Sage Transmitting Wireless

[deadtoaster2]

Hey guys, haven't posted much lately... because well i have had no problems with sage what so ever. Its a fantastic product and I just love it.

Now on to my question...

As of right now I have the sage tv server setup, which is sitting next to our 50inch rear projection sdtv connected through S-video to the tv. The Ethernet is connected with RJ-45 to our router which is sitting aprox. 5 feet from the TV. We have no problems with this setup, except the fact that its pretty loud.

So here's the question: Would it be possible to move the server setup into a closet somewhere and run everything wirelessly? It would need to download the EPG data wirelessly which should be no problem, but would also need to send the video/audio wirelessly to an MVP (or 2) Is this even possible? Would it be really laggy? Has anybody tried a similar setup?

I could always upgrade the server to make it quieter, or try to run cat5 cables through the walls but I would like to avoid that if possible.

Any help would be great. Thanks in advance

[stevech]

My server connects to my LAN wirelessly. I arranged the antennas and so on so that the signal strength is very high - so I get 54mbps (11g) rates = about 24Mbps at the IP layer. Works OK. Someday I'll run a cable in there - but it's very difficult due to the construction of this place.

I use WEP128 but prefer to avoid WPA for reliability reasons.
The server has a USB dongle type of WiFi radio. It's on the end of a USB cable and is elevated (on top of TV cabinet) - shooting about 50 ft to the wireless router whose antenna is also elevated (external antenna on short coax). Just one (drywall) wall in the path.
I chose a channel # among 1, 6 and 11, the 3 non-overlapping channels) that has few SSIDs in the neighborhood.

[Mark SS]

I can stream to a laptop client ok with wireless but it required some adjusting of NumBuffers and BufferSize to get working smoothly. When I switched the server to using wireless I couldn't get the laptop client to stream smoothly, no matter what adjustments I made.

Worth trying but it wouldn't work for me.

[xlr8shun]

wireless works here pretty well, my signals are 'very high', and i dont notice any streaming issues. i didnt have to do any special configuring, however i did have one hell of a time getting any dlink hardware to work.. work period. i have been a long time linksys user and happy with their products, so i went back that route and not a single issue. guess i know why all the dlink stuff had all these rebates

they do have wireless mvps now, and you can also connect your wired mvp to a wireless bridge and it'll work wirelessly that way

[deadtoaster2]

Thanks for the replies. Sounds like it would work, glad to hear that. What wireless router and usb/pci cards do you suggest for good high signal strength and such?

Thanks again

[xlr8shun]

i'd have to say that you should stick with a brand you have had luck with in the past, wired or wireless, throughout my many years of building my own computers any time i've deviated from certian brands for certian components i'm either A) not happy for whatever reason or B) it just plain does not work.

myself, i have a wrt54gc linksys router in the middle of a single level, 4 bed 2 bath home and it provides me with at the very least a "very good" signal sometimes excellent to computers throughout the house. almost always operating at close to 54mbit, and a couple wmp54g pci network cards.

if you decide to go with linksys, it might be worth it to invest in their "speedbooster" technology. its a few bucks more then the models without it, but a little extra speed never hurt anyone. that is unless of course you wait a bit, for some 'n' series stuff to show up.

whatever you decide to go with, i'd recommend that you stick to the same brand/mfgr throughout if at all possible. that has always given me the best results and from reading others results in this forum and others, it seems to give the best results more than not, and its good practice.

[dblaine2]

I read in other posts that the speedbooster stuff is actually detrimental for sage and streaming. And standard "g" is sufficient and more stable.

As always mileage will vary...

[emok]

In my experience, this can work smoothly for SD programming if you only have one wireless hop (for example, server connected wired to access point with wireless client OR server connected wireless, to a wired client). I had two hops (server wireless, client wirless) and it didn't playback smoothly. It could be related to latency of two hops or just my wireless hardware sucked or both of the above.

my .02

P.S. Oh, and I ended up running CAT6 along my ceiling from my living room to the router in the office. I would suggest going wired if at all possible, just for reliability's sake.

[stevech]

any ethernet device (wired MVP) can be made wireless with just a WiFi bridge ($80 or so). Or configure a WiFi wireless router as a bridge with DD-WRT or equiv. Some newer routers can be intrinsically configured as a bridge. I wouldn't attempt HD on WiFi though.

As to signal strength - 99% of all the cards and w-routers use 11g at 30mW or so. More power in 11g OFDM modes requires a more expensive power amp so few do so. In 11b mode (or lowest 11g speeds), OFDM is not used so the power can go up to 100Mw with the same power amp. OFDM modes backoff power to preserve linearity - where OFDM is far more sensitive. Antenna gain improvements is always the best way to increase range/signal strength.

All this marketing junk - speedbooster, G+, and the rest of the rot is counter-productive. The 11b/g standards define one RF channel (not two in bonding as some companies are doing, RF hogs they be), and the standard does not permit frame-streaming (sending more before prior ones are ACK'd). These non-standard schemes can work for a "homogeneous" network where client and Access point/Router area all the same vendor and vintage.

As to vendors, I use Linksys because they have a history of not putting out crap firmware, unlike D-Link and Netgear.
So far, anyway.

[deadtoaster2]

Alright, It sounds like Ill go with a linksys, most of the replies seem happy with theirs.

Thanks again