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Hospitals do they normally allow streaming video like Emby ?


ng4ever

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ng4ever

My Mom is in the hospital, don't worry not covid related, is it possible to let her use Emby easily ?

 

What about even on the hospital tv instead? Which would be easier than holding a iPad or iPhone.

 

Worst comes to worst we can stand the iPad somehow.

 

Should I use a VPN ?

Edited by CBers
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RanmaCanada

It all depends on the policy of the hospital.  They may see the media consumption as excessive and "abuse" and not allow it.  Otherwise, it SHOULD work.  Worse case you may have to force transcode to a lower bandwidth.  Using a VPN may be ideal as well as it could hide the traffic from them as well.  As for the TV, I know here in Canada you rent the TV at a stupid price.  You would need to use a firestick or something and then put it on their wifi.  If they say "we block external devices" all you need to do is unplug the coax cable from the back of the TV (if you can) power off the tv and power it back on and it will be a normal TV without any of their preprogrammed stuff (same thing with hotels that do this)

If not, then I would suggest you get a usb lightning drive for the ipad and load it with movies and shows for her, though an older laptop would have more space and be easier to access?

Hope your mom has a speedy recovery and that she is not in there for long.

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ng4ever

Thanks does anyone know if it is possible to know if it will work at the hospital without trying it first ?

Thanks.

Guessing no. :(

 

 

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BillOatman
30 minutes ago, ng4ever said:

Thanks does anyone know if it is possible to know if it will work at the hospital without trying it first ?

Thanks.

Guessing no. :(

 

 

That's going to vary hospital to hospital.  The wifi quality will also vary, particularly if you add the VPN overhead.  If you have emby on your phone you can try it at the hospital just to see if it will work at all before trying the firestick.

Edited by BillOatman
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Happy2Play
3 hours ago, ng4ever said:

Thanks does anyone know if it is possible to know if it will work at the hospital without trying it first ?

Thanks.

Guessing no. :(

 

Minus someone in your area answering it is impossible to say.  But the odd are high they have their network locked down and filter traffic, should have a TOS agreement and possibly short DHCP lease time.

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ng4ever
9 hours ago, Happy2Play said:

Minus someone in your area answering it is impossible to say.  But the odd are high they have their network locked down and filter traffic, should have a TOS agreement and possibly short DHCP lease time.

 

What does a short DHCP lease time do please?

 

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ng4ever

Ok I tried it was basically only a max of 10 to 13 Mbps :(  Though not horrible by any means but still a lot slower than what I am use to of course. I didn't expect a miracle but at least 30 to 50 Mbps! :)

Oh well.

Not enough to stream because every time I would go to stream a tv show that needed like 15 to 25 Mbps it would buffer. I tried setting it lower the quality to 10 or even 5 Mbps same thing. :(

Not until 2 Mbps or less would it not buffer. Weird.

This was with a VPN so many that effected it? Still the speedtest came back 10 to 13 Mbps. With and without a vpn.

 

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ng4ever

I thought maybe 4g lte would be better, of course it has to be lol, well no way. :(

Not even on a low end plan either really.

Talk about congested area :(

 

1199564011_congestedhospital4glte.jpg.c19b2b50ffa5ddc3ec5853d1e9b757db.jpg

 

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The buffering may have nothing to do with the bandwidth available but the QOS they have setup on the WIFI.

They could see your data usage much higher than other connections and simply "hold" packets so other traffic is given a fair amount.  This of course causes latency which is a killer for video.

This type of thing is completely out of your control and nothing at all you can do about it.  Using a lower amount of bandwidth may help but in itself is not a cure.

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When my dad fell and broke his him Christmas day 2019 he was taken to Temple University for surgery. He was there about 2 weeks in total.  He was able to stream at most 3 Mb.

From there he was transported to our new local hospital.  The Wifi there was great and they even had Ethernet ports in each room.  I took in a stick and hooked it to the TV so he could use a remote.  At this hospital he could stream 4K rips with no transcoding

From there he moved across the street to a rehab facility for 3 weeks. The WIFI here was not as good and he could only stream initially at about 5Mb.  I found the signal week as he was in the last room down the hall.  I asked if they could move his room and 2 days later then did after releasing another person.  In the new room he could stream at about 15Mb which was a lot better.

So it's all a pot shot as to what will and won't work.

Interesting he never got the TV service from the hospitals but each and every TV allowed switching the HDMI port used so the stick always worked. :)

Another possibility if the TV has a USB3 port is to load up a USB3 stick with content and just play it back that way directly attached to the TV.

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ng4ever

@cayars I have a portable wireless hard drive that will work on a iPad. It is like wireless local storage!

It is almost guaranteed to work. Plus no one would be able to see it. Not that it really matters.

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ng4ever
2 hours ago, cayars said:

When my dad fell and broke his him Christmas day 2019 he was taken to Temple University for surgery. He was there about 2 weeks in total.  He was able to stream at most 3 Mb.

From there he was transported to our new local hospital.  The Wifi there was great and they even had Ethernet ports in each room.  I took in a stick and hooked it to the TV so he could use a remote.  At this hospital he could stream 4K rips with no transcoding

From there he moved across the street to a rehab facility for 3 weeks. The WIFI here was not as good and he could only stream initially at about 5Mb.  I found the signal week as he was in the last room down the hall.  I asked if they could move his room and 2 days later then did after releasing another person.  In the new room he could stream at about 15Mb which was a lot better.

So it's all a pot shot as to what will and won't work.

Interesting he never got the TV service from the hospitals but each and every TV allowed switching the HDMI port used so the stick always worked. :)

Another possibility if the TV has a USB3 port is to load up a USB3 stick with content and just play it back that way directly attached to the TV.

When your dad was streaming 4k rips with no transcoding did you use a vpn or no  ? Just asking. If not anything else to secure the server/connection or not really ?

Did the hospital ever complain ?

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ng4ever
3 hours ago, cayars said:

The buffering may have nothing to do with the bandwidth available but the QOS they have setup on the WIFI.

They could see your data usage much higher than other connections and simply "hold" packets so other traffic is given a fair amount.  This of course causes latency which is a killer for video.

This type of thing is completely out of your control and nothing at all you can do about it.  Using a lower amount of bandwidth may help but in itself is not a cure.

 

I don't think it was the QOS they setup on the Wifi because at home on cellular (4g lte) it does the same buffering on Auto internet quality in Emby :(

I really wish Emby had what Plex had for increasing and decreasing video bitrate as bandwidth increases and decreases! Oh well :(

What is the perfect or semi perfect quality to set internet quality as in Emby so it works 100% or almost 100% of the time without buffering?

 

 

 

Edited by ng4ever
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1 hour ago, ng4ever said:

When your dad was streaming 4k rips with no transcoding did you use a vpn or no  ? Just asking. If not anything else to secure the server/connection or not really ?

Did the hospital ever complain ?

No VPN as I use SSL/https to access my server so it's not needed.

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ng4ever
1 minute ago, cayars said:

No VPN as I use SSL/https to access my server so it's not needed.

How do I do that ? Use SSL/https to access my server as well ?

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ng4ever

I thought the portable wireless hard drive that would work but it seems to not work on a such a old iPad :( It is a 5th generation.

Oh well.

Sucks.

At least Emby works though but I don't have a SSL/https server and stupid internet is not fast enough for Auto setting on Emby :(

I really wish Emby had what Plex had for increasing and decreasing video bitrate as bandwidth increases and decreases!

 

 

 

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bandit8623
7 minutes ago, ng4ever said:

Even a hotspot speed sucks :(

depends on signal.  i see 20mbps plus when i turn on my hotspot. and if newer phone with 5g then even better.  

another option is to use a vpn on the wifi.

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VPN on WIFI doesn't make the connection better than it is. :)
All that does is keep the ISP and/or hot spot owner from knowing what you're doing or what sites you're using, nothing more.

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Dizzy49

Most hospitals with guest WiFis will have connections capped, I think 1-1.5Mbps is the "standard".  You can force downmix the files in the app.  I've done that when I travel often.
As far as "do they allow it", they get around having to police the users by just limiting the bandwidth.  I know our big hospital here has two of the same connections I have at my home (800Mbps) and their WiFi is horrendous.  The ONLY time I use it is if I have ZERO cell connection.  Even a bad cell connection is better than their WiFi.  They have it capped, but so many people are on it that you are LUCKY to get 0.25Mbps!

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ng4ever

Thanks everyone does anyone know of a unlimited premium data tablet plan by Verizon, AT&T or T-Mobile ? 
 

if this is the wrong place to ask sorry :( 

 

 

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bandit8623
4 hours ago, cayars said:

VPN on WIFI doesn't make the connection better than it is. :)
All that does is keep the ISP and/or hot spot owner from knowing what you're doing or what sites you're using, nothing more.

it actually can.  it depends on how the hospital is throttling.  if they are throttling video traffic only then a vpn will help because the router at the hospital cany see what it is. but you are correct if they limit each device to a specific speed a vpn wont help

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A public VPN can't improve poor bandwidth from a WIFI period.
It can sometimes provider a route with less hops but if the latency is higher you don't gain anything.
But what you need to do is do a trace route from your computer without the VPN running to see the real hops your packet will take (they have to get to the VPN server).

VPN's are great to stop snooping from your computer to the VPN server but everything after that is on the public internet as your connection is only partially protected. If the VPN server is in a location with more hops to your destination then it can make the latency a lot higher as well.

Another possibility is that the hospital is using the same ISP as you are at home so without the VPN you would never touch the internet but would stay completely on the ISP's network without having to go through a peering point.

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