External USB for PVR

[BGIYYZ]

Hi everyone, I’m just looking for some advice or insight.

I currently use my NAS as storage for all media, including the PVR recordings and time shifting (or the ability to pause and rewind live tv).

The NAS is elsewhere in my house and is connected over a powerline network adapter. It works fine for watching video files, but I don’t think the connection is fast enough to effectively perform PVR duties.

Would an external USB hard drive connected straight to my Vero 4k do the trick?

[darwindesign]

It would probably be prudent to check the bit rate of your recordings and then test what kind of bandwidth your working with between your NAS and player to see if you have a network speed issue to begin with. Where I live most broadcasts are less than 10mb/s which is not a lot. Also note that it isn’t uncommon for powerline and coax network adapters to benefit (sometimes massively) from being rebooted periodically. Perhaps an investment in a wireless bridge may also be something to look into if you live in a home where the wiring doesn’t allow the type of adapter your using to work well.

[How To] Check Network Performance with iperf3

Sometimes it is important to check the network performance between your OSMC Device and the device providing your media (NAS, Server, PC). Especially when you are connected via wireless the throughput variations can harm you viewing experience. This short How To should give you the required information how to install iperf3 and how to run the respective tests. When doing these tests it is suggested to have a simple setup (single switch between Sender and Receiver and avoid other traffic on the …

[BGIYYZ]

iperf3 -R -c <IP of your iperf3-server>
gives me 50.5 Mbits/sec (sender) and 48.3 Mbits/sec (receiver)

and

iperf3 -c <IP of your iperf3-server>
gives me 34.9 Mbits/sec (sender) and 33.7 Mbits/sec (receiver)

If I’m watching a video file that exists on the NAS, it works fine. However, I’m wondering if recording TV, along with timeshifting means that there is double the traffic trying to go through and causing issues

[darwindesign]

If you pull up a recording from something with an issue is the bit rate in excess of 16 mb/s? Powerline adapters (also MOCA and WIFI bridges) do operate in half-duplex mode (shared upstream/downstream bandwidth) so you are correct that your doubling the bandwidth your using. There could be issues with inconsistent speed as well as powerline adapters are not known for being particularly reliable or consistent. If it was me I would look at spending the money on a better connection to the NAS rather than slapping a direct connected drive to your player though.