XD85 Bravia (2015) unable to stream 65Mbit 4K video from LAN

[ssbarnea]

 I spend and endless number of hours trying to investigate why I am unable to play a ~65mbit bitrate 4K HDR video (x265) from LAN.

This is the average bitrate of a 4K HDR blueray video (one with Dolby Atmos), and the TV was sold to me as being able to play 4K HDR.

So far I realised

- Ethernet port is only 100Mbits instead of standard Gbit

- Even if 100Mbit ethernet translates to ~90Mbit, somehow the TV fails to reach even 65Mbits

- WiFi doesn't seem to work anymore after upgrading to Android 6.0.1, TV fails to join the WPA2 network (no issue with any other device). 

- (Not confirmed yet) but I read that even if the WiFi is supposed to support AC it seems that the WiFi card is connected using USB2 which means that it will not be able to reach the needed speed, even if the wireless signal is perfect. I happen to leave in an area with very few interferences.

- LAN NAS is able to deliver ans sustain ~300Mbit, so clearly this is not what slows it down.

- Even my internet broadband is works reliable at 75Mbps which means that the TV LAN speed is even lower than VDSL+ speeds.

- Based on current tests I have the impression that the TV streaming speed is limited to around 55-60 Mbps, about 10% under the standard 65Mbps used by 4K HDR streams.

So far I am starting to believe that I was misold and I am considering finding a legal way to return the product as it doesnt seem fit for its purpose. 

Is it possible to sort this issue? How?

PS. Don't even think about asking me to re-encode or transcode.

[Kuschelmonschter]

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seufer schrieb:

How much Mbps did you get with a cable connection ?

Thx

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Somewhere between 90 and 100mbps.

[Jecht_Sin]

@seufer yes, I get full bandwidth (up to nearly 100 Mbps) via Ethernet as well, and so you should. I would try with a different ethernet cable, something is wrong if you get only 25Mbps.

[seufer]

@Jecht_Sin: I had already try different cable (category 6) and different port on my routeur. Still 25Mbps

But with the same cable and same port, I get 200Mbps (the max of my bandwidth) with my PS4

[ssbarnea]

I am a software engineer, so I know how to debug most things. Clearly the poor networking performance of the LAN interface has nothing to do with cable and switch quality. This is the first thing that is cut from the list by performing a performance test using the same path (cable-router-NAS) but with another device than the TV, like a laptop. 

I am more curious what people used to measure the performance on Bravia TV because I was not able to find any Android TV benchmark app to use.

My only testing method was to play different bandwidth stream until you find when it chokes. It works well with 50,55Mbits, 65Mbits not really, not being able to sustain it for more than 10 seconds, skipping frames, chopped sound. I still need to find a 60Mbit stream in order to measure better the limit.

If you have videos with various bitrates is very easy to figure out when it reaches the limits.

Because few people reported that they were able to stream at this speed I am wondering who they manage to do it, and please do not even think about mention streaming from online (like Netflix), that's a totally different use case, netflix will probably never use a ultra-high bitrate like this.

My initial tests with WiFi did get exactly the same behaviour as LAN, no worse or better.

PS. As Apple did release the 4K Apple TV, I bet this will be able to play these movies so it may be a workaround for scrapping Sony and geting a less smart but more reliable TV. I bet that Apple upscaling could also be better than Sony. At least they will do make often firmware updates and 4 years later, not like Sony which managed to make one firmware update in two years.

[Kuschelmonschter]

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I am more curious what people used to measure the performance on Bravia TV because I was not able to find any Android TV benchmark app to use.

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I use WiFi Speed Test which also works for cabled network. I sideloaded the client app on the Sony and installed the server on my Synology NAS.

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If you have videos with various bitrates is very easy to figure out when it reaches the limits.

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I recommend jellyfish.

[Jecht_Sin]

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ssbarnea wrote:

I am more curious what people used to measure the performance on Bravia TV because I was not able to find any Android TV benchmark app to use.

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It's simple, actually. Personally I use my MacBook as file/DLNA server, and monitor the upload bandwidth in my Mac when playing an high bitrate video. Or while doing a copy with a file manager, to measure the max bandwidth of different protocols (like SMB/SSH/FTP etc.). But sure I would be interested to know how @seufer makes the measurements.

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PS. As Apple did release the 4K Apple TV, I bet this will be able to play these movies so it may be a workaround for scrapping Sony and geting a less smart but more reliable TV. I bet that Apple upscaling could also be better than Sony. At least they will do make often firmware updates and 4 years later, not like Sony which managed to make one firmware update in two years.

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 Yup, you're totally reading my mind. I am absolutely tempted on moving to the Apple TV 4K and forget about this sorry excuse of an OS/SoC. It would still be a pain to perform certain operations (like going into the settings while playing), but faster nonetheless since Android would be idle. Also I plan to uninstall/disable all duplicated apps to squeeze every little % of possible perfomances.

PS: I disagree that a bad Ethernet cable may not affect the bandwidth. If the Ethernet channel is bad, and thus many packets are corrupted, the TCP/IP stack resends them. Obviously reducing the effective throughput. Now even if it is never the cable (and it isn't in this case) he gets only 1/4 of the max bandwidth. So what could it be? The Ethernet interface faulty? Some (slow) routing in the middle? because in my tests the only difference in bandwidth I get between Ethernet and WiFi depends only on the WiFi connection speed, which varies. That 25Mbps via ethernet leave me quite puzzled..

[seufer]

@Jecht_Sin I use the app named "webtools" from the Google Play Store in the TV

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=webtools.ddm.com.webtools

[Yasars]

I have a XD 7505 ... + Synology Ds213+ ... And i stream 70mbps movie in 4k with HDR ... 

Dsvideo + mxplayer. 1.9.3 i have no problem ... 

Lan is stuttering ... But Wlan connected with Fritzbox 5ghz no problem... i look the movie with no problem...

Synology say 110mb/s .- 120mb/s... Data transfer

[Jecht_Sin]

@seufer I gave a look at Web Tools. I am not really sure what you get with it. The speedtest seems to be for the internet. Or at least I didn't understand how to use it to monitor the LAN.

What you need to check is the LAN speed indeed. If you are using Windows you may use the Task Manager and from there check the network traffic. Connect the TV via Ethernet and stream an high bitrate video. The upload speed from the PC will be your current bandwidth used by the TV (if the PC isn't doing other stuff as well). Then compare it via WiFi.