networked home theatre

[J1NX3D]

Hi all,
i bought a samsung 40" LED TV recently which also let me get a free samsung blu-ray player via a redemption offer. the player was on back order for nearly 2 months but now i have it and its set up.

having a play, i saw that it can be networked by cable or wireless to my router. my tv is already networked and its been pretty f'in fantastic! I can play any media shared in a public folder on my desktop PC and anything connected by wireless to my network. With the blu-ray player plumbed in it gives me a lot more options like an internet interface on my tv (front end similar to PS3 I guess).

the samsung instruction booklet specifies a samsung USB wireless adapter and says not to use another brand/type. does this hold true, another brand is not likely to work or can i get away with it? the tv is wired in with cat5, i just dont really want to drill another hole and get under the house again.

thanx

[masraum]

I'd stick with wired since this is for video. Wired is pretty much always going to be more reliable than wireless.

Why don't you just stick a cheap switch in. (make sure it's a switch and not a hub)

so, right now you've got

router------------tv

change it to

router--------------switch-----tv
--------------------------\
-------------------------bluray

[porsche4life]

I would go wired, since you have it nearby anyways. Get a switch and you will be fine


What is it with all these companies using a proprietary wifi dongle for home theater? I know Sony does the same thing. I work in a small pharmacy with a small franchise Radioshack. We can't stock all the different wifi dongles so we have to turn away customers that aren't willing to wait for a special order. You can't tell me they couldn't have made the regular USB N dongles work....


Sorry, rant off!

[J1NX3D]

haha thanks guys. would you perhaps be able to link me to an example of the switch you're talking about? i'll try and find something of the type down in this part of the world.

[porsche4life]

GS605

Something like that ought to do the trick, I like netgear, its my go to brand for networking stuff.

[masraum]

What he said. There should be a bunch of 4-6 port switch options of decent quality where ever it is you would purchase your electronic equipment. The brands that we are used to seeing here are linksys, dlink, netgear, etc....

[J1NX3D]

cool thanks. i have a dlink router. netgear is starting to become popular here.

cheers!

[Joeaksa]

Hate to hijack this but...

Is there a way to network a HD television that does not have a built in Cat 5 cable port? Would love to play stuff from the computer.

I do play video right now with my Tivo unit to the set but have some videos that are not Tivo (mostly old flics copied over from a VHS tape that are simply not available anymore (see MaxHeadroom for instance)) that the Tivo unit will not work with.

Suggestions or ideas?

[gr8fl4porsche]

Not sure which Tivo box you have but research a 3rd party freeware called Stream
Baby Stream which allows your tivo to run most types of video.

[Joeaksa]

Randy, thanks much!

[jeffgrant]

I wired my house so that all of my cable outlets also had cat5 and phone.

I have a bunch of these that play media from my various computers on my TV's. (Don't have TIVO, or cable, for that matter).

Western Digital WD TV Live HD Media Player: Amazon.ca: Electronics

It's not the absolute best thing out there, but I'm very, VERY happy with how they work. Either runs off of streaming media servers or Windows shared folders.

Also automatically checks for updated firmware. I've had about 5 updates in the last year since I've had them. I've yet to run into a video or audio codec/format that it won't play.

[azasadny]

Go wired! I have a Windows Home Server with 8TB of disk serving up media to the PC's in our house and it works great. Stick with a wired connection, it's faster and more reliable than wireless...

[Steve Viegas]

Not sure if this is going to help anyone, but I will try.

Wireless is great, but it is not perfect. With today's standards, anything above 802.11b is plenty of bandwidth to run compressed video. With a clean 802.11g network, you can run something as solid as MPEG2. You can almost get to uncompressed video with a two channel 802.11n set-up.

Without having a network port on your TV, it will be difficult (basically impossible) to connect the TV to the internet directly. If you use an intermediary device such as Tivo, you maybe able to pull it off, but again, the Tivo will need to have network capabilities.

A HDTV will likely have a DVI port or an HDMI port on it. If the device that hosts your media on it has these types of output, you should be able to run it directly to your television. If your TV only has Component input, you may be able to find a converter at Radio Shack to convert from the output of your media server (I am assuming laptop) to the Component inputs.

I do recommend getting internet access on your TV if possible. I have a wireless connection to my TV (running on 802.11g, but my Internet connection is only 3Mbps so that is the real bottle neck) and I am able to stream shows from the various providers (Netflix, Vudu, Blockbuster, etc.). It is great for kids shows since my cable provider does not have OnDemand programming.

[MysticLlama]

For a TV with no network input / app ability, what you need is something like this:

HTC Media Link DLNA streamer review -- Engadget
or
Apple TV (2010) first look / hands-on! (updated with video) -- Engadget
or
Roku XDS review -- Engadget
or
New Western Digital WD TV Live media player hits Best Buy -- Engadget
or
Etc. Etc... lots of options.

As far as wireless goes, the stuff you can pick up at BestBuy, etc. is better than it used to be, but still kinda sketchy.

I've switched to all Ubiquity gear, which is pro range without the associated cost. I use a separate firewall and one of their high power APs, but something like this would work for 95% of people PowerAP N | Ubiquiti Networks, Inc. ($89)

Much better range/power/reliability than most things because of the radios and firmware.

I have one of the single antenna APs (PicostationM2HP), and it's about 2' off the ground, shoved behind a bookshelf full of books on the far side of the house, and I get a consistent 20+mb connection 50 feet away on the opposite side of the house and over 30mb in the middle, good bit of kit.

Also use the same AP at the office for a 5k+ sqft place and only need one of them.

Unless I end up doing some wiring for audio, I don't think I'll be running any new wires in the house, wireless is really really good now.

[bleucamaro]

hopping on what masraum said, if you have difficulty finding a switch, you can use a second router instead, here's an article on how to set it up: Router Setup - Two Routers on Same Home Network?

[MysticLlama]

Oh yeah, I was responding to a couple of posts and got distracted.

Newegg.com - NETGEAR FS105 10/100Mbps Desktop Switch 5 x RJ45 1,000 MAC Address Table 64KB Buffer Memory

That's one of the metal cased Netgears, $20, and $10 mail in rebate too.

[jeffgrant]

Originally Posted by MysticLlama

I've switched to all Ubiquity gear, which is pro range without the associated cost. I use a separate firewall and one of their high power APs, but something like this would work for 95% of people PowerAP N | Ubiquiti Networks, Inc. ($89)

A big +1

I've done the same, and it provides a VERY noticeable difference in quality and performance.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by bleucamaro

hopping on what masraum said, if you have difficulty finding a switch, you can use a second router instead, here's an article on how to set it up: Router Setup - Two Routers on Same Home Network?

Excellent point. I've never used 2 routers simultaneously (well, at work, but that's a whole different class of routers), but I have used my home router as a switch/wireless bridge without using the "router" functionality. It worked well.

[jeffgrant]

I've also used wireless routers for that, so that not only do I get the switch functionality, I also get a local wireless signal that I can use with a laptop, iPad, whatever, while in the room. Very handy if you have a somewhat mediocre wireless signal from a far off place in the house.

Almost as cheap as a standalone switch these days.