Going Wired...

eGoCeNTRoNiX · Post by **eGoCeNTRoNiX** » Fri Jan 04, 2013 9:28 am

Hello All,

I have been, for a long time, having issues streaming video to my PS3. This has been one of the most annoying things for me. I am also going to be hooking up some Netflix capable blu-ray players in each room and don't really want to buy 3 Wireless N adapters to make them work. Well, after a few years of this I'm finally fed up enough to go ahead and go wired. I have most of the tools and parts that I need to accomplish this. I am going to relocate the router to the closet under our stairs as it is the central point in the house. I have several boxes of Cat6 Plenum from some old jobs that I'll be using. And some wall plates and jacks. So I plan to make this a very professional looking installation. I will be putting in 2 drops in my living room (one on each side in case we ever change the orientation of the furniture), one in the kitchen and one in each bedroom. So a total of 6 drops.

Can anybody provide any pointers for making it to the bedrooms upstairs easily? I don't want to cut/drill more holes than I have to.

This is me thinking out loud :

I could change the location of the router to my hot water closet in the laundry room as it's (I believe) directly under the closets in the master bedroom and then run the wires through the closet into the attic and then back down in to each of the bedrooms. That may prove my best bet, but first I'll have to determine that they are in deed directly above one another. My other option would be to get my hands on a really tall ladder and run the cable from under the house and up the side of it next to a cable drop into each of the bedrooms. But the ladder will be the problematic part. I've never really paid much attention to how the cable wires are run into the house from the outside and they may provide a good avenue for fishing the cables up from downstairs. So apparently I have just a little bit more research to do. But I do plan to complete this job this weekend or on Monday, time permitting. It will be nice to have GigE throughout the house.

Thanks for listening to me ramble..

eGo

DaMaN · Post by **DaMaN** » Fri Jan 04, 2013 9:33 am

i am with you, but have not found the most efficient way to achieve this in my house. I may say screw and get a few quotes for giggles.

eGoCeNTRoNiX · Post by **eGoCeNTRoNiX** » Fri Jan 04, 2013 9:45 am

Yah, this is a rental that I'm in now.. And I don't want to spend a whole lot of money on this project. But it would be super nice to just be able to plug things in directly and just work instead of having to configure the wireless on each item that I bring into the house. We are hoping to buy a house in early 2014 and get out of this rental, but for now I will have to make it do what I want it to do. haha.. If there was more going on in the area I live in I would start up a computer/network business but the area I live in is kind of dead.

b-man1 · Post by **b-man1** » Fri Jan 04, 2013 5:39 pm

have you considered the power line adapters?

eGoCeNTRoNiX · Post by **eGoCeNTRoNiX** » Fri Jan 04, 2013 5:57 pm

b-man1 wrote:have you considered the power line adapters?

Yah, but limited through put and cost scare me off on those.. ;\ I want to be able to stream movies on more than one device upstairs and I'm afraid that the 200mbps might be a bottleneck as lots of the reviews on them report lousy throughput.

wvjohn · Post by **wvjohn** » Fri Jan 04, 2013 8:19 pm

I have used the powerline adapters and never had any issues with them. Didn't stream video, but used them for gaming, etc.

DaMaN · Post by **DaMaN** » Fri Jan 04, 2013 8:26 pm

I am not sure of your files sizes & quality, but i am facing the same issue.

I am doing a server upgrade : Going from a Dual Opteron 1.6's to a AMD Penom 1090T (thanks to b-man1)and going with a plex server setup instead of serving them directly through the network. I am also remuxing my 1080p movies files to the mp4 container as a first resort. If that fails, I'll go with 720p files so that I can stream it via my Dlink Wireless N router. I'll let you know how it goes in this thread or start a new one in the Home Theater Forum.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Fri Jan 04, 2013 8:59 pm

Powerline adapters are okay, but you NEVER get anywhere near the rated bandwidth. Just assume you'll only get half. But they have some "200Mbit" ones now that should manage 100Mbit.

I tried a pair of 100Mbit powerline adapters on my patio Media Center and it was okay for playing compressed video like Divx, but when I tried to play a media Center recording from another Media Center PC it lagged (media center files are large and not very well compressed).

It may be worth getting a cabling pro in there to pull the link ethernet line from downstairs to the upstairs switch, which sounds like the hard part. Then you could run the cables from the upstairs switch to the upstairs rooms yourself.

Those cabling pros are amazing. What takes you and me all day, agonizing pain, and gnashing of teeth, they knock off in two hours.

Trouble is that finding cable installers in the phone book is not easy. They're usually not listed that way. Most of them are listed as commercial telephone service companies if anything because most of these guys install phone systems half the time, and network cable the other half. Some of them won't take small jobs.

You can ask around small businesses and see who they used. Also you can call the local chamber of commerce and ask if they have any phone installers as members.

normalicy · Post by **normalicy** » Fri Jan 04, 2013 9:02 pm

I have a 2 story house & might I say that I feel your pain. I discovered the quickest & easiest way to run the wires is through the HVAC return vent that goes to the top of the house.

My modem, router, & switch are in my basement. From there, any first floor jacks are ran along the joists till they get to their desired wall & a hole was drilled up into the desired wall. For all the upstairs jacks, I drilled a hole in the attic right above the air return vent for the HVAC (about 1" is best due to the number of wires I ran). I dropped the number of needed network cables down the vent till it reached the basement. I then opened up the vent & ran the lines out and to the router. I just re-sealed the return vent with foam sandwiching the wires to seal & protect. Up in the attic, I drilled a hole from above at every wall that I intended to run a line. I then cut the holes in the walls & dropped the lines in. Though it sounds like a bunch of work, it only took an evening.... including crimping all the connectors.

b-man1 · Post by **b-man1** » Fri Jan 04, 2013 9:04 pm

DaMaN wrote:I am not sure of your files sizes & quality, but i am facing the same issue.

I am doing a server upgrade : Going from a Dual Opteron 1.6's to a AMD Penom 1090T (thanks to b-man1)and going with a plex server setup instead of serving them directly through the network. I am also remuxing my 1080p movies files to the mp4 container as a first resort. If that fails, I'll go with 720p files so that I can stream it via my Dlink Wireless N router. I'll let you know how it goes in this thread or start a new one in the Home Theater Forum.

Plex does all of the transcoding for you, so you may want to hold off on converting too many files until you test it. i primarily play mkv and avi files...the mkv varying from 720p to 1080p. Plex lets you select the quality and/or bandwidth on each file before you play it, if you want to.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Fri Jan 04, 2013 9:10 pm

These powerline adapters claim they get 200Mbit (even assuming the worst they should get 100) and have good reviews:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6833181127

The problem with powerline is the bandwidth is VERY dependent on your house wiring, and there's no way to know how well it will work until you try it.

By some chance, do you have a spare coax line running up there? They make ethernet over coax adapters:
http://www.amazon.com/Actiontec-Etherne ... b_title_ce

If you can run the cable from downstairs to upstairs outside if it makes it easier, there's no problem with that. However you do want to use outdoor rated CAT5.

DaMaN · Post by **DaMaN** » Fri Jan 04, 2013 9:11 pm

b-man1 wrote:Plex does all of the transcoding for you, so you may want to hold off on converting too many files until you test it. i primarily play mkv and avi files...the mkv varying from 720p to 1080p. Plex lets you select the quality and/or bandwidth on each file before you play it, if you want to.

I plan on it. I was going to demux 1 or 2just for testing purposes.

DaMaN · Post by **DaMaN** » Fri Jan 04, 2013 9:21 pm

Great find FP, I did search the reviews for "DirecTV" since I have that service and found this review snippet:

"A few technical notes:
-If you read the description, this unit operates in the 1125-1525 MHz Frequency range. (ie. the spectrum that this occupies through the Coax cable) If you have Cable set top boxes, especially those that are advertised as "whole home" DVR units, you must verify with either the manufacturer of the box or your cable provider that they do not occupy this frequency range. If they do, you will get interference and find that things won't work right. Think of it like having two FM radio stations broadcasting right on top of each other in the same area - not good. If you have satellite in your home, this won't work either as satellite providers typically take up a much wider spectrum - especially with Dish's new Hopper System and DirecTV's whole home DVR system. Your best bet would be to take advantage of old coax you had in your house before the satellite was put in as installers probably ran completely new lines. Be careful, however, as this is not always the case."

ZYFER · Post by **ZYFER** » Sat Jan 05, 2013 2:55 am

I'd suggest finding the route your phone lines have taken to your upstairs (if available) or electrical lines. Though be careful naturally and turn power off to not electrocute yourself.

Your other option is to just run it up the side of the house from the outside such as with coax. This really would depend on your environment though, I really wouldn't want to do it if you get snow and ice.

wvjohn · Post by **wvjohn** » Sat Jan 05, 2013 8:51 am

Ditto what FP said about the wiring. I did my first powerline installation in a 3 story victorian that we were using as an branch office, since it was the only realistic alternative. The wiring was one of those let's upgrade it every 50 years deals and it took a fair amount of trial and error to find circuits that actually talked to each other. At one point the ceiling had to be replaced in the room that had the router, and the removed some old wiring, and about half the system went dead. the basement was a typical Dr. Frankenstein maze of circuit breakers and fuses and unidentifiable components from the early 20th century.

Have you considered running one cat5 upstairs and then dropping another wireless router there?