Choppy wireless streaming to TV

smitty10

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May 2, 2011
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Hi everyone,

I've been trying to stream TV shows onto my TV in my living room from a laptop connected to the TV via HDMI. The TV shows are actually located on my desktop which is a couple rooms away and I've been using the laptop to access my desktop via the wireless connection.

The problem I'm having is the video is choppy at random intervals and after roughly 30-90 minutes, the connection is lost and my laptop or desktop cannot seem to find each other. When I try to view files on the computer, I get error code: 0x80070035 the network path was not found. I've ran all the windows diagnostics/troubleshooting tools and they didn't fix anything.

When I tried transferring files from my desktop to the laptop, the speed was anywhere between 700 KB/s and 1 MB/s. Seemed pretty slow to me but I've never transferred files wirelessly before and I'm not sure how much of a difference that makes.

Rogers gave me a CD for the modem which I'm assuming had some sort of "easy setup" on it. The disc didn't work in my drive and appeared to be scratched so I'm assuming that's why. The technician said that if it didn't work, just go to the modem CP and make any changes to it there. Everything works fine except for this issue so I assumed I didn't need what was on the disc. Bad assumption?

I've tried setting up a home network but that didn't solve any problems. The connection still timed out after the same amount of time. I've tried various solutions offered after googling the error code but nothing so far has worked.

The internet connection on both computers seems to be fine - I'm downloading on both at over 20Mbps and uploading at 1Mbps according to speedtest.net.

Currently the modem is set on Wireless G/N mixed on channel 1. I've also tried channel 11 and auto and that didn't change anything. I'm using WPA-PSK TKIP.

If there are any other specs that might be helpful, please let me know.

Thanks very much for your help!

 

steimy

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Aug 25, 2011
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Are you using any type of program to stream from the main PC to the laptop? If so which one.
Media extenders are really the best choice, but those things can be really expensive. Second best would be a current version of a game console (PS3, Xbox 360, Wii) and using TVersity on your main TV to stream media. I use my Xbox 360 and PS3 to stream stuff all the time and it was flawless (even when my DL speeds were only 15MB). And those were with HDTV AVI files.

You seem to have plenty of download speed that should not be giving you trouble with streaming. When you speed test the laptop while it is connected to the internet wireless, are the speeds even close to what you get when you speed test your desktop. They should be somewhere in the same range if your wireless card is any good.
My laptop has a horrible wireless card, my solution was that i had a Linksys wireless gaming adapter i use to use with my Xbox 360. So i plugged that up to my laptop and had speed tests that were just slightly slower than the desktop, but not by much. And that is from about 60 feet away from the router.
 

smitty10

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May 2, 2011
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Thanks for your help! Streaming through PS3 works perfectly, I feel pretty stupid I didn't think of that, but it's my roommate's and I haven't used it much before.

What is the point of using TVersity if I can already stream files without it?
 

steimy

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Aug 25, 2011
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If it is picking up the PC then i suppose you don't. I have just used it for years so that is what i was used to. Some people use Windows Media Player as well.

Since i have my drives shared on my network it also sees my computer as well. But i still use TVersity for some reason. But i didn't know if your drives were set to share. And if not then some program like TVersity or WPM is needed i think.