Buffering with 4k Movie on HDTV

I have a question about how Infuse handles a 4k movie on an 1080p HDTV. I have tried this and I get a fair amount of buffering. My files reside on an Synology 918+ and I’m using multiple Apple TV 4k units but only have one 4k TV. I also have a mix of wired and wireless connections. Is the solution to encode the movie in 1080p and have two versions, one for 1080p and one in 4K? Can Infuse select the right file automatically if multiple files exist? Any other solutions other than manually selecting the file with the correct resolution for the TV?

Is your Atv wired or wireless? Also is your network gigabit?

Wireless will choke on a 4K movie most of the time, a wired connection is best, and if you haven’t got a gigabit network it may not have the bandwidth for a high bit rate 4K movie file.

Adam.

An Apple TV 4K should handle the files even on a 1080p TV. Regular Apple TV 4 cannot. Buffering comes down to two things network speed and sharing settings. If you are using SMB try setting it to legacy. Wired connections are preferred however you should be able to play 4K files without issue over wireless AC 2 infrastructure. The exception might be uncompressed UHD bluray ISO’s.

The 4K Apple TV that is connected to the 1080p HDTV in question uses WIFI and has the weakest connection of any of my 4K Apple TV units that use WIFI. I have a mesh based WIFI network using Amplifi HD units. In this particular case, the Apple TV connects to a mesh point and thus there is an additional hop in the path to the data source, the Synology 918+. I am using NFS to get the files across the network. So I was wondering about how Infuse handles multiple video files of the same movie with different resolutions. When I stream the 4k encoded movie to the 4k Apple TV connected to the 4k TV over wired connection there is no issue. So, when I want to play the movie on another 4k Apple TV that is connected to an 1080p HDTV and has weaker WIFI connection it would be nice to automatically play a lower resolution version of the movie if it were available. I will try adding a 1080p encoded version of the movie and see how Infuse handles it. I guess I could just manually select that one when not streaming to 4k HDTV.

Infuse doesn’t select files to play based automatically on data link quality or TV specs. You’ll have to select which version you want to play.

im having same problems and trying to play it through macbook with wifi.How can i test my network speed if its fast enough to play 4K ISOs

For 4K ISOs everything will need to be hard wired. Wifi isn’t guaranteed to work. It MIGHT if you have a high performance NAS, smoking wifi (like Berger’s Orbi) and awesome signal strength. The modem your internet provider gives you probably won’t be fast enough for wireless 4K ISO playback.

Mesh systems suck in terms of bandwidth, sure the connection stability is improved, and it’s fine for surfing the internet, but you aren’t going to get anywhere near gigabit bandwidth with mesh. For better results I would use a mesh system with a wired gigabit backhaul, that way you’re really just using mesh to control handoff between access points, but bandwidth is as good as that single connection between your client and the access point. You can do this with some ASUS routers.

Here’s what mesh bandwidth looks like in informal testing, doesn’t look good: Mesh Wi-Fi Mashup - SmallNetBuilder Pretty much what you go fromt he amplifi satelite nodes were <100mbps. I think Amplify added firmware to support wired backhauls now. But it can only be done between amplifi routers. So you’ll need to buy another amplifi router to add to your system and run some ethernet.

Also, you can test 1080p performance on your 4k tv. Just set the apple tv to 1920x1080 resolution in the settings and it’ll be the same as a 1080p tv. Infuse will do the same conversion from 4k down to 1080p.

Yeah, I am using ethernet backhaul on half of my mesh system. On the other half it’s not easy to run the ethernet so I’m stuck using the amplifi mesh point. The HDTV in question is not 4k, and the 4k ATV that is connected to said HDTV connects to the network via WIFI thru the amplfi mesh point. 1080p encoded movies play fine, no buffering.I have some movies that are encoded in 4k that I play on another 4k capable HDTV which connects to network via ethernet. So i guess i just need to have multiple versions of each file on my NAS and manually select the right one, 1080p or 4k, based on the capability of the particular HDTV. Does anyone else have this setup?

I’m doubting the sustained bandwidth of that mesh point if it doesn’t have an ethernet backhaul. If you have coaxial in your house, MOCA is the next best thing to ethernet. It just won’t work on the same lines as satelite TV, because they actually use their own implementation of MOCA. However, I’ve done it where I’ve isolated the 2 coaxial lines to each room, up in the attic, removed them from the splitter and joined them together. Separating them from the main splitter. You also have to make sure any coaxial splitters in the house are capable of over 1700mhz. Some installers are putting in cheap splitters that can only do 1000mhz.

Infuse should be able to play 4k content down to 1080p no problem. It’s the HDR that’s a tossup.

You can also accomplish this with a wireless back haul (point-to-point). I’m doing it currently with 4x ASUS RT-AC68U (Converted TM-AC1900 running Merlin FW) routers with 3 of them being in “Repeater Mode” (“Media Bridge” mode is unstable). One (centrally-located) acts as the network “router” while the other 3 (Repeater Mode) just connect to it’s 5 GHz band; each serving a host of wired clients including 2x ATV 4Ks and an NFS server. Router antennae > client antennae and aggregating (typically) WiFi clients on a single router (via Ethernet, instead) saves WiFi bandwidth, too, since it’s typically shared; the more clients you add, the slower things get. Each can typically be had for just 40-80 dollars.

If the routers are close enough your link rate can easily display at 866-1300 Mbps (sustained). It’s enough for smooth 4k Dolby Vision/HDR ISO playback and pretty good seek speed from an NFS share. With past Infuse versions, I had poor performance with SMB (v1 and v2).

Convert TM-1900AC to RT-AC68U: Flash T-Mobile Cellspot TM-AC1900 to Asus RT-AC68U/P – an Ephemeral Memoir of the Lazy Mocha
Merlin Firmware: https://asuswrt.lostrealm.ca/