IPTV Box Connected to N66U Router

[routernewb1974]

Hi Forum.

I am new to Asus and do not consider myself to be a router enthusiast by any means but purchased the N66U router due to all the glowing ratings on NewEgg and Amazon. I live in a large house with three floors and wanted a router with great wireless range and this router doesn't disappoint! The thing is, this router has a lot of bells/whistles and settings that enthusiasts can tweak but unfortunately, aside from following the wizard and knowing a few basic things, I just don't know what the heck I'm doing.

I have a, for lack of a better word, IPTV box that allows me to watch video content from overseas; this content streams over the Internet and I have that box connected directly to the Asus router via ethernet cable. Previous routers I've owned did a great job automatically setting the QoS for me to optimize video streaming. I turned on the QoS setting for the Asus Router and entered my upload and download speeds and hit save and rebooted the router but didn't really notice an improvement with regards to quality of video streaming compared to my previous routers. Is there anything else I can do to improve the video streaming? This wasn't so much of an issue with previous routers but then again, those routers didn't have as good a range so I would like to keep this router if possible.

I did try to do a thread search using the terms QoS and IPTV seperately but didn't really get the answer I was looking for. Thanks in advance for reading this novel and any tips you may pass along.

 

[thiggins]

What sort of streaming are you doing and where are you having the problems?
Close to the router? Far away? Everywhere?

What other activity is occuring when you are trying to stream?

How many other wireless networks are in range?

 

[RMerlin]

Note that QoS isn't a magic bullet that makes "everything just better". Its only use is to ensure that in a situation where you have concurrent downloads, priority will be given to the traffic types you chose. So if you are having performance issues with IPTV while nothing is being downloaded at the same time, QoS will do nothing for IPTV.

 

[routernewb1974]

What sort of streaming are you doing and where are you having the problems?
Close to the router? Far away? Everywhere?

What other activity is occurring when you are trying to stream?

How many other wireless networks are in range?

I am streaming foreign television through the Internet to my home in the United States using an internet television box; a service I pay for takes the channels from European satellites and re-transmits that content and makes that content available to its subscribers in real-time - so it is as if I am in Europe watching their satellites but doing so through my Internet connection on my television here in the USA.

The router is physically connected to iptv box via ethernet cable and is about 6 feet away; we are not streaming wirelessly.

I am having the problems locally on the iptv box when watching live streaming content - getting things like pixelation, slow frame rates, frame skip, and possibly buffer bloat - if a signal stops getting sent to the iptv box it automatically displays a black screen with no picture or sound in which case a simple reboot of the device clears the issue temporarily. The box has its moments when both picture and sound are acceptable but then degrade.

In other routers I've had in the past, I could instruct the router to give the lan port the iptv device is physically connected the highest demand. Under the traffic manager in user-defined qos rules there is a service called pptv - should I select that option and change the priority to highest?

There are five people in this household and they watch videos on youtube or facebook but that's about it - we are not gamers, bit torrent users nor do we stream movies through hulu or netflix, etc.

According to the Asus Router Menu we have 14 clients - macs, pcs, iphones, ipds, ipads, androids, and printers - physical internet connections and wireless internet connections all of which seem to work fine - we are not having any wifi issues or issues using the Internet on our other devices - it's just the streaming on the physically connected iptv box that is an issue for us.

We are using Time Warner Cable Turbo Internet which is supposed to give us 20m down and 1up. We have noticed in our neighborhood slower Internet when everyone is home from work, evenings, and weekends. Sometimes I can see 2 or 3 other SSIDs but we are on a different channel from them.

 

[thiggins]

Thanks for the details and sorry for missing the fact that this is a wired connection issue.

As Merlin noted, if you are running out of bandwidth, QoS isn't going to save you.

Do you know what the bitrate of the IPTV stream is?

Are you having problems when only one user is watching or multiple?
Are you having problems during the busy "slower Internet" times?

 

[routernewb1974]

Thanks for the details and sorry for missing the fact that this is a wired connection issue.

As Merlin noted, if you are running out of bandwidth, QoS isn't going to save you.

Do you know what the bitrate of the IPTV stream is?

Are you having problems when only one user is watching or multiple?
Are you having problems during the busy "slower Internet" times?

I don't think bandwidth is an issue in this case. I was not having any iptv issues using a Belkin AC 1200 Dual-Band 802.11ac wireless Router with 4-Port Gigabit Ethernet Switch. The reason why I switched to the Asus was because of the better wifi range in our three story home.

Only one user can watch the iptv as it is a physical box located in the family room - it's not like att uverse where you have multiple boxes throughout the house - this is a one box one viewer at a time situation. Also, we do not have it set up so others can watch on their computers - this is strictly one box physically connected to the tv via hdmi cable and physically connected to the router via ethernet cable.

I was hoping there was a setting I could tweak to improve the the throughput to the iptv device to improve streaming and picture quality but there doesn't seem to be a setting within the router to accomplish this? It seems like the lower level routers dummy proof their settings by enhancing them for hi def video streaming out of the box or is that just marketing hype?

At any rate, thanks for indulging me

 

[thiggins]

If you have enough bandwidth, then you should not need to tweak any settings.

Although you are only watching one IPTV stream, if others in the house are using a lot of bandwidth (downloading torrents for example), your TOTAL usage could be exceeding the available bandwidth.

If that is the case, then, yes, QoS could help by either reducing bandwidth to other users or prioritizing the IPTV stream. I think ASUS has improved/changed the
QoS settings since I reviewed the product. So someone else will need to jump in here to help you. I think what you want is under the Traffic Manager tab.

 

[routernewb1974]

If you have enough bandwidth, then you should not need to tweak any settings.

Although you are only watching one IPTV stream, if others in the house are using a lot of bandwidth (downloading torrents for example), your TOTAL usage could be exceeding the available bandwidth.

If that is the case, then, yes, QoS could help by either reducing bandwidth to other users or prioritizing the IPTV stream. I think ASUS has improved/changed the
QoS settings since I reviewed the product. So someone else will need to jump in here to help you. I think what you want is under the Traffic Manager tab.

Thank you.

 

[RMerlin]

Did you try with QoS disabled, just to make sure it's not an issue created by QoS? For instance it's possible to accidentally enter your bandwith as megabytes instead of megabits, which would cut your allowed bandwidth by a factor of 10.

@Tim: The only real change Asus has made to QoS these past months was to split the QoS rules into two separate pages (and to fix some bugs mostly related to the RT-AC66U). The actual QoS engine itself remains the same, with it's strength and flaws.

Personally I ended up disabling QoS on my own router. I'm the only Internet user at home, so if I need to use my VoIP, the only thing that might be interfering is my occasional torrent, which I can simply stop. The price associated to QoS is just not worth it in many cases (such as mine).

 

[routernewb1974]

Did you try with QoS disabled, just to make sure it's not an issue created by QoS? For instance it's possible to accidentally enter your bandwith as megabytes instead of megabits, which would cut your allowed bandwidth by a factor of 10.

@Tim: The only real change Asus has made to QoS these past months was to split the QoS rules into two separate pages (and to fix some bugs mostly related to the RT-AC66U). The actual QoS engine itself remains the same, with it's strength and flaws.

Personally I ended up disabling QoS on my own router. I'm the only Internet user at home, so if I need to use my VoIP, the only thing that might be interfering is my occasional torrent, which I can simply stop. The price associated to QoS is just not worth it in many cases (such as mine).

Hi Merlin. Thanks for your response. By default, the router came with QoS off; I actually turned it on hoping it would help but I think you're right...leaving QoS produces a slightly better picture but still having the aforementioned issues. I reconnected an old router and no longer have this issue as bad as with the Asus; I will just live with the poor wireless range until I can find a router that will work for my iptv video streaming needs. I would love to keep the Dark Knight for it's excellent wifi range but in my case I just can't get the streaming to perform to my liking. Thanks everyone for your input; it is greatly appreciated! The N66U is a nice router but not designed for people like me.

 

[RMerlin]

One thing I would try if you haven't tried it already is to leave your modem turned off for 5-10 minutes just to ensure that your ISP properly detects that it's currently disconnected. Then turn it back on (plugged to the RT-N66U). See if that helps.

Another thing to look for: the RT-N66U is a gigabit router/switch. Make sure that any network cable you use (both between modem/router and from router to devices) are marked as either Cat5e or Cat6 along the length. Older Cat5 cables are not gigabit-capable, and will result in various stability/performance issues. I've seen a couple of users who fixed their performance issues by replacing old Cat5 cables.

 

[routernewb1974]

One thing I would try if you haven't tried it already is to leave your modem turned off for 5-10 minutes just to ensure that your ISP properly detects that it's currently disconnected. Then turn it back on (plugged to the RT-N66U). See if that helps.

Another thing to look for: the RT-N66U is a gigabit router/switch. Make sure that any network cable you use (both between modem/router and from router to devices) are marked as either Cat5e or Cat6 along the length. Older Cat5 cables are not gigabit-capable, and will result in various stability/performance issues. I've seen a couple of users who fixed their performance issues by replacing old Cat5 cables.

You know, I had the same idea about upgrading my cat5 cables to cat6. I also forgot that I had an old Netgear 4 port Hub behind the TV that the iptv was plugged into so I removed it and ran another cable Cat6 cable directly from the iptv to the router and changed the ip address in the iptv from dynamic to static and also changed the dns...so far so good!

 

[SoCalReviews]

I started using Rosewill brand Cat7 shielded/shielded twisted pair (S/STP) Ethernet cable (available at newegg) this past year for all interconnect distances less than twenty feet between modems, routers, computers and wired devices. I am using a very good quality Cat5e for longer runs under the house. I don't have any problems or performance issues with any of my gigabit wired Ethernet connections. Apparently there really isn't a true specification for Cat7 Ethernet cable but there are guidelines and a loose definition for shielded gigabit Ethernet cable that most cable labeled Cat7 adheres to. In theory the shielding on the outside is supposed to help deflect interference and noise coming from external radio frequency transmissions or power sources and the shielding covering each one of the internal twisted pairs is supposed to help shield the pairs from internal crosstalk between them.