Media Server Performance

The number of streams a XTx43, 4Kx42, XDx33, and XDx32 players can maintain, along with the maximum sustained bitrate of those streams, is dependent on a number of factors.

XTx44/XTx43/4Kx42/XDx34/XDx33

Tests suggest that XTx44, XTx43, 4Kx42, XDx34, and XDx33 players can reliably maintain up to 50 simultaneous streams of a single 19Mb/s file (or 11 streams of different files with an average bitrate of approximately 16Mb/s). The network bandwidth will often be the limiting factor for streaming performance with these models.

XDx32

An XDx32 player is usually limited by its 10/100 network interface. For example, the player can reliably stream four simultaneous streams of a single 19Mb/s file, while the fifth stream will begin to exhibit noticeable pauses.

Optimizing the Media Server

If during testing you are unable to replicate the level of performance outlined above, there are several steps you can take to ensure that there are no other bottlenecks in the streaming pipeline:

1. Ensure that the Media Server uses the filesimple source component and udpsimple/rtpsimple destination components whenever possible. The file and udp/rtp components consume more system resources than their simple counterparts.

2. Ensure the Media Server is not performing other tasks that are unrelated to streaming: downloading content, displaying content, etc.

3. Ensure the SD card or mSATA drive has a sufficient data read speed.

4. If you are attempting to stream a single large file, try using a file less than 200MB in size. This ensures that the file is read from the cache, rather than the SD card. Note that the filesize may need to be even smaller, depending on how memory is currently being consumed by other processes.