Wireless connection from Sage Server to HD Extender

[paintedbird]

Hello

I have a Sage Server running in my den and a HD-100 extender in my living room. I love this setup, but I have to run an ethernet cable down my hallway and into the livingroom. I like to keep my house as neat and tidy as possible. More alarmingly, my elderly grandmother almost tripped over the cable one time when my family was here for a visit. I could run the cable along the ceiling, but the 100' cable I have is not long enough for that, and I don't know where to get a longer cable.

I see a lot of circle-jerkery on this forum about how to get a wireless connection between the HD extender and the Sage Server. Nobody seems to have a real solution. The Extender is otherwise an awesome device, but Sage really dropped the ball on the wireless issue. I have seen Popcorn Hour just has a little gizmo you plug into their unit and the problem is solved. Why cant Sage do that?

I have to assume Sage doesn't have a wireless HD Extender because either 1) it's technically impossible to get a 1080p signal over 802.11n or 2) they figured cost to do so was prohibitive to their customers.

I am willing to pay a lot more to get a wireless connection, so I hope the reason was #2.

Is there some sort of FAQ or procedure with a list of recommended hardware available? The monetary price is secondary to getting the ethernet cable out of my hallway. I would like to hear from someone who has actually had success, and what exact hardware they used

Anyone with good info can email me at palmer[two six eight] @ cox dot net.

Thanks

[inlvnv]

Just finished setting up HD-100 wirelessly this afternoon using Dlink DAP1522 to DIR-655. Router. I haven't had time to play with it much, but seems no problem streaming ripped DVDs and avi files. Bridge is 35 feet away from the router with 3 walls and clothes in between them.

[paintedbird]

Originally Posted by inlvnv

Just finished setting up HD-100 wirelessly this afternoon using Dlink DAP1522 to DIR-655. Router. I haven't had time to play with it much, but seems no problem streaming ripped DVDs and avi files. Bridge is 35 feet away from the router with 3 walls and clothes in between them.

Thanks for the info. Did you stream any Blu-Ray rips or 1080p content?

My setup can BARELY handle Blu-Ray rips over the wired network. There is a little bit of a delay when starting or stopping a movie, and during action sequences.

Thanks for any more intel you can provide. I will check out the hardware you mentioned.

[bradsjm]

I have an HD-100 using the Netgear HNHDE111 802.11n 5ghz bridge (found it for cheap on ebay) paired to a D-Link 825. There is only one wall between the units and it works perfectly for HD television, DVDs and MKV (both 720p and 1080p) movies to the point I forget it is even using wireless. I'm certain the experience would decrease as the distance increases however.

[inlvnv]

Few minutes that I've played with, I've noticed stuttering when playing back HD movies and stations; but not necessarily a negative factor at the moment, since I have few HD contents and the HD-100 is located in the bedroom. Also, my router is currently sitting about a foot off the floor, and I have 10+ devices hooked up wirelessly and all 4 ports used up, so these are negative factors.

[ojosch]

Yeah, I have in the past used a Linksys WET11 wireless Ethernet bridge to connect a client Ethernet device to a network over wireless.


Also, I heard of a guy who just pealed his carpet up around the perimeter from source to destination and tucked his Ethernet cable under the carpet and then pushed the carpet back in under the trimming when he was done. Sometimes you can tuck it under the trimming w/o even removing the carpet, but if you go under a doorway then you need to fish a snake through to pull the wire to the other side of the doorway. Other options for running cable are through the floor (if it is an unfinished basement or you have access under the foundation when no basement), or you can run it through the attic and drill a hole in the header board to fish the wire down the wall and then you use a retrofit clamp-in wallplate mount and cut out a hole in between 2 studs and the adapter clamps in, then the wallplate screws to that. You can also just cut out the hole, and use sheetrock anchors to hold a wallplate cover on if you don't want to use the retrofit adapter. I've done this a thousand times when I used to work for an ISP doing Internet installs. It's not hard at all to do, climbing in the attic is the hardest part. It is best to use raw CAT5e cable and crimp your own ends on. This way feeding the wire through holes w/o ends is easiest.

This is only if you would want to still go wired. If you really want wireless, then an Ethernet bridge is your wireless solution, or you can buy the Netgear XE102 (or similar) http://www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-XE102-.../dp/B0002IHP58 Ethernet-over-power bridge (pair) which allows you to use the electric lines in your house to pass data. You simply plug one in each side and plug short Ethernet cables in to those bridges and whala! If they don't work, or don't work that well, then you need to figure out which electrical breaker is going to just one of either side, and switch that breaker feeding that side's outlet with the breaker right next to it, so that both Netgear bridges are on the same leg of the power coming in. If you are on different legs of the 2 hots then the signal has to travel all the way out to the transformer and loop through the secondary winding and come back up the other leg which weakens the signal a lot, so by swapping one of the breakers (only if you have poor performance), that would allow you to see if this was your problem. This type of bridge has been used successfully by me many times, even once to pass Internet from a shed all the way about 250 feet up to a house over the power lines and it worked pretty good.

Hope this helps for something

[w84no1]

I have tried to connect my HD-200 wirelessly and it is hit or miss. There are too many variables to be able to list specific hardware. I can watch HD on a wireless G connection some days, but not on others. I replaced the G with N and it worked great until one of my neighbors decided to get a wireless N network, now I am back to square one.

I sent the wireless N stuff back. So, I decided to buy two Motorola NIM100 Ethernet to coax converters. You can get them on eBay for about $30 a piece. This might solve your problem if you have coax in both locations.

[paintedbird]

Originally Posted by ojosch

Also, I heard of a guy who just pealed his carpet up around the perimeter from source to destination and tucked his Ethernet cable under the carpet and then pushed the carpet back in under the trimming when he was done.

That's a great idea, but I have tile. I live in a condo that sits on a concrete slab. There is another condo above me - no attic. I suppose I could get some plenum cable and run it through the AC ductwork, but I'm not really sure how to go about that.

Maybe I could buy a cat at PetsMart, tie one end of the ethernet cable to the cat's collar, then shove him in the duct. Put some meat in the other vent so he takes the cable to the right place? I think that might be considered animal abuse though.

[inlvnv]

Originally Posted by paintedbird

Thanks for the info. Did you stream any Blu-Ray rips or 1080p content?

My setup can BARELY handle Blu-Ray rips over the wired network. There is a little bit of a delay when starting or stopping a movie, and during action sequences.

Thanks for any more intel you can provide. I will check out the hardware you mentioned.

I fine tuned a bit by standing the bridge sideways and am getting between 75% to 80% signal strength from the router that is sitting 35 feet away and sitting a foot off from the floor. 720 rips play fine and 1080i m2ts files from my Sony camcorder plays fine with no stuttering. As for 1080p Blu-Ray rips...as soon as I hit fast forward, it just pauses for a while. Pretty much the same result as when it was wired.

[TwistedMelon]

You can hire a home theater or network installer to run the wire for you. Getting a wireless network running for this type of content is going to end in tears for most people.

[paulbeers]

We can only speculate as to why Sage did not add a wireless connection, but I can guarentee it was by choice. The old Wireless MediaMVP was a failure for Sage. The poor wireless card in the Wireless MediaMVP paired with most home users poor wireless network meant that the device had difficulty connecting and staying connected. Sage had to handle many many service requests due to the poor wireless networks and truthfully Sage is not in the networkking business.

So let's stop and think about this.....John Doe has an elcheapo wireless G network. Sees the HD100 or HD200 with its wireless card in it and thinks he can now stream HD shows from his basement office to his upstairs bedroom. Of course the connection doesn't work and all he gets is studdering and blames his HD200 for it. Is it the HD200, not at all, but now Sage has to tell him that his wireless network isn't upto snuff and he will have to upgrade his router to one of a few "Sage certified routers" (of course again Sage has to certify certain ones even though Sage isn't in the networking business just so we have a baseline of WHAT to buy). Okay so John Doe goes and drops $100 on this Sage Certified Router and it still still getting studdering. Now he is pissed. Oh but the reason he isn't getting studdering is that he is 70 feet and 2 floors from the source and his neighbor next door has is using the same channels as John Doe for his wireless network.....So now John Doe has dropped 300+ on the HD200 and a new network and it sill isn't working. John Doe now demans his money back for both the HD200 and his wireless network and Sage is out all of that time by support trying to get it to work.

Instead of all that, Sage buys devices with ONLY ethernet ports and states to use wireless you need to use a bridge and that is on the user to figure out. No promises from Sage it will work, and no headaches when John Doe can't get it to work because it is his wireless network.

In my opinion, SAGE DID NOT DROP THE BALL. Sage made a sound business decision to use what works 100% of the time, rather than something that is hit or miss.

Now back to the original question, some have gotten it to work with Wireless N. That is the only way I would go if trying it wirelessly. Here's the thing though, in densely populated areas with many wireless networks, it will still be difficult even with wireless N to get it to work as you will need very open channels so that you do not have a lot of lost data and if you can't find a llot of open channels then it will not work.

[valnar]

Originally Posted by paulbeers

Instead of all that, Sage buys devices with ONLY ethernet ports and states to use wireless you need to use a bridge and that is on the user to figure out. No promises from Sage it will work, and no headaches when John Doe can't get it to work because it is his wireless network.

In my opinion, SAGE DID NOT DROP THE BALL. Sage made a sound business decision to use what works 100% of the time, rather than something that is hit or miss.

I agree.

My guess is there were two reasons, but each one stands alone to not include wireless.

1) Yes, Sage doesn't want the headache. They are not in the wireless business.

2) The Sigma 8630 series probably has a reference design from which most similar devices are built. It would be a R&D burden to add wireless to this design. Sage is not alone in this respect.

The reason the MediaMVP had a wireless version is because Hauppauge added it for their own reasons. It's as simple as that.

[stevech]

Run some of that skinny-flat cat5 cable under the baseboard or carpet.
Or

You need like 20+ Mbps for HD, I believe, depending on CODECs.
11g can ideally yield 24Mbps, but there's no margin.
11b/g runs in 20MHz channel bandwidth.

WiFi 802.11n - might work IF (repeat, IF)

w-router is latest 11n draft standard
media extender connects to a WiFi bridge that uses the SAME 11n draft as the w-router, probably needs to be same vendor and vintage

All of the above allow for 40MHz mode (an option). This is 2/3 of the entire 2.4GHz WiFi band. Or try to find a rare 5.8GHz 11n product that will do 40MHz mode; that's ideal.

But 40MHz mode is automatically disabled (dropping back to 11g-like 20MHz), by most products, if the 40MHz mode would seem to interfere with neighbors' 11b/g systems on or near the 2/3 of the band needed (at 2.4GHz). The 5.8GHz band is not so constrained.

Remember: the 802.11 data rate, say, 54Mbps, is before WiFi and IP overhead. Without interference from neighbors' WiFi, the net yield is about 60% of the 802.11 data rate (raw bits/sec). So 54Mbps with an ideal signal strength nets out to 24Mbps or so. The 40MHz mode can double that, under ideal conditions.