What is everyone using to stream HD wirelessly?

If you can find a better combo than the Netgear Rangemax-N draft and matching USB 2.0 adapter, let me know. I currently sync at 300Mbps and use about 2-7% for HD streaming wirelessly with SageTV.

Oh heres the model numbers..

RangeMax-N draft router WNR854T
USB 2.0 adapter WN121T

Yes it works. The problem with 802.11g is that it syncs at 54Mbps but the effective throughput may be less. I got only 35Mbps which did not stream HD well even though its at 19Mbps.

I sync at 300Mbps but Im sure the effective throughput is about 70% which puts me in a safer zone for HD streaming.

Present wireless LAN speeds are not quite up to streaming HD, this will work only briefly and under near ideal conditions. On the other hand a wired 100Mbps connection never stutters.

Gary

Interesting that they didn't test the Belkin Pre-N unit which in other comparisons was way better....

Jim what does way better mean? If its any better than my Netgear then I dont need wires anymore. The Netgear is doing great in my home where I believe I have one of the worst receptions. Are there any data?

When I turn on my wifi I can detect 10 other wifis in my area immediately. I am also wifi'ing from a bedroom downstairs to the media room upstairs where the tuner PC is with the antennaes. The bedrooms are on each ends of the house.


Audball,

I'm using it with my Netgear gige switch which has 8 ports. I gave up one to bridge with the router. I dont use the port that is labeled "gateway". 4 ports is not enough for me. Frys didnt have the one without the ports and it was on sale.

By the way you need to update the firmware right away if you do decide to get it. Otherwise it wont break 54Mbps.

I need an internet connection for my 360 to start just to download updates like 1080p and vga update.

My home office with wired internet connection and wireless G router is on a diff floor. i tried super g and didn't like it so went with G. I have a spare b router. can' t I just connect 360 to the router and router to my laptop on the wifi. i was told no.

i would like to stream hd stuff from pc to my 360 onto tv its connected to.

i have a splitter at my cable connection at main tv i have 360 on. can i maybe get a second cable modem and a have a wired connection there just for 360?

i'm switching to fios soon though and i dont know what type of modem they use for fios internet.

where can one find 1080p hd content to dl on pc and then stream to 360?

all i've come across is the hd wmv sample clips many of which there is a 1080p version to dl.

I don't remember where I saw the review, but the Belkin unit had the highest sustained throughput at all distances tested....

Jim, yes i read some reviews at both pcmag and zdnet. It does looks like a stronger contender than the Netgear-N draft series.

Its funny now those two tests from ZDnet and PCMag's were lower than the one in the article linked above. Specifically the 60ft test throughput was much lower.

I care not because whatever range I'm at with this 2882 sq ft home, my throughput is fine for HD, even though I do see the sync fluctuate between 240Mbps and 270Mbps when others are using their wifis around here (my assumption). Other times it stays at 300Mbps.

For the thread, I think the latest version is the Belkin N series. The Pre-N is old.

Whatever your question was, I think you'd be stuck at 802.11g which in my experience is not enough to stream HD, even if you got two routers to talk to each other. The other discussion is about "802.11n draft" which is supposed to be finalized this year. It will require you to purchase a new router and adapter (~$300) to achieve full throughput and "no" on using cross vendor products.

switched from Comcast internet using Motorola surfboard cable modem to Verizon FIOS using ActionTec router.

daisychained the ActionTec which is kinda crappy to my Netgear g router and it was a pita.

supposedly on most you can just disable dhcp to daisy chain but the netgear had an ip conflict and i can't remember what all i did with the verizon tech to get it working.

i can get signal to my xbox 360 and its wireless adapter from either the actiontec or the netgear but i think the netgear gets a stronger signal.

also the netgear at least had an open NAT when testing the the xbox live connection but the ActionTec is moderate which isnt' ideal but better then strict and everything still works.

I ending up getting a netgear wall outlet inet connection sharing device which gives the 360 a pseudo wired connection but strangely enough when i stream 1080p wmvs from my pc they run smoother on the wireless connection then the wired through netgear recepticle thing.

that tells me that the connection must lose some speed/power when going through the electric outlet. will have to do speed test on laptop through the wifi compared to wired to the netgear electric outlet thing.

any info on the ActionTec router would be helpfu and i think i do have instructions for it somewhere on how to set it up better for gaming which may open the NAT. never bothered yet cus it works without doing that.

360 recommends using an A router though mostly just to not get interference from the wireless controller, headset etc plus your neighbors g networks and cordless phones all on 2.4ghz and the wireless adapter has A/b/g so i may try to find an a/b/g router at some point like the linksys one as my laptop can use wireless A also.

no stores have any routers with 802.11a anymore but you can get online.

any A router recomendations?

there are 2 a/b/g routers listed @
http://www.xbox.com/en-US/support/co.../equipment.htm

a dlink one and a linksys one as well as 2 linksys bridges that are a/b/g. how do bridges work? and would that be more ideal maybe then an a/b/g router. though i guess it wont be able to use an a signal if its just getting the b/g from the actiontec or netgear router so yeah i need an a/b/g router and can get a bridge later if needed.

Few setups are 'impossible' to run wire. And since ethernet runs up to 300 feet you've got a lot of length to route things around. By the time you prove how poorly the wireless stuff performs (and gets interrupted as soon as a neighbor gets wifi gear) you'll have spent more than enough to string some wire.

What makes it impossible? There are a couple of tricks for running wire worth considering. But it depends on what sort of construction and layout you've got.

Just a side note make sure you get Pre-N and not Draft-N. Draft N causes friendly neighbor issues and will kill all 2.4ghz communication in your home and your neighbors homes.

Draft-N routers cuase issues with existing B/G networks where as Pre-N doesn't.

Here's some good readings on it right now:
http://www.wifinetnews.com/archives/006507.html
http://80211n.wifinetnews.com/
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,12...2/article.html

Right now What I would do for the 360 and since your doing such a short distance is get a 802.11A access point and get the wireless adapter that is made for the 360. The wireless adapter for the 360 is B/G/A compatable.

A will give you the speeds you need as well as reliability as A doesn't have interference issues like B/G does.

Right now I'd wait for N to become a standard its still early in the game for N. Its out there, it does work, but Draft-N equipment can cause issues with other 2.4ghz radios which may or may not be an issue for you.

- Josh

Add the microwave disrupting draft-N networks as well.

Well microwave ovens, or anything high powered that runs in the 2.4ghz range (Meaning both Draft-n as well as pre-n) will interfere with with 2.4ghz radios.

But what I was getting at is that the draft-N radios (more so the chipsets that draft-n uses) causes issues with other wifi networks near by. Meaning if your neighbor is running a draft-n router and your running a B/G router you will start to see alot of connection drops and such becuase the draft-n router is blocking out and causing interference issues with your router.

- Josh

Then I must be that nasty neighbor. I know theres other b/g routers around and I must be stomping them.

I am still having trouble streaming HD over wifi draft-N. So I have an electrician coming tonight to wire me up with cat6.

eeeekkk...... an electrician ???? good luck with that. he'll be able to pull the cable but I bet you he won't know how to terminate it correctly.

Unless, and I mean unless he's a low voltage guy.

I've had too many bad experiences with high volt guys doing low volt work.

- Josh

Running 802.11A Turbo with no problem of feeds upto 20mbps.

There are a lot of different versions of powerline. Here's a post with information on the Panasonic models, including recommended and not recommended configurations.

Audball,

Save your money. Gary is correct; the Netgear and Linksys routers don't have the throughput to
keep up an HD datastream. I've tried it. Unless you want stutters and pauses every few seconds;
which makes the movie unwatchable; go with a direct-wired connection; or save your money until
faster wireless routers are available.

I've been trying various options to stream HD from my MCE HTPC in my family room to my Den PC (hardwired to my LinkWRT54Gs router), as well as my Dell laptop (using builtin WiFi adapter). After many different setup attempts, I am now happy with what I have.

At first I had a basic WirelessG PCI card in my MCE HTPC box. It was not able to stream HD to my Den PC - stutters, skips, etc. Apparently my TV niche is in a dead-spot in my house. Plus whenever the dishwasher or washing machine was running, the whole HTPC would stutter while watching Live TV. Even without streaming anything to anywhere I need the HTPC on the network so it can download guide data. Disabling the wireless card would fix the stuttering, so I'm assuming it was pausing due to trying to find my wireless network that was being disrupted. No joy using wireless G in the HTPC.

Then I tried the Dlink DHP301 HD powerline adapters. These were much better. I could stream from my HTPC to my Den PC with only an occasional stutter. I'd get better performance if I plugged the adapters into various other outlets, but using the one in my niche wasn't perfect. I couldn't stream from my Den PC to the HTPC, so that told me I was just on the edge of adequate performance. So I gave up on the whole streaming HD idea. I just bought some cheapie airlink powerline 85mps adapters on sale at Fry's, and I was able to get internet access to the HTPC (for guide data) without having to worry about the washing machine causing stutters. Couldn't stream with the airlink 85mps powerline adapters.

Then I got adventurous, and tried a wireless-N setup. Got a netgear WNR834M draftN and a USB WN121T adapter. With this scenario I was able to stream HD from my HTPC to my Den PC, and I thought I was finally done. However as soon as I connected my laptop wirelessly to the N router (laptop is only G capable), then I'd get stutters between my HTPC and DenPC. Not to mention I couldn't stream from HTPC to the laptop. Then I had the washing machine problem again, and the HTPC would stutter when watching live TV. So I gave up on wireless once again.

Recently I tried the Linksys Homeplug AV PLK-200 powerline adapters. Without any configuration or tweaking, I was able to stream from my HTPC to the Den PC and vice versa. No skips/stutters at all. I then tried streaming from the HTPC to my wireless laptop (which is G only), and it would stutter/pause every few seconds. This didn't make too much sense to me because I am able to reliably stream from the Den PC (hardwired to WRTGS router) to the laptop over G (maybe an occaasional stutter since plain 'ol G probably isn't perfect for HD streaming). I did a little research and ended up on dslreports.com. I downloaded a utility that let me change the RWIN TCP setting on the laptop for the wireless card. After increasing this value to what it recommended, I was able to stream from the HTPC to the laptop. So I am finally happy.

As an experiment, this morning I was able to stream two HD streams simulataneously. One from the HTPC to the DenPC, and another from the HTPC to the laptop (using wireless G). So now I am very happy.

All HD streaming was done using OTA recordings of CSI which in my area is the highest bitrate/largest file size of all the HD channels.


So to sum up:

- I had bad luck with both wireless G and draftN on the HTPC - the location in the house is bad, and very susceptible to interference from household appliances which interrupted streaming as well as caused the HTPC itself to stutter.

- The original powerline adapters (14mps or 85mps) were not fast enough, especially when used in the outlets that were most convenient for me. Good enough for internet sharing, but not streaming video.

- The Dlink HD powerline adapters (DHP-301) were very close to being good enough, but not quite stable enough when using the most convenient outlets.

- The Linksys Homeplug AV adapters are meeting my needs perfectly. Needed to boost RWIN setting on wireless laptop to enable smooth streaming from the HTPC (HTPC over homeplug AV to WRT54GS router to laptop over wireless G). They are a tad expensive (~$200 or so locally), but very similar to what you'd spend on an N router and adapter card combo.


Hope my experiences are helpful to someone...

I got sucked into this whole wireless draft n thing and looking for some answers. I recently bought a rangemax next gigabit router and a macbook pro that just enabled an embedded n card inside. I didn't notice any change in speeds or performance from g speeds. I then went on cnet to test broadband speed and am only getting 2 mbps from my macbook while products are being advertised at up to 300 mbps.

What am I missing here? I have comcast and my fastest download connection has been 6mbps. Am I bottlenecked by the speed of my internet connection or do these products somehow unlock these bottlenecks and allow me to stream video at the advertised speeds. If you have to buy a 100 mbps connection to take advantage of an n router, is there a company that provides such a service? The highest speed I see advertised was a Fios connection with up to 30 mbps. If the fastest speeds are only 30 mbps why are they making 100mbps routers when all you need is the 54 mbps routers? What am I missing here?

First of all speed tests done online are limited to your internet speeds. Meaning if you only have a 2meg internet connection that is all your going to ever see.

With online speed tests, the limiting factor is your internet not your wifi, your wifi will always be faster than your internet.

So if your trying to stream a video from online, your internet connection is the limiting factor, NOT your wifi.


There is but, GOOD luck paying for it, 100mbps internet connection will be well over $50k a month, if not more.


The whole 100mbps routers are for transferring files from one PC to another PC on your network, NOT for transferring things across the internet.

So really the whole point about Draft-N and faster wifi is that so you can transfer or stream a HD video from your main PC to a remote PC in your home.

- Josh

Interesting to hear. I seem to have no problem streaming HD from my wireless router (in the basement) up to either the livingroom, or the bedroom (2 floors up) with just a regular 54meg "g" router. This is going to my Dell laptop. I don't watch a lot of HD on it, but a show now and then through Sage Client.

My receiption is always full bars, and I only have one other (very weak) network being detected.

Just goes to show that even at this day and age, wireless is still a black art.

-Suntan

Tell me about it, tis what I do for a living. Try getting into microwave backhauls, 5ghz equipment, licensed radios, Wimax, EVDO, your head will explode

But yea I too am able to stream HD recordings from my MCE box to my laptop as well. but whats weird is if I try streaming live TV then everything goes out the door from there.

- Josh