[westerndigital81]

Ive been contemplating, for some time, hardwiring the house with cat6 but never made the jump. I wanted to turn my office desktop into a server for 2 htpc's, a xbox, and 2 laptops. I came across the netgear powerline adapters and game them a shot. I must say, they work like a charm! I picked up a set of netgear powerline av 500 adapters (adapter kit w/ outlet) and had them setup in about 5 minutes.


1 cat6 line out of my router to an adapter. Then the other adapter out to a netgear gigabit hub feeding my home theater setup. I plan on grabbing a couple more soon and getting the bedrooms connected. I highly recommend!

 

[Joe 6 Pack]

I'm currently using them and although they are better than the Trendnet 200Mbps models I was using before where I couldn't stream anything over 10Mbps, I'm still looking for other options. I can now stream low bit rate 1080P rips but if the bit rate spikes above 25Mbps or higher, I get buffering.


So for right now I can stream ripped lower quality 1080P MKVs but my ultimate goal is to be able to rip 1:1 Blurays as either MKVs or ISOs and stream those.


I think I'm going to have to give up on wireless or powerline converters and contact an electrician to have ethernet run from my office upstairs to my living room downstairs.

 

[bobsilver]

Powerline and wireless are both very susceptible to the environment they are operating in. It would make life much easier if there was some standard test we could run to determine what would work and work best. But unfortunately there isnt. It comes down to trial and error to find the best solution.


But in the right environment with todays technologies Powerline will give you the best throughput. And the 500mbs products are fast enough for BD rips where wireless is not even in the best case.


Bob Silver

Netgear AV Consultant

 

[Joe 6 Pack]



Quote:
Originally Posted by bobsilver /forum/post/20809075


Powerline and wireless are both very susceptible to the environment they are operating in. It would make life much easier if there was some standard test we could run to determine what would work and work best. But unfortunately there isnt. It comes down to trial and error to find the best solution.


But in the right environment with todays technologies Powerline will give you the best throughput. And the 500mbs products are fast enough for BD rips where wireless is not even in the best case.


Bob Silver

Netgear AV Consultant

I am using the Netgear XAVB5004 kit and trying to stream media from the second floor of my house to the living room on the first floor. When I initially turn on the Boxee Box or if I use my PS3 or Xbox 360, the connection status light stays green indicating the highest quality connection which is above 80Mbps. It also stays this way if I stream any online content. However, as soon as I try to stream anything via SMB, the light changes to amber and in some cases red indicating less than 50Mbs which in my case is usually around 20-25Mbps.


This might be due to the Boxee's SMB implementation, which has been problematic and gotten better or worse depending on the firmware release you're currently on. Would enabling security help any or would that slow down the connection even more due to the overhead required?

 

[Kurtz9]

Any chance you can put something else physically where the boxee is to see if that is the problem? (maybe a laptop or something and play video on it from the same source?).


Failing that any other outlet nearby you can move the adapter to?


I'm using the Netgear 500mb kit with my Dune and it streams anything I throw at it without issue over SMB... throughput never drops below 7-8MB/sec (more than enough for the highest bitrate BR).


I did have to move the "near the server" adapter to a plug right around the corner from the "ideal" spot for it to get this though... just required a slightly longer ethernet cable to accommodate the location. (in the "ideal" plug location I only got amber, moving it I got green full time)

 

[Brajesh]

I've tried the Netgear AV500 kit with Popcorn Hour A-210 with SMB and no issues. Even people on wired connections appear to be having issues with the latest Boxee Box firmware, although mine has been okay (wired, not Powerline) via WHS.

 

[mayhem13]



Quote:
Originally Posted by bobsilver /forum/post/20809075


Powerline and wireless are both very susceptible to the environment they are operating in. It would make life much easier if there was some standard test we could run to determine what would work and work best. But unfortunately there isnt. It comes down to trial and error to find the best solution.


But in the right environment with todays technologies Powerline will give you the best throughput. And the 500mbs products are fast enough for BD rips where wireless is not even in the best case.


Bob Silver

Netgear AV Consultant

hey Bob....interesting that there's not much talk of Moca as an option with the extremely high success rate of Netgear Moca adapters with users. I understand that Netgear has DISCONTINUED the Moca adapter kits. Please say it ain't so?

 

[b curry]



Quote:
Originally Posted by mayhem13 /forum/post/20829371


hey Bob....interesting that there's not much talk of Moca as an option with the extremely high success rate of Netgear Moca adapters with users. I understand that Netgear has DISCONTINUED the Moca adapter kits. Please say it ain't so?

If it's being discontinued I hope that it's to replace it with MoCA 2.0.

 

[Joe 6 Pack]

I believe the outlets in the bedroom I use as my office are AFCI outlets which I hear can cause issues with powerline adapters. Unfortunately, I don't have any other outlets upstairs that are close enough to my router to test with since all of the bedroom outlets and the bathroom outlet are all AFCI outlets.


I transferred some files to the Boxee Box last night and I believe the highest transfer rate I got was 1.79 MBs. I can stream some low bitrate 1080P files but I think the location I have my router is the culprit in the crap transfer rates I'm experiencing.

 

[bobsilver]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mayhem13 hey Bob....interesting that there's not much talk of Moca as an option with the extremely high success rate of Netgear Moca adapters with users. I understand that Netgear has DISCONTINUED the Moca adapter kits. Please say it ain't so?

I am not certain but I do believe that they are not being refreshed. Nothing I have seen indicates otherwise. Ill check and if I learn anything different Ill post.


Bob

 

[fuhoser]

Does anyone know if these powerline adapters can be used to connect 2 routers together to form a "wired" network in windows 7?

 

[bobsilver]



Quote:
Originally Posted by fuhoser /forum/post/0


Does anyone know if these powerline adapters can be used to connect 2 routers together to form a "wired" network in windows 7?

Well short answer is yes but when you say 2 routers do you mean 2 wireless routers for expanded wireless range? The net is you can only have 1 device act as a DHCP server. So if you use 2 routers make sure you turn off DHCP on 1 of them.


Bob