VPN for the streamings

[FG Lurker]

Guess I'm sold on StrongVPN. Another geek type is using it, and says he streems 720p, but no 1080p. Honestly, my laptop stutters on 1080p, so I'm not too bothered. I will try that once this project I'm working on stops sodomizing me.

Any suggestions on a test for 1080p? Signed up for a Netflix trial as well and everything seems to stream just fine. 14Mbps should be plenty for 1080p.

[gaijinpunch]

Guess I'm sold on StrongVPN. Another geek type is using it, and says he streems 720p, but no 1080p. Honestly, my laptop stutters on 1080p, so I'm not too bothered. I will try that once this project I'm working on stops sodomizing me.

Any suggestions on a test for 1080p? Signed up for a Netflix trial as well and everything seems to stream just fine. 14Mbps should be plenty for 1080p.

If you have a Roku, there's a 1080p only channel...
Is Vimeo 1080p?

I also can't find the trial for StrongVPN either. Sounds like I'm going to buy it either way, but I'd still like to mess with it.

[FG Lurker]

Don't have a Roku. Will check out Vimeo.

StrongVPN doesn't offer a trial, only a 30 day refund. If PPTP is okay for your needs I suggest getting their $55/year PPTP special plan, it's the best deal they have going AFAIK.

[FG Lurker]

Right now my neighbor is using HideMyAss Pro VPN via an connection in Irvine California, which is the closest and fastest of the USA servers offered by HideMyAss...
The US Hulu connection via HideMyAss Pro VPN--- every few minutes the VPN's connection stutters, stops and starts again after few moments but it is watchable, sort of.
PS:
The regular speed without a VPN during Japan's Internet evening rush-hours is:

Speedtest.net - The Global Broadband Speed Test.jpg

Your, uhh, neighbour, should cancel their HMA Pro subscription and sign up with StrongVPN. Even without getting a refund back from HMA Pro it would be worth it as StrongVPN is only $55 a year and [s]you'll[/s] they'll have an actually usable service.

Regarding Speedtest.net, once you they have run a test click on the "share" button, and then on the "copy" button. That gives you them a URL to a photo image of your their results. You They can paste it in anywhere to display your their results without having to take screenshots etc.

Another thing I like about Strong VPN is that you are assigned your own IP when you join one of their servers. This IP is fixed for as long as you stay on that server, and is not shared with other users. You use that IP to connect to the server and it is also the IP you present to the world when using the VPN. This does a couple of things. One is that it means you won't get weird errors from Google about their being "suspicious traffic from your IP" due to high volumes from a shared IP. The other thing is that for online banking and potential business uses it is much better to have a fixed IP that doesn't have tons of shared traffic coming out of it. Trying to conduct business (or banking) from a shared IP like that is not going to go well if anyone sharing that IP starts abusing it.

I probably sound like broken record going on about StrongVPN. I don't have anything to do with the company, they are just the only VPN provider that I have found that actually delivers usable performance for a reasonable price. Yes, they log, but for anything besides file sharing (which they forbid) this is really a non-issue. For filesharing a seedbox is a better solution anyway!

Edit: Fixed a few words.
Edit 2: Anyone know why that first strikethrough won't work? I can't see anything different with it vs the other ones...

[gaijinpunch]

I will sign up for it this weekend. I will only stream paid subscriptions through this account, so I guess I'll sign up for the $55/year PPTP. If not, no biggie I guess. $55 wouldn't even pay for a night out worth bragging about!

[FG Lurker]

If you have a Roku, there's a 1080p only channel...
Is Vimeo 1080p?

I've watched a bunch of videos on various sources (youtube, vimeo, a few trailers etc) that said they were 1080p and there weren't any problems. I would guess that your friend who had problems with 1080p over StrongVPN had some other problem besides bandwidth from StrongVPN. He might've been running the VPN from an underpowered router or if he was running it from his computer the computer may not have had enough power to both run the VPN and decode the 1080p stream. I'm testing on an i7-2600K so lack of CPU cycles isn't really an issue.

[canman]

This might seem like a really stupid question, but since I use a slingbox, and it is on a lot, do I have to worry about the amount of internet traffic my computer is registering? Or does streaming( I assume slingbox is streaming) register differently? Like I said stupid question, but better safe than a Y1000 000 fine!

[gaijinpunch]

Okay, I think I did something horribly wrong.

[FG Lurker]

Okay, I think I did something horribly wrong.

As that's showing up as a RoadRunner IP I am guessing that's your old provider?

[FG Lurker]

This might seem like a really stupid question, but since I use a slingbox, and it is on a lot, do I have to worry about the amount of internet traffic my computer is registering? Or does streaming( I assume slingbox is streaming) register differently? Like I said stupid question, but better safe than a Y1000 000 fine!

It all registers as traffic in the same way. You're not file sharing though so I would think it's fine. IANAL though, obviously.

[gaijinpunch]

I had m old VPN and StrongVPN settings in the router. Took the old ones out (which was a script). Better, but not there yet. On w/ tech suport now.

[gaijinpunch]

FYI, here's speednet w/o VPN.

In Tokyo



West coast


Looks kinda shitty, no?

[gaijinpunch]

Okay,putting the settings on my Mac and not my Router give me 6Mbps for DL, and still 8.6 for upload (WTF?). I'd like this to all go through the router if possible.

I'm thinking there's a problem w/ both routers. However, even on my Mac 480p from IMDB is buffering a lot. vpnsecure's inferior download rate was more practical.


Not sure if this is worth noting but I've got a shitload of hops when I run traceroute to Strong VPNs servers. At 15, they go pear-shaped. I'm assuming they block ICMP packets? For vpnsecure which I tried before, I got a worse theoretical download time, but I have 15 hops to the destination, and traceroute shows me all of them. I'm a software guy, not a network guy, btw.

[Taro Toporific]

Looks kinda shitty, no?

Nah, that's typical.

[FG Lurker]

West Coast Speedtest result from a few minutes ago, via StrongVPN:



A tracert to my Strong VPN IP is 11 hops which break down as follows:

• One to my pfsense firewall
• Three hops inside Asahi Net, my provider (Osaka, Tokyo, Tokyo)
• Three domestic hops on NTT (Tokyo, Tokyo, Osaka)
• Three USA hops on NTT (San Jose, San Jose, Unkown but probably SF)
• Final hop to Reliable Hosting aka Strong VPN (SF)

My ping times are ~120ms on average but ~20ms of that is wasted going to Tokyo and back to Osaka before hopping to San Jose.

[FG Lurker]

Okay,putting the settings on my Mac and not my Router give me 6Mbps for DL, and still 8.6 for upload (WTF?). I'd like this to all go through the router if possible.

I'm thinking there's a problem w/ both routers. However, even on my Mac 480p from IMDB is buffering a lot. vpnsecure's inferior download rate was more practical.

Not sure if this is worth noting but I've got a shitload of hops when I run traceroute to Strong VPNs servers. At 15, they go pear-shaped. I'm assuming they block ICMP packets? For vpnsecure which I tried before, I got a worse theoretical download time, but I have 15 hops to the destination, and traceroute shows me all of them.

If I had to take a guess I would say your MTU size is too large which will result in packet fragmentation and poor performance, including very poor streaming performance.

Adjusting MTU size for optimal performance over PPPoE and PPTP is a pain in the ass and requires some network understanding and some trial and error.

When using PPPoE the ideal MTU is 1454. PPTP takes a variable amount more depending on the implementation.

I'm not sure exactly how it will work with your setup. I would try setting your router's MTU to 1454 and try setting your Mac's MTU to 1384, 70 bytes less to allow for the PPTP overhead. You may be able to get away with 1394. You can do some trial and error to see what works.

Edit: If you have the VPN running from your Mac then you need to set your Mac's ethernet MTU to 1454 and the VPN conenction MTU to ~1394. I have no idea how to do this on a Mac or if it is even possible. On Windows each "adapter" (including dialup or VPN connections) can have its MTU set separately.

I'm a software guy, not a network guy, btw.

I hadn't noticed...

[gaijinpunch]

Drank too much now... I will try tomorrow now.
however, the non-vpn ping test to the west cost is a bit disconcerting to me.
What part of town are you in and who is your provider? I will dick around w/ this tomorrow on my lunch break.

[FG Lurker]

Drank too much now... I will try tomorrow now.
however, the non-vpn ping test to the west cost is a bit disconcerting to me.
What part of town are you in and who is your provider? I will dick around w/ this tomorrow on my lunch break.

I'm in Osaka but as described in a post above my packets are going Osaka --> Tokyo --> Osaka --> San Jose --> San Francisco. Provider is Asahi Net.

I should probably add that I had a day of complete non-productivity today and watched 4 movies on Netflix. I didn't have a single pause or slowdown on any of them. The whole experience was perfect. Now I get to work all night to get the shit done I shoulda been doing today though!

[gaijinpunch]

Three hops inside Asahi Net, my provider (Osaka, Tokyo, Tokyo)

Same provider, so that is reassuring. I will follow up tomorrow though.

[FG Lurker]

Same provider, so that is reassuring. I will follow up tomorrow though.

I don't know if it matters at all but I'm on the newest type of B-Flets, I think it's called "Hikari Next". I have no clue at all what the differences are, but this is definitely fast.

[gaijinpunch]

I think that's what I"m on, but no sure. I'd have to check my contract. I've been in IT for about 15 years though, so I can deal w/ trial and error when i'm sober. I"m not now though!server

[gaijinpunch]

Are you doing your settings in DD-WRT or directly on a computer?

[gaijinpunch]

I may have issues in my neighborhood at night. Someone probably downloading shit tons of porn. Here are my tests just now before 10AM. The non-VPN connection is substantially better. However,

Tokyo->SF (no VPN)


Tokyo->SF (VPN on Mac)


Tokyo->SF (VPN on DD-WRT router)
I got varying results due to the choppy nature. Guess I need to mess around w/ the router.

EDIT: Looking through your post

If I had to take a guess I would say your MTU size is too large which will result in packet fragmentation and poor performance, including very poor streaming performance.

Adjusting MTU size for optimal performance over PPPoE and PPTP is a pain in the ass and requires some network understanding and some trial and error.

When using PPPoE the ideal MTU is 1454. PPTP takes a variable amount more depending on the implementation.

You're talking about my connection to my provider, yes? As it's Asahi Net, you probably know it's PPPoE.

I'm not sure exactly how it will work with your setup. I would try setting your router's MTU to 1454 and try setting your Mac's MTU to 1384, 70 bytes less to allow for the PPTP overhead. You may be able to get away with 1394. You can do some trial and error to see what works.

Edit: If you have the VPN running from your Mac then you need to set your Mac's ethernet MTU to 1454 and the VPN conenction MTU to ~1394. I have no idea how to do this on a Mac or if it is even possible. On Windows each "adapter" (including dialup or VPN connections) can have its MTU set separately.

Will check these. I'm sure it's easy to set in DD-WRT... just gotta do it. And, surprise, i'm a bit hungover.

[FG Lurker]

I may have issues in my neighborhood at night. Someone probably downloading shit tons of porn.

It's more likely that your MTU is causing problems. The MTU sets the size of each packet being sent over your network, and out onto the Internet. If the total packet size exceeds 1500 bytes then it will be fragmented into two packets. Packet fragmentation is a big problem when using VPNs, it will cause the connection to perform very slowly, stutter, and even drop the connection. Both PPTP and PPPoE add overhead to each packet being sent so you need to allow for this and adjust your MTU accordingly.

Here are my tests just now before 10AM. The non-VPN connection is substantially better. However,

Tokyo->SF (no VPN)


Tokyo->SF (VPN on Mac)


Tokyo->SF (VPN on DD-WRT router)
I got varying results due to the choppy nature. Guess I need to mess around w/ the router.

You didn't include the results when the VPN was run from the router.

In any case, there is something very wrong with your results when the VPN is showing higher uplink speeds than your bare connection is. 14Mbps uplink for the VPN also seems too high based on my experience with StrongVPN.

You're talking about my connection to my provider, yes? As it's Asahi Net, you probably know it's PPPoE.

Yes, correct. The MTU for your PPPoE connection as set on your router needs to be 1454.

I'd try setting the MTU on your Mac to 1350 along with setting the MTU on the router to 1454. 1350 isn't really ideal but it will ensure the packets are small enough that the PPTP VPN overhead can be added by the router without the packet exceeding the 1454 that you set for the router's MTU. This should improve your Internet performance in general, not only the VPN issues. Pages should feel snappier and there should be fewer timeouts or hung pages.

[gaijinpunch]

Okay, here's what I got after the MTU tweak.



My Mac's was 1500 by default, and the router something like 1200. :-/
There's still some stuttering at 720p. If I'm to believe the bar in the movie screen, it's ALMOST good enough. Should I continue to play w/ the MTU settings? Remember, right now, I'm going through two routers. I know that adds some latency. Not quite ready to work through just one though, unless DD-WRT allows me to pick which connections go through the VPN, which I don't think it does.

[FG Lurker]

Okay, here's what I got after the MTU tweak.



My Mac's was 1500 by default, and the router something like 1200. :-/
There's still some stuttering at 720p. If I'm to believe the bar in the movie screen, it's ALMOST good enough. Should I continue to play w/ the MTU settings? Remember, right now, I'm going through two routers. I know that adds some latency. Not quite ready to work through just one though, unless DD-WRT allows me to pick which connections go through the VPN, which I don't think it does.

A solid 3Mbps connection is more than enough to stream 720p, and you're showing 8Mbps so there are no bandwidth issues at this time. I think you may still be seeing packet fragmentation problems if you're not getting a clear 720p stream. I just watched the MIB3 720p trailer on IMDB with no issues so AsahiNET + StrongVPN + IMDB 720p does work.

You could try 1454 on your PPPoE router, 1420 on your VPN router, and then 1350 on the PC. You could also set both routers to 1454 and the PC to 1370.

Just remembered that your end goal is to get the Roku working. I'm really not sure how well that is going to go as I can't imagine you can set the MTU on that. It may be set up to automatically select the best MTU (if they have done things right anyway...)

[gaijinpunch]

Okay, here's what I got after the MTU tweak.



My Mac's was 1500 by default, and the router something like 1200. :-/
There's still some stuttering at 720p. If I'm to believe the bar in the movie screen, it's ALMOST good enough. Should I continue to play w/ the MTU settings? Remember, right now, I'm going through two routers. I know that adds some latency. Not quite ready to work through just one though, unless DD-WRT allows me to pick which connections go through the VPN, which I don't think it does.

A solid 3Mbps connection is more than enough to stream 720p, and you're showing 8Mbps so there are no bandwidth issues at this time. I think you may still be seeing packet fragmentation problems if you're not getting a clear 720p stream. I just watched the MIB3 720p trailer on IMDB with no issues so AsahiNET + StrongVPN + IMDB 720p does work.

You could try 1454 on your PPPoE router, 1420 on your VPN router, and then 1350 on the PC. You could also set both routers to 1454 and the PC to 1370.

Just remembered that your end goal is to get the Roku working. I'm really not sure how well that is going to go as I can't imagine you can set the MTU on that. It may be set up to automatically select the best MTU (if they have done things right anyway...)

At this point, I'm not sure that I'm going to go w/ the roku. It has cached my locale somehow, which is irksome. Also, I now see that HBO GO works on a PC. No showtime from my parents provider yet. Damnit. Want to watch Homeland.

Anywho, I'll tweak it a bit. Thanks for all your help so far!

[FG Lurker]

At this point, I'm not sure that I'm going to go w/ the roku. It has cached my locale somehow, which is irksome. Also, I now see that HBO GO works on a PC. No showtime from my parents provider yet. Damnit. Want to watch Homeland.

If you're not going to use the Roku then the second router is no longer necessary. Just set the VPN up on your computer and connect when you want to watch something.

If you need to remote into work at the same time you can set up a VM for the remote work. As long as the VM has its own IP address you can access work from the VM on one screen while streaming video over StrongVPN on the main computer viewed on your second display.

[Coligny]

I should probably add that I had a day of complete non-productivity today and watched 4 movies on Netflix. I didn't have a single pause or slowdown on any of them. The whole experience was perfect. Now I get to work all night to get the shit done I shoulda been doing today though!

Care to share ? (running out of choices here... currently in an `The Equalizer` (with E Woodward) re-run and getting ready for the 5th or 6th X-Files marathon of the year...)

[gaijinpunch]

Hmm....
Awful performance now (midnight).

VPN through DD-WRT


VPN directly on Mac


No VPN


Shit don't seem right.