"Streaming" media files through AirPort Extreme

[TheBlackDragon7]

I have a puzzling problem, and I know I'm not alone in this.

Here's my setup: I have (to my knowledge) the newest AEBS: 802.11 draft n.
Connected is my Maxtor OneTouch4 1TB External drive through a USB hub (2.0)

I've set up the network, optimized the channel it's on using iStumbler and the Spectrum widget, WPA secured, and I'm only about 10 feet away from it line-of-sight on my MacBook Pro (bought in May 2008). I also increased the MultiCast rate to 11Mbps.

I've done a lot of research on people doing this, but I just cant figure out why my playback of videos would be skipping (they're normal AVI files, about 175 mb for about 20 mins of playback). I've even tried streaming a normal mp3 file, and it skips as well!! However when I transfer the 175mb video file, it takes about a minute, so I know the bandwidth is way more than enough to stream this stuff.

I've streamed videos before, (same format), only from a windows comp to another windows comp, and they were much further apart, and it was using a 802.11 g linksys router.

Why is this happening using the AEBS??! Not to happy with this thing right now...

 

[Ant1-Hero]

I'm in the same boat, i have tried VLC, Quicktime, and a few other programs and i still get that annoying skipping every 10 seconds.

I have the same router, and am about 10 feet away in the same room too.

 

[TheBlackDragon7]

Really?? No one knows what's going on here? I thought Apple was supposed to be so much better than PC, but it can't even do this simple task...

 

[Ant1-Hero]

its weird i went home yesterday, and there was a firmware update for the airport extreme, now everything is streaming like fluid.

 

[TheBlackDragon7]

What firmware do you have now? I had an update a few days ago, now it's 7.2.2 I believe. What software are you using to play files, settings, etc? And this is coming off an external drive formatted HFS+, connected to your airport extreme, right?

 

[TheBlackDragon7]

I found a solution, so far its been streaming pretty well. I was using iStumbler to see surrounding networks, to check if there was any interference. Apparently, this takes up enough bandwidth to interfere with the network, and cause stuttering with files streamed from the Airdisk. Also, in my Airport settings (on my MacBook Pro), I turned off AppleTalk, it seemed to relieve some of the stuttering before I discovered that it was iStumbler.

 

[xraydoc]

Glad you got it sorted out.
I was just about to interject that I'm able to stream full DVD video_TS files without trouble, but via desktop --> wireless --> laptop and not from a UBS AirDisk. I've found AirDisk off a USB device via my Airport Extreme to be pretty slow, though the 1GB Time Machine I have seems way faster.