNA and I know that Windows has it embedded (I was referring to it as WMP Windows Media Player that is the layer that implements it on MS platform, but it is crap... serviio is free and it is one of the best DLNA server... you may want to give it a try (BTW it is far richer being able i.e. to add metadata and poster about the movie being shared) combined with Video on the TV side: this is what I use (serviio being installed on a iMac... don't like to much MS stuff too).

And a good reboot on the TV.. I don't want to ask a complete Factory Reset

PS: BTW serviio is available also for QNAP NAS

Re: Android TV 1 (very) poor Network performance

Kuschelmonschter — Fri, 23 Dec 2016 14:46:14 GMT

I also distribute HD DVB (<20mbps) over 802.11ac WiFi. Every now and then bandwidth becomes unsustainable. Reboots every now and then are indeed inevitable. Quality of those TVs is really poor...

Re: Android TV 1 (very) poor Network performance

nicogri — Fri, 23 Dec 2016 14:50:09 GMT

Will try to put the 2 movies impacted so far (other are not HDR) on the NAS.

It is also natively UPNP capable so will give it a try with native app.

I reboot the TV on regular basis (maybe every 2/3 days)

PS : so you are a Mac person... nobody is perfect 😉

PS : I have a 2008 Mac Pro at work (With dual Xeon and 14 Gb of RAM) but I prefer Windows

Re: Android TV 1 (very) poor Network performance

rooobb — Fri, 23 Dec 2016 15:23:50 GMT

Oh I did not invested too much many on it, but I have a rather fancy iMac mid 2014 with an external Thunderbolt SSD drive (that costed almost as much as the iMac itself ) and it is sooo fast now even if it has only an i5 processor and 8GB RAM and MacOs is fantastic...

Let me konw if in this way it works better... do not forget to test it wired

Re: Android TV 1 (very) poor Network performance

rooobb — Fri, 23 Dec 2016 15:25:55 GMT

... and I don't know how we can arrange it (being 65GB of file) but if I have it I may try it in my setup as well... than we will discover that is only only a Bill Gates fault!!

Re: Android TV 1 (very) poor Network performance

nicogri — Sat, 24 Dec 2016 10:52:30 GMT

OK Guys,

I'm sure you miss me yesterday evening ^^

So I have done some more (and more) testing

As I listen to everything you guys said I tested all scenario ( @rooobb is gonna be happy)

So first I rebooted TV and access point and fire up my computer (it sleep at day to lower my electricity bill and save the planet)

So after this reboot I performed a first wifi datarate generic Speed Test (using dedicated app)

Same result than the other day (approx 40 down and 120 up list of tests on the right of the TV)

Then I plugged the network cable (which is already on the TV and in my wall) and perform a wired test using same app, results are "good" (90 mb+ on both download and upload)

OK so Ethenet keeps it "promess" (as wifi clearly don't) and we really have 100Mb (what a shame)

So I copied my 2 test movies to my NAS, this confirm the good helth of the network : 110Gb copied in 30 mins (750Mbps stable) yeeeeaaahhhh

And then to complete the tests and be thorought I installed Serviio both on my computer and NAS and used the Movie Stock player app :

It's better but still not good, they are some slowdown and it's painfull (wherever movie is fast or lot of moving objects like waterfall in mad max)

I took some metrics on my computer while playing the movie and we regulary stack 100 Mb (reason of the slowdown)

So what now :

There are 3 "realistic" options (because Sony cannot magically transform USB2 to USB3 or 100 to Gigabit by magic) :

1) User side : I will try to do some tuning on servio to increase buffer / cache size and see if I can smooth network load but it is not a real solution just a patch

2) User side : Try to find a compatible USB2 or 3 Gigabit external adapter like this one :

https://www.amazon.com/Plugable-Gigabit-Ethernet-Network-Chromebook/dp/B003VSTDFG

They states on there site that only USB2 versions are android compatible with "some" devices

http://plugable.com/2015/04/21/selecting-the-right-usb-ethernet-adapter-for-your-computer-and-network/

So it is something to test and it will give us even on USB2 approx 300Mb that is more than enought

3) Sony Side : Serously Sony do someting for the Wifi controller to reach 200Mb on download (it's a 866 theorical !!!!)

I think I have tested everything now so it would be great if some of you Expert guys can escalate this to sony and if they can take a look at Wifi driver / firmware...