Emby in West Africa Ghana

[JohnSpartan3M 10]

Hey guys, I’m in Ghana, West Africa for the next couple of months, I have brought my fire tv stick and am trying to use Emby but everything is moving slow, I thought it may be my Wi-Fi but my Netflix has had no problems, when I use emby everything just moves slow and buffers when trying to play anything, I tried toning down the quality and that also didn’t work, I hear vpn’s may work but I wanted ask for help first because I know you guys are much more savvy then I am at all of this. Please help if possible, btw my brother lives in America but uses a vpn in Africa at times, and says he has this same problem on his phone when using his Nord VPN in South Africa. He says when he turns it off it works, so I’m guessing it might just be Africa?

@cayars

[Carlo 4561]

Hi John,

So your Emby server is back in the states but you are in West Africa?
It's probably a Combination of bandwidth and latency.

If you open a browser and go to Download, Jitter and Latency?
Under the map on the right will be the location of the server.  What location was it?

Now try the same thing at speedtest.net.  You will see the server being used as well as the ability to change the server.  Change it to a location close to your Emby Server.
What does that test show for download ping and download speeds?

 

[Luke 42080]

@JohnSpartan3M ?

[JohnSpartan3M 10]

On 12/10/2021 at 1:33 PM, cayars said:

Hi John,

So your Emby server is back in the states but you are in West Africa?
It's probably a Combination of bandwidth and latency.

If you open a browser and go to Download, Jitter and Latency?
Under the map on the right will be the location of the server.  What location was it?

Now try the same thing at speedtest.net.  You will see the server being used as well as the ability to change the server.  Change it to a location close to your Emby Server.
What does that test show for download ping and download speeds?

 

The server is in America but I’m trying to use emby on a fire stick in Africa

[JohnSpartan3M 10]

On 12/16/2021 at 4:19 AM, Luke said:

@JohnSpartan3M ?

Sorry I missed this entire thread but I’m not sure how to do what was asked

[JohnSpartan3M 10]

On 12/10/2021 at 1:33 PM, cayars said:

Hi John,

So your Emby server is back in the states but you are in West Africa?
It's probably a Combination of bandwidth and latency.

If you open a browser and go to Download, Jitter and Latency?
Under the map on the right will be the location of the server.  What location was it?

Now try the same thing at speedtest.net.  You will see the server being used as well as the ability to change the server.  Change it to a location close to your Emby Server.
What does that test show for download ping and download speeds?

 

When you say open a browser do u mean like on the fire sticks internet app?

[Carlo 4561]

No, Chrome or Edge (for example) on a PC at the remote location.

We just want to get some basic information about the quality of the link between the 2 locations.

[JohnSpartan3M 10]

2 minutes ago, cayars said:

No, Chrome or Edge (for example) on a PC at the remote location.

We just want to get some basic information about the quality of the link between the 2 locations.

At the remote location there is only a fire stick, im back in the states now but my sister is in Africa with said firestick, and would like to use Emby, I have a vpn here maybe I can mimic the issue so that you guys can help me trouble shoot the problem?

[JohnSpartan3M 10]

5 minutes ago, cayars said:

No, Chrome or Edge (for example) on a PC at the remote location.

We just want to get some basic information about the quality of the link between the 2 locations.

Could they find that info using there phone on the Wi-Fi in that area using chrome of course?

[JohnSpartan3M 10]

13 minutes ago, cayars said:

No, Chrome or Edge (for example) on a PC at the remote location.

We just want to get some basic information about the quality of the link between the 2 locations.

My sister has a laptop 

[JohnSpartan3M 10]

27 minutes ago, cayars said:

No, Chrome or Edge (for example) on a PC at the remote location.

We just want to get some basic information about the quality of the link between the 2 locations.

Soon as you have a chance let me know what to do with her lap top, let me know if she should have her vpn on or off, and tell me exactly what to look for a screen shot would help

[JohnSpartan3M 10]

On 12/10/2021 at 1:33 PM, cayars said:

Hi John,

So your Emby server is back in the states but you are in West Africa?
It's probably a Combination of bandwidth and latency.

If you open a browser and go to Download, Jitter and Latency?
Under the map on the right will be the location of the server.  What location was it?

Now try the same thing at speedtest.net.  You will see the server being used as well as the ability to change the server.  Change it to a location close to your Emby Server.
What does that test show for download ping and download speeds?

 

For example when going to the browser to download is there anywhere specific to download something so that this can be troubleshooted correctly by a lay person

[rbjtech 5284]

Africa and America are both rather large continents   - you need to specify the nearest large city - as that's where the internet hubs will likely be connected to.  

Inter-continental connectivity is going to have latency - and there is nothing you can do about that - a VPN will not help you.

The reason services such as Netflix work ok is because they have CDN's - Content Delivery Networks - which are based 'local' to you - in other words 'copies' of all the streaming media.

The only reliable way of getting data from the many 1000's of miles away (3-7K?) is to download it, and replay from the local copy once it's finished downloading. 

Edited March 2, 2022 by rbjtech

[JohnSpartan3M 10]

4 minutes ago, rbjtech said:

Africa and America are both rather large continents   - you need to specify the nearest large city - as that's where the internet hubs will likely be connected to.  

Inter-continental connectivity is going to have latency - and there is nothing you can do about that - a VPN will not help you.

The reason services such as Netflix work ok is because they have CDN's - Content Delivery Networks - which are based 'local' to you - in other words 'copies' of all the streaming media.

The only reliable way of getting data from the many 1000's of miles away (7/8K?) is to download it, and replay from the local copy once it's finished downloading. 

If this is true that about solves it, so I would go to emby down eps then just watch not stream correct?

[JohnSpartan3M 10]

14 minutes ago, rbjtech said:

Africa and America are both rather large continents   - you need to specify the nearest large city - as that's where the internet hubs will likely be connected to.  

Inter-continental connectivity is going to have latency - and there is nothing you can do about that - a VPN will not help you.

The reason services such as Netflix work ok is because they have CDN's - Content Delivery Networks - which are based 'local' to you - in other words 'copies' of all the streaming media.

The only reliable way of getting data from the many 1000's of miles away (3-7K?) is to download it, and replay from the local copy once it's finished downloading. 

My sister said in some areas they were able to stream emby though

[rbjtech 5284]

There are so many variables it's impossible to answer if it would work or not.

If downloading and watching is an option then given the distance, I would suggest that is your best solution.

I'm not sure what Emby clients you are using - but some even offer this feature within Emby itself.

[JohnSpartan3M 10]

Right now it’s an Amazon fire stick, is it possible an nvidia shield might change the situation?

20 minutes ago, rbjtech said:

There are so many variables it's impossible to answer if it would work or not.

If downloading and watching is an option then given the distance, I would suggest that is your best solution.

I'm not sure what Emby clients you are using - but some even offer this feature within Emby itself.

 

[rbjtech 5284]

3 minutes ago, JohnSpartan3M said:

Right now it’s an Amazon fire stick, is it possible an nvidia shield might change the situation?

 

Well with a Shield, you can add external storage - so yes, you could download the media before you attempted to watch it.  But the choice of client will not effect the ability to 'stream' content - you 'may' have some success of low bitrate content, but vs the frustration of constant buffering etc - I would download and for that you'll need a PC/Laptop or Shield - the fireTV stick simply does not have enough onboard storage.

Edited March 2, 2022 by rbjtech

[JohnSpartan3M 10]

12 minutes ago, rbjtech said:

Well with a Shield, you can add external storage - so yes, you could download the media before you attempted to watch it.  But the choice of client will not effect the ability to 'stream' content - you 'may' have some success of low bitrate content, but vs the frustration of constant buffering etc - I would download and for that you'll need a PC/Laptop or Shield - the fireTV stick simply does not have enough onboard storage.

Thank you appreciate the help!

[Carlo 4561]

1 hour ago, JohnSpartan3M said:

Thank you appreciate the help!

@JohnSpartan3M have you sister on her laptop open the following websites from her home LAN (where the firestick is located). Ask her to save screen shots from each test and give them to you so you can post them here.

Let get a baseline for your sister's connection run the test at https://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/  first time using the server automatically configured.
Now tell her the to use <put city here> server which you have already determined to be the closest server to your location.

So you will run this yourself and your default server should be the same server you tell her to use.

Just for a bit more info run these two speed tests as well
https://speedof.me/
https://speed.cloudflare.com/

This will give us a very good idea of the local quality of of connection as well as how much difference there is to the USA somewhere near your location.