I decided that a good test of the Airtames abilities would be some sports streaming from my PC (wired ethernet to router) via 2.4GHz WiFi to the Airtame sitting in the back of the TV. Tried using the default settings but had a number of problems:
- Echo/stuttering audio
- Disconnects
- Audio growing further and further out of sync (falling behind) the video
The source material is Sky Sports rugby coverage of the Top14 Clermont vs. Toulon match so streaming to PC via SkyPlayer which is making use of a Silverlight DRM system. Downlink is 120Mbps so no bandwidth issues there, and light web traffic on the WiFi network.
After making a number of adjustments to the router configuration there was a small improvement, but still not very watchable. Next approach was to try and go for deep buffers so I configured (Manual mode) the buffers up to 10 seconds, and the max buffers to 15 seconds. This improved stability, but over time (10mins) the audio fell out of sync again – even worse then before, so obviously deeper buffering isn’t always a good thing.
Best settings so far
Continued experimentation has the following as the best settings so far (firmware v1.0.0-b1):
- Reliability: Reliable
- Quality: Medium
- FPS: 24
- Buffer: 3 seconds
- Max Buffer: 5 seconds
- Audio: on
On a 40″ (1080p mode) screen (Samsung) you can see that there is some compression going on, but then the Sky Player (DRMed using Silverlight based system) isn’t pumping out fantastic quality either, but no audio issues (stuttering gone), stable video and audio, and all seems to be keeping in good sync. So far running for ~60mins without any issue.
Next steps will be trying to monitor it more (network conditions, latency, device load, etc.) and upping the quality levels to see where we hit a wall again…
