Is Lan suitable for high def. Best way to connect whole of house?

Forums › LAN (ethernet/Wifi/routers/Bluetooth) › Is Lan suitable for high def. Best way to connect whole of house?

NZRobin

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#20811 6-Apr-2008 15:59

Hi I've been on the net for most of the day trying to figure out the best thing to do.
I want to get connectivity to the different rooms of my house (three bedrooms lounge and study) a single level brick and tile home. I can't decide the best way to do it. At the moment I have a modem/router in a bedroom cupboard (my sons) connected to a computer there and another in the study at the other end of the house via a cat5 cable.

I want to be able to stream HD Video from my computer or content from the net to a LCD/Plasma and perhaps on-line gaming via computer or PS3 in the lounge. I also want to be able to use my laptop any where in the house or outside on the deck.
I'm planning on moving the modem/router to a more central location in the house but can't decide whether to wire every room with cat5 or use a system like this

http://www.dynalink.co.nz/cms/index.php?page=np290w-wireless-homeplug

The benefit of this system is that i can simply plug it in any where as I need it for the lap-top and use either wired or wireless LAN. For more permanent locations such as the lounge TV it might be better to wire it in. The Dynalink option above is quite expensive, but wiring every room in case some one wants to use it 'might' add up in wiring costs too.

What sort of bit rate do you need for High Def streaming?

'Sigh'... What do you think?

Thanks in advance!

freitasm

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#121544 6-Apr-2008 16:22

So this combines ethernet over poweline and wireless? I wouldn't use it...

Wireless is very susceptible to interference, and after trying around here I decided to laydown a cable and plug to my gigabit switch - very reliable and faster...

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Filterer

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#121550 6-Apr-2008 16:50

A quick look through my 1080p content and I think the highest bitrate stuff i have is a 10min clip from NASA.

Bitrate = 1,378,197,544 bytes / 9min:40 secs ~ 2 Mb per second.

This is consistent with what I see in the network monitor which runs at just over 2% of a 1Gbps link, however with scrolling etc of the feed I hit 6%-8%

I had wireless at one point but really it sux - drop outs etc and dam vista has a habit of dropping the wifi connection for 1 second every minute to look for other APs - wireless will not pass the WAF test (Wife Acceptance Factor). On the other hand if you can bypass the windows wireless tool and use the manufactures tool and lock it to one AP you might be ok.

Haven't had any direct experience with the lan over power stuff but I have never heard anything good

Also note that unless you have vista and a graphics card that supports h264 acceleration it is very unlikely you will be able to watch the hd content - unless your laptop is very new it probably won't handle 1080p

edit: as for wiring it getting expensive - not really if you can do it yourself $0.30-$0.50 per metre of cable. Say 20 metres to each room back to a router (more I guess if you have to go up through the roof I guess). So approx 100m.

Then you will want/need a gigabit switch if you don't already have one - they cost from $80 for a 5 port...

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cyril7

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#121558 6-Apr-2008 17:14

HD in mpeg format only requires a portion of a 100BaseT connection, (ie around 13-15Mb/s max for mpeg4 and 20Mb/s for mpeg2, typical rates are often much less) you dont need GigE. Power of Ethernet and WiFi can also easily provide this level of throughput, but not consistantly. Cat5e will reliably without error push its full speed dayin dayout. POE and WiFi are at the mercy of all manner of interference and transit delay issues that will effect UDP based streaming. Both POE and WiFi are fine for simple browsing, but not suited to streaming.

If you want reliable streaming then run 100BaseT, period.

Cyril

webwat

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#121920 7-Apr-2008 22:00

I like the idea of bypassing the Wife Acceptance Factor by what Theresa Gatung calls obfuscation. Sometimes its hard to avoid, but I apparently its all about compensating with the Feel Good Factor. Perhaps you can test that and post some results.

If you do decide on wifi but experience congestion or drop-offs, change the radio channel and see if it improves. Lots of access points seem to stick to channel 11 and dont roam to less busy channels on their own. If you have under-floor access then Cat5 is defeinitely preferred. If you plan on running a file server (rather than multi-media) then Cat6 with a GBE switch might be worth the investment in expensive cable (careful not to bend it too much!) — us geeks love gigabit because we can...

But try to choose a central location for your ADSL router that is away from pets, water, and power surges. Dogs love chewing on ethernet cables, presumably dogs are high-tech too. Cats also jump higher after peeing on your power supply, although their toilet training seems to get resolved really fast.

Time to find a new industry!

richms

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#122497 10-Apr-2008 11:24

After my issues with powerline networking and being confirmed by a provider of them that the standard has nothing like spanning tree in it to allow for mac addresses to move between units, I would not recommend it.

I also found when I had a pair of 85 meg ones that when on circuit they were better then the 14 meg ones, but when going between them, when it worked at all was just as useless as the 14 meg ones as far as erratic thruput and dropouts - when it was working it was faster but I couldnt even play a 320k mp3 across it without a 4 second playback buffer, and even then it was stuttering occasionally.

When on same circuit its ok for non time critical things like file sync between 2 machines which is what I use it for between the house and the shed, and I had to specifically wire the in house unit to a socket on the same circuit as the shed is to get 12ish megs, vs the 1-2 and dropouts from any other plugs in the house.

Richard rich.ms

NZRobin

161 posts

Master Geek

#122649 10-Apr-2008 19:52

webwat: I like the idea of bypassing the Wife Acceptance Factor by what Theresa Gatung calls obfuscation. Sometimes its hard to avoid, but I apparently its all about compensating with the Feel Good Factor. Perhaps you can test that and post some results.

If you do decide on wifi but experience congestion or drop-offs, change the radio channel and see if it improves. Lots of access points seem to stick to channel 11 and dont roam to less busy channels on their own. If you have under-floor access then Cat5 is defeinitely preferred. If you plan on running a file server (rather than multi-media) then Cat6 with a GBE switch might be worth the investment in expensive cable (careful not to bend it too much!) — us geeks love gigabit because we can...

But try to choose a central location for your ADSL router that is away from pets, water, and power surges. Dogs love chewing on ethernet cables, presumably dogs are high-tech too. Cats also jump higher after peeing on your power supply, although their toilet training seems to get resolved really fast.

(Been away for a couple of days)

LOL... The WAF isn't a problem. I say and she accepts.... oh, hang on a minute I'll just check with her if thats right!

As for cats well we had two and they're both... um... dead! Wasn't my fault, honest!

GBE Switch?

Yep, got a nice central location sorted out for the modem/router and have underfloor access, so it looks like that might be the way to go.

Thanks again

NZRobin

161 posts

Master Geek

#122651 10-Apr-2008 19:58

richms: After my issues with powerline networking and being confirmed by a provider of them that the standard has nothing like spanning tree in it to allow for mac addresses to move between units, I would not recommend it.

I also found when I had a pair of 85 meg ones that when on circuit they were better then the 14 meg ones, but when going between them, when it worked at all was just as useless as the 14 meg ones as far as erratic thruput and dropouts - when it was working it was faster but I couldnt even play a 320k mp3 across it without a 4 second playback buffer, and even then it was stuttering occasionally.

When on same circuit its ok for non time critical things like file sync between 2 machines which is what I use it for between the house and the shed, and I had to specifically wire the in house unit to a socket on the same circuit as the shed is to get 12ish megs, vs the 1-2 and dropouts from any other plugs in the house.

Hey thanks. Thats exactly what I needed someone thats had experience with them. Definitely going the Cat5 (or Cat6) route. Convenience is only good when it actually works heh. Thanks

NZRobin

161 posts

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#122652 10-Apr-2008 20:00

Peaple still running coax through for aerial to different TV's in bedrooms, or is there a better way?
The new TV in the lounge will be on board digital when they arrive but the bedrooms will probably still have analog tubes or perhaps a decoder if freeview looks OK.

Thanks again