Hi all, I experienced a strange problem with streaming media from the Internet using a freshly installed Windows 7. I'm trying to stream media from the website http://www.uitzendinggemist.nl, which is highly popular in the Netherlands, and typically has plenty of bandwidth. What happens is that the stream starts fine, you see the bandwidth spike as (I suppose) the media buffer is filled, however after a few seconds, the used bandwidth drops below the required bandwidth, with the result that the media playback is only at half (or less) the framerate. For example, when I stream a file that should be at 500kbps, the stream starts with around 1600kbps, and then quickly drops to about 247kbps. The strange thing is that if I try the low quality version of the same site, which is at 200kbps, I see the same problem! The used bandwith drops to 100kbps and lower, and again the framerate drops to half or less of what it should be. Even more strange is that if I start a torrent client and download something, the media streams restore to the required bandwidth. For me this suggests that something goes wrong with the "throttling" of the TCP connections... As I have a fiber-to-the-home symetric Internet connection at 100Mbps, I should not have any issues with respect to either latency or bandwith. My PC is directly connected to the Internet (no router in between that could be the cause of trouble). I'm using a 3Com 3C910 Integrated Fast Ethernet Controller (3CSOHO100B-TX Compatible) adapter.Looking at the Resource Monitor, the CPU usage is only 2%, I still have 361MB of memory free (of 1GB total). I have a clean install of Windows 7, and all other things seem to work fine. Moreover, I did not have this issue while I still was running Windows XP.Already tried a number of other things like switching off the firewall and (AVG) virus scanner, but none of these seemed to help.Any suggestions are very welcome!Regards,Joost

What about on other streaming sites?

I get the same issue on other sites:* http://www.rtlgemist.nl uses a Silverlight application that does not allow me to check the used bandwidth, but after a while you see the same effects (freezing images, buffering messages, etc.)* http://www.veronicatv.nl is using Media Player as well, and the results are the same if I use RTCP (TCP).Again the bandwidth drops to half the required speed or less. This site also allows RTCP (UDP) and I didn't spot an issue with this form of streaming yet. This reinforces my believe that something goes wrong with the TCP connections.Regards,Joost

Joost, I thought I was the only one in the world experiencing this kind of problem with Windows 7. Back in the W7 Beta days, I had this problem after installing W7 on my MacBook. I did this kind of weird thing just to test multiple OSs on the Apple hardware (I also installed Ubuntu 8.04). Then, when testing W7 in my home wireless network, with a 3 Mbps ADSL link, I noted that the bandwidth used was roughly half the full link capacity (3 Mbps =~ 360 KBps), i.e. =~ 189 KBps, when downloading stuff via HTTP (ex.: a linux kernel from www.kernel.org). I'm not talking about "speed variations" or "link instability", but about a "flat line" on the bandwidth graphic, stuck at 190 KBps. THIS was the weird thing... Just to check (back that time), I rebooted in Mac OS X and tried to download the same file (the kernel from kernel.org); it came at full speed (360 KBps). I did this kind of test (reboot in W7, download a file, reboot in Mac OS X, do the same), with other websites and the results were the same. So, I decided to NOT use W7 anymore, back then... But when the RC came out, I decided to think again about that and installed it again on my MacBook. Now I have a 10 Mbps ADSL, but I didn't remember to test for this issue. But I tell you: next time, I will test this and publish the results here, ok ? By the way: I would love to have a 100 Mbit FTTH symmetric link... :D Regards, Roberto

Joost, I have tested again, downloading some heavy files (600 Mb ISO), and couldn't find any problems. I really don't know if something was fixed in the RC or something like that... Regards, Roberto

Thanks for testing.I don't have much issues with downloading via HTTP. It seems that something goes wrong with the throttling of the network connection. The media stream I'm downloading is at 500kbps, andMedia Player 12tries to get the connection speed around that same amount. Somehow it can't and halfs the connection speed. The media player response is to half the download speed (dropping to 247 kbps) as the network can't keep up. The effect is than that again, the network bandwidth drops to half the required speed: around 100 kbps. By that time the amount of dropped frames is so large that the video is not watchable anymore. What I found the strangest thing is that the stream restores itself to the right speeds when I start the uTorrent client. That client creates a whole series of connections, and as soon data comes in and out, the media stream restores to the appropriate speeds. Not sure what the torrent client does with my network, but it does help. Could it be that opening so many connections does something to the TCP connection that contains the stream?I'm at a loss, so any suggestions are welcome...Regards,Joost

If you go into properties of your NIC in device manager what do you have for speed/duplex settings?