Ceton announces new 6-tuner outboard whole-house DVR system - Page 6

The Ceton people, like me, are well aware of the relative instability and unreliability of "wireless" in the home. It may work well for some, but not so well for others.

So they built the Echo to only work on a "wired" network, and that's exactly what I have in my home so I have no problem. If that wouldn't work for you, then you're not going to be a customer.

I tried wireless to my front room from my back room and it didn't work. I couldn't pull an Ethernet cable to that room, but I did already have an old coax run to that room (for TV, when it used to be delivered from the cable company via coax). So I bought a "gizmo" (actually an "Ethernet over coax") pair of adapters (from Gefen originally, and then I bought a second pair from Netsys for a second coax run to do the same thing again) to convert that coax wire into an "Ethernet wire". So I now run my DMA2100 extender in that front room connected "wired", although it's actually an "Ethernet over coax" version of "wired"... though totally transparent to all the other hardware involved, both router and DMA2100.

So, if the fact that the Echo is NOT a wireless-capable device eliminates you as a potential customer, well I'm sure Ceton figured in that probability when they designed the product. But I'm sure they would much rather deliver a 100% reliable device to customers and 100% positive word-of-mouth, than to have potential flawed performance and resulting negative word-of-mouth.

That's just the way it is.

A Windows Media Center extender is by definition "connected to the HTPC where Windows Media Center is running". And that connection must therefore be through an Ethernet connection, no doubt facilitated via a router and multiple Ethernet cable runs between the various boxes and the router.

A similar "whole-home" topography using MoCA is implemented with the Motorola DVR equipment, with the "server" (representing the HTPC for WMC) and "clients" (representing the "extenders") as satellites, interconnected with standard coax in the home instead of using Ethernet cabling.

However as I've described previously, if you have an old "coax run" in your house (RG6 or RG59 cable, either will work) you can convert that physical coax leg to an "Ethernet run" by using "ethernet over coax" adapters. I have done this TWICE in my house (where it was either impossible or undesirable to run a new Ethernet cable, or there already existed a coax run that was going unused).

One time I used Gefen adapters, but these are no longer made. These had the design where one was the "source" (nearer to the router) and the other was the "target" which actually had 4 Ethernet RJ-45 jacks on it (like a mini-router). So you could deliver 4x100 conceptual Ethernet legs through this pair of boxes. Four separate 100Mbps outputs at the "target" end, to feed up to four separate Ethernet-enabled devices at that end.

The second time I used Netsys adapters, and these ARE currently available and priced well. Either end can be used as source or target, and both boxes have two RJ-45 connectors.

In fact, BOTH of these "ethernet over coax" runs (with both Gefen and Netsys adapters) are active and in use in my house. In fact, the Netsys leg is a secondary offshot fom the 4x100 end of the Gefen leg. I had a coax run from the router area to the front family room, and converted that to 4x100 Ethernet using the Gefen adapters. One of the 4x100 outputs goes to my DMA2100 extender in the family room. A second of the 4x100 outputs goes to feed one input to a Netsys adapter in the same shelf. Then I have a second coax cable run from the family room to the kitchen (where it used to feed a SD kitchen TV via "channel 3" out of a DVR in the family room). So that coax leg from family room to the kitchen is now part of a Netsys ethernet-over-coax pair, to feed another DMA2100 I now have in the kitchen to support a new HDTV I put there to replace the old SD CRT kitchen TV.

So I have one DMA2100 in the family room, and a second DMA2100 in the kitchen, both being sourced through the two coax legs and four ethernet-over-coax adapters, via the router and the upstairs HTPC. I have a third DMA2100 in the bedroom, fed "legitimately" via Ethernet cable from the router (which I ran to the location, as it was feasible to do).


No need to think of MoCA here, even though it's standard 75ohm coax providing the connectivity. It's "ethernet over coax" to connect to the WMC extender, which is specifically the type of connection the Echo expects... Ethernet, to the HTPC where WMC runs.
Edited by DSperber - 10/11/12 at 5:40pm

When a tuner in the HDHR is in use for either (a) watching TV live, or (b) recording a program, that means the tuner is connected to the HTPC and "in use". It thus needs bandwidth for that use, to connect from HDHR to the HTPC across your network through the router, using the leg to the router and a second leg to the HTPC... for each tuner being used.

In order to watch a previously recorded program (say through an extender to the attached HDTV) you need bandwidth from the HTPC (where WMC is running, and playing back that WTV program) to the router, and then bandwidth from the router to the extender/HDTV. For every program being played back on an extender, you need bandwidth to support it.

And of course if you want to watch a live program (fed from a tuner on the HDHR), you again need bandwidth form the HDHR tuner being used to the HTPC through the router, and then simultaneous bandwidth from the HTPC to the router and then router to the extender.

All of these bandwidth requirements are for the datastream (related to the bitrate of the channel being tuned), and it doesn't matter whether the stream is live or previously recorded... the bandwidth requirement is the same, because the bitrate/datastream is the same. The only thing which varies is how many "legs" are in use to/from the router, to/from each of the the HDHR tuners being used, to/from the extender, and to/from the HTPC, which add up to what you really need to be able to support simultaneously.