Web tv streaming

[entourage]

Hi, I have this problem when I stream tv on media player. Some of the stations(not all though) come out without pictures but in a jumble of colors and weird sound. It is like I am watching thru a thermal imaging device, there is faint trace of shapes of people and objects but it looks like they re giving off heat signature as represented by the mess of colors; and the sounds is like they speak from the bottom of an oil drum.
It is bugging the hell out of me I don't know where to start to solve the problem. I wonder whether it have anything to do with transport protocol or is a codec problem or something else altogether. Perhaps there is something wrong with my window player, but on real player I sometimes have the same problem. Anyway its only a some stations, while there's other stations that I can stream okay.

 

[N3051M]

stream tv through a tv card with an antenna/satellite/cable tv connection or stream tv using internet etc? digital or analogue?

if its through the air, then chances are your antenna is slightly off/not recieving enough signal or you're leaking signal somewhere.. or being reflected off something like glass for example..

if its the net, then try closing other apps that use up some connections like p2p progs or downloads etc...

tried updating drivers and such? also, as good as you are describing things, maybe post us a screenshot of what it looks like.. tv does wierd things sometimes...

 

[entourage]

No not tv card or antenna. I stream either from tv station pages or some portal sites. Funny thing is from the same portal where there are an array of different stations, some are fine but some give me the problems. So this leads me to think maybe its somehow to do with different encoding used by different stations? That is maybe my player(both windows and real) lack the decoding capability for some?

I have no idea about p2p except when it comes to basic internet connection. Mine is on some sort of LAN. And anyhow when I streamed, the tv was the only thing going on on my PC ad the problem persisted.

As for the actual look of the problem, well I do not know enough to record a screenshot much less post one. Its like a photo negative only with color. Its like when they do a nature show and want to portray the vision of some heat seeking mosquito. A splatter of colors, but through it all there are blurred outlines of people and objects. Not sure if its some fundamental faults with my PC seeing as how I can get other stations.

 

[N3051M]

ok.. so its streaming from LAN or the internet type of thing?

in that case, there is a number of possibilities, which you'd have to troubleshoot one by one.. i'll start with the most obvious...

Hardware:
-PC specs? are they up to the job? you can post them here if it helps...
-Device drivers up to date?
-router/modem/hardware firewall/gateway device letting the stream through?

Software
-scanned for nasties and virii's recently? two articles that will help you...
https://www.techspot.com/vb/topic47014.html
https://www.techspot.com/vb/topic47240.html
-any programs active making it happen?
-network/internet connections settings ok?
-firewall/AV letting the stream through?
-got the right codecs installed for it?

internet:
-likewise with the software and hardware bit...
-maybe the site itself is broadcasting it that way.. test on another machine to see that...

i guess my answers will be a bit general, since i dont use stream tv much.. but all troubleshooting should be the same..... sorta

see how you go...

 

[entourage]

I think there is something to what you say about codecs and firewall blocking certain traffic.

And could be it s a system wide problem. But there are tv channels that I can connect to without glitches. Channels from the same portal site yet as the ones that stream poorly or not stream at all. So that does tend to rule out something fundamentally amiss with my PC. Or does it?

Still I have established it is peculiar to my PC, as I have tried to and succeeded in streaming the same problematic channels on another PC.

So to codecs first. I only know it to be related to decoding functions. And I want to know does the same set of codec work for my OS as a whole, or is it specific only to window mediaplayer? The reason I am asking is I experience the same problem on Real player. Again there the problem is selective in that I can stream some channels fine but not others. So that means a basic systematic malfunction, doesn't it?(Though my IE seems to work well otherwise. But perhaps thats because I am not a demanding user and haven't really pushed the envelope with my PC. :haha: )

And also how many kinds of codecs are there and how would I know what codecs is missing and need to be installed?

As for firewall, I have tried turning it off but have no apparent effect on the problem.

Now a different problem though perhaps related. On some other streams(not the ones with the colors) I got the error message that I should try open .mms, but I got stuck trying to open the port in firewall properties. So is there any place in my PC I can go to to check the status of all transport protocols and whether which ones have been enabled?

 

[N3051M]

And I want to know does the same set of codec work for my OS as a whole, or is it specific only to window mediaplayer?

i think there is a set of codecs that are native to windows when you install it, and generic ones that can play most of the media available.. and when you install other programs for example real it installs the .ram and realvideo codecs (or something) in addition to the ones already existed...

it may as well be a corrupt codec pack you got, which can be fixed by installing another pack thats compatible or otherwise..

i think there are as many codecs as there are media types created, so lots

i dont know much about that transport protocol thing so i wont comment on that... hope that helped

 

[entourage]

all right, thanks, I guess that gives me something to work with. Take it easy okay.

 

[fozzies]

don't know whether you'll ever get this as its over a year late !! you've probably sussed it by now, but here goes
a lot of streams are being encoded specifically for a media player called VLC (google it), and have to be run through it using the File>Open network stream>http>127.0.0.1:STREAMING PORT
codec packs are also needed, alough they wont deal with the above one, vlc the only way, the ones i am aware of are: (google)

cole2 media codec pack
ffdshow
klcodec

the best way to find out more would be to google sopcast, or tvants, or p2pstream