Hi all

I know it's early days and that neither iPlayer nor the necessary firmware upgrade have been made available yet so I'm rather premature.

Anyway my question is this - the HDR has an ethernet port in readiness for all this and my wireless modem is too far from the HDR to run a cable so would one of these ethernet to mains converters do the job?

An example can be found here - http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=223818

We also don't yet know if the iPlayer will download or stream, if it streams would an 85Mbps do the job assuming it would work in the first place. I'm guessing it would as my internet speed averages 12Mbps and that seems ok.

Any advice / pearls of wisdom welcome before I buy them.

Thanks all

S

Powerline just acts like a lan - so yes, it will do the same as a standard home network - make sure you get all the powerline bits you need and plug in

Thanks drevil666 for the swift reply, I'm not usually too bad with all the tech stuff but hadn't tried these before so just wanted reassurance.

Ta again

S

I've got a pair of the Solwise Push homeplug units and they're brilliant - much greater range than wifi indoors, and faster too. Very reliable connection.

I'm just a bit miffed that wi-fi wasn't built in, I (stupidly, perhaps) thought that most things brought out now would have such functionality. My PS3, my Wii, my iPod Touch, my PCs etc.

Having asked a similar question to the OP before, I am glad there is a solution for the TV in my conservatory, but it's probably added expense when wi-fi MIGHT have been able to be added cheaper?

I've tried several options to get connected to my network in the corner of the lounge where my tv is:
Hard-wiring. This works a treat but I have a ceiling/ floor that is concrete poured into metal shuttering and I cannot find an easy way to route & conceal the cable.
Mains wiring systems. The mains ethernet system I tried (Netgear HDX101 system) did not deliver enough bandwidth to watch even an SD quality avi file from a PC upstairs. I've tried various sockets around the house and conclude that the problem is not the Netgear units but my wiring. I'm in France, where ring mains are not allowed (for fear of overload fires), and the wiring is 'star' configuration - this means that each outlet goes back to the junction box. You may fair better in the UK using the wiring as the links between sockets are shorter, but I don't think this is a very reliable or cheap option.
Access points/wireless relays turn your home WiFi into a wired ethernet port. You can buy a wireless repeater or access point for £40 or less, so this is the cheapest option if you cannot hard-wire from your network hub or router. I currently use this method with a Hercules WiFi repeater and can watch a 720p avi file streaming from my upstairs PC via my existing wireless G network. I would have to upgrade to wireless N to be able to stream 1080 HD.

I use the Solwise AV units, and after a false start, they work really well. The initial problem I had was that all the AV gear is in the bay window of my living room, on a raised platform which has floor-mounted sockets - and al those are on a switched spur. Running the Homeplug stuff on the spur didn't work well at all, but moving it to a socket on the ring main cured that.

As for Wifi, I think it would cause more problems than it solves in most cases. Firstly, setting up encryption via a TV remote is tedious (I've had to do that on my media streamer); secondly, congestion in many urban areas means even SD can be problematic - I can't get a good enough signal any more to manage a Divx stream across the flat, though I could a couple of years ago.

And then there's the question of what to support - 11b, g, or n? And in the case of n, which band? One or both?

For a significant number of people, whichever you pick will be wrong; another large chunk will find performance isn't good enough; some won't be able to get it to talk to their existing kit, because despite the 'standards' Wifi is like that.

It's cheaper to just pop ethernet on there, and those who really do want wifi can buy the appropriate adaptor for the rest of their network; the only realistic alternative would be a multi-mode, multi-band Wifi unit, which would cost a fair bit on a unit that's already at the top end of what most consider acceptable.

On the congestion front, incidentally, I can see 7 networks (including my own) from my living room now; a couple of years ago, mine was the only one. And as more ISPs dish out wireless routers by default, that will only get worse.

So, as you can guess, I really don't think building wifi in to a device like this is a great idea; while people are used to the web slowing down, when it comes to video streaming, they'll be frustrated, and they'll blame the Humax, not their WLAN, or the neighbours. More trouble than it's worth for the manufacturer.

It depends where you are streaming from. If it's from the internet, then I agree with you, but wireless streaming from a PC on your network is easy to set up and bandwidth restrictions due to other users not an issue.

Thanks all,

I like the wireless repeater option as suggested by Nick123, hadn't thought of that as I assumed they just relayed a signal but I've been digging and found versions with an ethernet cable out, hoorah!

Got two options now, thanks everyone, who'd have thought it could be so simple (yet costly)

Cheers

S

Trust me - in a congested urban area, even wireless streaming across the home LAN can be troublesome, using 11g. Admittedly I have a few machines here, and more than one base-station, which can slow things down. But even without that, I still have difficulties at times with even SD DivX (at about 350Mb/hour), which wasn't a problem two years ago when I had the only WLAN in range.

The 2.4GHz band is becoming horribly congested; and lord knows what it must be like in busy blocks of flats. It's even worse, of course, for novice users who probably all have their base stations sitting on the same channel and don't know how to change it.

I use homeplug network point plugged into the mains and find them great, I one for connecting my Sony Location Free Player to my router (one downstairs and other upstairs). Cant fault them.

I currently connect my iPod touch to the tv in my conservatory via component cables and watch BBC iplayer progs that way. I presume my lack of issues is down to buffering? That's why I presumed wireless would be the way to go, had not thought of congestion in the future!

I've been using Homeplug for a couple of years as I couldn't get WiFi to work reliably upstairs with my router downstairs. They're great for distributing my broadband connection to several PCs, but less impressive for higher bandwidth needs. I measured the real throughput between two identical 85 Mbps devices at about 10 Mbps.

I also measured throughput when multiple PCs are doing file transfers concurrently. That brought the real transfer rate down to about 2 Mbps!

I came to the conclusion that my 20 year old wiring probably isn't clean enough to get any faster signal through.

Homeplug is good, but the fact is, the wiring that carries mains round your house was designed for that purpose, and using it for carrying high speed data exposes its limitations.

I 2 have been using the solwise units from the start, just upgraded to the 200mbps units to link upstairs to downstairs and another pair providing my dsl ethernet connection on the master socket to my firewall again upstairs.

Been very happy with the speed.

I stream media to my ps3 from my server with no issues at all

As for the internet speeds I can get 15Mbs with no problem

I have four networked Comtrend Powerline Adapters (http://www.shop.bt.com/productview.aspx?quicklinx=4Z2J), one is connected to the router and two are connected to computers. Thr fourth is connected in anticipation to the HDR.

So far as performance is concerned, you wouldn't know that it's not all connected directly with Cat5e cabling - except for the lack of cables drilled through walls. It also avoids the unreliability issues with WIFI.

I hope it works with the HDR - no reason to assume it won't as this is exactly the solution provided by BT with their BT Vision box.

You might get better speeds with the newer 200Mbps units. I use mine in a separate cottage built onto the side of the house, the signal has to go out through the RCD fusebox then back in through another one (although it stays on the same side of the meter) and I can do ftp transfers at 25Mbps easily. My ADSL only manages about 6Mbps so its more than enough for me. Wifi doesn't reach into the cottage from the main house, so I have a wifi router connected to the homeplug network to provide wireless coverage within the cottage.

For those who cannot wire to the HDR an alternative to using homeplugs would be to have a wifi router behind the HDR and running in bridge mode to your "main" wifi router.

With respect to reliability of wifi, I had big problems initially - my study is an extension to the house which is 1920's brick cavity brick construction, so what used to be the external walls of the house blocked most of the signal. My solution was to have a regular modem (non-wifi) in the study and run ethernet to a wifi router hidden under the stairs. wifi aerial is poking out into the stair well behind a wooden unit. Having the aerial pretty much central to the house has meant that wifi is now perfect throughout and I've streamed video on it fine from a MythTV server ... also under the stairs.

Fortunately neighbours wifi interference isn't an issue for me, lucky if I can get a mobile signal never mind someone elses wifi.

ZyXel 200Mbps units from Ebuyer work well for me. Just avoid trying to send anything through filtered extension bars.