[mythtv-users] wireless frontend?

Chad masterclc at gmail.com
Thu Jul 13 01:53:56 UTC 2006


On 7/12/06, Phill Wiggin <alamar at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Thanks for that info. I'd heard good reports from users of the
> > "Pringles" style antennas but this is the first I'd heard of the
> > easier-to-make pseudo-parabolic reflectors.
> >
> > Of course it depends on several factors, if the source of your
> > interference is "on-axis" to your antennas they can actually make
> > things worse.
> >
> > Of course going with MPEG-4 is going to help a lot as well, since you
> > don't have to push as many bits as with mpeg-2.
> >
> > The one thing you didn't mention is the distance between your
> > antennas, I'd be curious as to what range you are getting.
>
> Just for the record, I use 2 WRT54G routers with the Sveasoft firmware
> (Alchemy) in a WDS setup (which isn't the fastest way). I'm using the
> standard antennae, and the signal passes through 3 walls at a fairly
> bad angle. ;)
>
>  I have my recording preferences at 704x480 and the end result is
> 2.2G/hr.  Playback is smooth with occasional jitters. Fast-forward
> buffering isn't instant, but it's acceptable. (This would improve with
> a lower bitrate mpeg.) These results are with a standard PVR-250 mpeg
> on a 54G wireless network running WDS. Results of when using a
> wireless card in the frontend should be somewhat better, I believe.
>
> --Phill W.
> _______________________________________________

Before I gave up on wireless and ran a fair amount of cables around
the house (for the price of my time and a spool of cat6 which was ~50
bucks for 500 ft) I did something like the following:
Had wireless connections from the backend to a remote
backend/frontend.  The remote backend would rsync the files from the
master backend about once an hour.  This wasn't perfect, but it worked
in a lot of situations.  The frontend would play the files as they
were in fact local, and it eliminated the problem that wireless
imposed.  Of course, it cost me a lot of extra money in storage, and
if I ever wanted to watch Live HDTV remotely, I was basically screwed.

-Chad


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