[Vinzie]

Can anyone tell me if a wireless N connection is fast enough to stream HD content without storing it onto the hard disc of the HDX-1000 ?

My computer has a 270mbit connection to my router and I'm planning to use the TP wireless N usb dongle in the HDX-1000.

[Hi-Jack]

It is but also depends on your network itself. For some files it will be very
close to succesws / failure (depends on bitrates and file types). We do not
recommend wireless on the current line of products but don't let that stop
you

[Vinzie]

Wow 8O ... that is a quick reply... thanks

Correct me if I'm wrong, but 270 mbit, that's like 30 megabyte+ per second.

And more that double the speed of a 100mbit cable connection, how could this not be enough, while a 100mbit cable connection is ???
Is a wireless connection to stable enough ? Or is the chipset of the HDX too slow to handle so much data over the USB channel ???

Or is the connection between the HDX and the router not so fast, even if I use a wireless N dongle ???

So if I don't want to use a cable, I should take 1 with a hard disc and copy all movies to the hd before playing them ?

[brokenarrow]

hi vinzie,

like hi-jack said, it really depends on your network and environment (thick walls, radio interferece) etc

personally, i recommend homeplugs as a wireless solution which proved to be more stable.

PS: The restriction is never on the box

[Robert_T]

Hm, I just spent weeks on figuring out how I would connect the HDX to the network. A wireless bridge seems to be the worst option of all.

If you already have wirless you can easily measure performance with a few decent tools though wireless is highly dependant on the environment.

I also tried poweradapters but whenever they had to span over multiple powergroups performance dropped. Good enough for a DVD5 but not for a HD file. It's worth a try but beware that performance varies a LOT from house to house / outlet to outlet.

As you may guess I *had* to cable the HDX but with creative use of remaining pairs in existing phone cabling (cat5) I could easily hop from HDX to the "server room" upstairs.

It also passed the W.A.F.

[Vinzie]

I did some test while the HDX-1000 was connected to my PC using a wireless N dongle. The transfer rate while using wireless N was between the 600 kb/s and 2 mb/s... the connection was not stable and it took forever to copy a HD movie to the internal HD (I was able to stream a DVD but no HD content).

So now I bought a pair of konig homeplug device (network through you power cables). Now I can a pretty stable connection and I can copy data with a speed of 4,5 - 5 mb/sec.

What is the best/fastes way to copy (NMB/FTP/....) without moving the device ??? What kind of transfer rates can I expect if I did use a UTP cable (100mbit) ??

[Robert_T]

If you have the option to put in a CAT5 cable... just do it..

I have seen spikes up to 40/50Mbit while streaming HD material and not doing anything else. As a matter of fact, I can't download with a rate of ~20Mbps while streaming 1080p content through the same NIC.

You might get lucky with poweradapters but you will still have active components with fluctuating performance between server and player and that just doesn't beat a wire in terms of performance and stability.

For application protocols it's best to avoid heavy/chatty protocols packed with features you can do without though for HD streaming it doesn't really matter (At least not in my case) Both SMB (CIFS) and HTTP perform well enough for HD content over a 100Mbit connection.

[Vinzie]

Using a cat5 cable is not an option. So its either wireless N, homeplug network, or going up and down the stairs with the HDX to copy the movies using USB...

Copying a DVD5 movie onto the device takes about 15 minutes, so that is acceptable for me...