[mythtv-users] Wifi

[Leo Butler]

Peter Bennett <pb.mythtv at gmail.com> writes:

> On 01/25/2018 08:20 AM, Daryl McDonald wrote:
>> Greetings Mtyhizens, my recent move is requiring using WiFi within a
>> 12 foot proximity. I use two internal cards and one HDHR. Would a
>> WiFi extender kit (ac to cat5) be any better than a 300 mbps dual
>> band USB dongle? Hard wiring would create a trip hazard or require
>> fishing thru walls and ceiling. How much data is moving when the
>> HDHR is recording two HD episodes at the same time?
> I looked into wireless USB devices about a year ago and I found that
> there were no 5 GHz devices that had Linux support, apart from the
> ones built into laptops. This may have changed.
>
> You may be able to use wifi for the frontend to backend communications
> but I would not use it for connecting the tuner to the backend.
>
> One HD recording would use up to 20 mbps. It could be less. However if
> you are using a digital tuner without cable card you would be
> receiving all channels on that frequency, and MythTV would filter out
> the ones it needs. That would be a much higher bit rate, probably 3
> times as much.
>
> When I tested my 100 mbps wireless network it was actually able to
> transmit 16 mbps. The actual vs advertized speed seem to be very
> different. Also the speed will vary depending on whether other people
> in your neighborhood are using wifi.
>
> Powerline network gives me speeds of around 50 mbps but it has the
> problem that from time to time it disconnects itself and takes about a
> minute to recover. This is irritating for a frontend but probably
> fatal for a backend.

Besides their unreliability, powerline adapters are really
expensive. Maybe they have improved since I bought mine a few years ago,
but I found that even with a direct connection between 2 outlets, I
would routinely (~weekly) get interrupts that took manual intervention
to correct.


>
> If you have coaxial cable in the wall for cable tv you can easily get
> 100 mbps with an appropriate adapter. This is what I am doing. I use
> "DIRECTV Broadband DECA Ethernet to Coax Adapter", at $20 for two
> (from Amazon). This is an excellent value and they give consistently
> 100 mbps with no interruptions.

These adpaters are great and much superior to the powerline
adapters. They sometimes go on sale for much less. I got a half-dozen
for $2/ea a couple years ago.

Eventually, though, I upgraded the important connections to
cat5e/6. This included my BE/FE connections. The difference in speed
between the coax/DECA adapter vs. cat5e/6 was noticeable. Playback was
fine in both cases, but seeking, loading the recording information,
etc. were noticeably slower over coax/DECA.

I did leave the HDHR ota tuner on a coax/DECA connection to the BE. It
could easily handle the bandwidth requirements for that tuner.

Leo