# MoCA - Bridge - MoCA Network



## rgrounds (Jun 15, 2004)

I am getting ready to upgrade my old Series 2 Boxes (5 of them (4 Lifetime, 1 Monthly) running on PowerLine right now.)) to a new Roamio Pro and a couple of Mini's to start off with I may add one more Mini later if needed. 

I understand that the Roamio and Mini's won't work with my existing Powerline setup and I need to use a Tivo Bridge to create MoCA Network to connect the Mini's to the RoamioPro to has a big enough "pipe" to stream to the Mini's. 

My question is this - If I have the Tivo Bridge connected to my router to create the MoCA network is it possible to add an ActionTec ECB6200 Bonded MoCA 2.0 Network Adapter to a couple of rooms that currently use Powerline for internet connections to get a speed boost for other internet connected devices in other rooms in the house. 

Also can you add a small 4 port switch to the Action Tec Network Adapter for multiple devices in that room without any issues?

ie: 
Room 1 - A home office computer & Roku
Room 2 - Playstation
Room 3 - Another TV with a Roku
All of these currently have a Series 2 that is networked by a 200mps Powerline 4 port adapter for the multiple devices/ 

Thanks in advance. 

I am excited to upgrade finally after all these years. Not excited for why. 
The Cox Digital Mini Boxes (for digital conversion) are not compatible with the Series 2 boxes from everything I read. (I don't know if I want to be corrected if I am wrong.  )


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

Why do you think your Minis won't work over power line? Powerline is a far bigger pipe than Minis need, as is Moca 2.0.

Your Pro can create the Moca network. There is no bridge needed if you already have ethernet (via powerline or whatever) to the Pro.

Adding a switch and additional Moca adapters is no problem at all.

Moca 2.0 will indeed yield faster file transfers. But unless your internet service is over 200mbps, you'll see no speed increase in your internet browsing/streaming than you currently get over power line.

In your case, you have plumbing that works fine for the limited of water you have available. Replacing those with bigger pipes will make no difference. If it works, I'd say leave it alone and save your money. When it breaks, then a Moca upgrade makes sense.


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## rgrounds (Jun 15, 2004)

According to a Tivo CSR that I talked to they said that my PowerLine wouldn't work with either the Roamio or Mini's, which I thought was suspicious. They stated I needed true Ethernet wiring to avoid using a bridge. 
My current Powerline system is very slow even though it is rated as 200mbps. 
I can't transfer and watch on the fly. I have to get about 30-50% through a transfer if I don't want to get buffering or flat out stalling or being able to fast forward through commercials. 

My internet speed from my provider is about 90 mbps. 
I guess I will try it out with my Powerline and see if it works and how fast.


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## fcfc2 (Feb 19, 2015)

I advise you to get your Roamio and minis, set them up and see if they work with your current setup. No sense fixing problems that may never arise. 
One thing that does come to mind though is if you are likely to have all of your minis watching live TV at the same time you could easily run out of tuners depending on your recording schedule.
EDIT: You were typing while I was. If your powerline has that poor performance, you might as well go for MoCA now as you really should be able to get by with one MoCA adapter. I would consider going for a different adapter though as Tivos adapter does not have 2 ports (in and out). This will save you one extra coax splitter which is a good thing. You have 3 options for MoCA, the Actiontec ECB2500C MoCA 1.1, the Actiontec Bonded MoCA 2.0 ECB6200S02, or the Yitong YTMC-51N1-M2 off of Amazon, which is MoCA 2.0 http://www.amazon.com/Yitong-Technology-Ethernet-Adapter-YTMC-51N1-M2/dp/B019VSW2RA
You will also need to get a MoCA POE/ Whole Home DVR filter.


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

The new information about your powerline's poor performance definitely changes things dramatically. Listen to fcfc2.


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## rgrounds (Jun 15, 2004)

Thanks for the input guys. But back to my original question. Can I also install a couple of MoCA adapters down the line in a couple of rooms for a better Ethernet connection than my existing powerline adapters?


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

rgrounds said:


> Thanks for the input guys. But back to my original question. Can I also install a couple of MoCA adapters down the line in a couple of rooms for a better Ethernet connection than my existing powerline adapters?


I answered that already in my first post. I have 5 Moca adapters in my house for that purpose.


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## rgrounds (Jun 15, 2004)

mdavej said:


> I answered that already in my first post. I have 5 Moca adapters in my house for that purpose.


:up:

Sorry mdavej. I guess I missed that with all the chatter about my existing powerline network.

Thanks again. I think I will get a pack ActionTecs one to create my MoCA network and add 1 to the office an see if I have a speed difference compared to my weak Powerline.


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

If you want to save some money, old Fios adapters from ebay are Actiontecs and significantly cheaper than new.


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## CCourtney (Mar 28, 2006)

rgrounds said:


> According to a Tivo CSR that I talked to they said that my PowerLine wouldn't work with either the Roamio or Mini's, which I thought was suspicious. They stated I needed true Ethernet wiring to avoid using a bridge.
> My current Powerline system is very slow even though it is rated as 200mbps.
> I can't transfer and watch on the fly. I have to get about 30-50% through a transfer if I don't want to get buffering or flat out stalling or being able to fast forward through commercials.
> 
> ...





mdavej said:


> The new information about your powerline's poor performance definitely changes things dramatically. Listen to fcfc2.





fcfc2 said:


> I advise you to get your Roamio and minis, set them up and see if they work with your current setup. No sense fixing problems that may never arise.
> One thing that does come to mind though is if you are likely to have all of your minis watching live TV at the same time you could easily run out of tuners depending on your recording schedule.
> EDIT: You were typing while I was. If your powerline has that poor performance, you might as well go for MoCA now as you really should be able to get by with one MoCA adapter. I would consider going for a different adapter though as Tivos adapter does not have 2 ports (in and out). This will save you one extra coax splitter which is a good thing. You have 3 options for MoCA, the Actiontec ECB2500C MoCA 1.1, the Actiontec Bonded MoCA 2.0 ECB6200S02, or the Yitong YTMC-51N1-M2 off of Amazon, which is MoCA 2.0 http://www.amazon.com/Yitong-Technology-Ethernet-Adapter-YTMC-51N1-M2/dp/B019VSW2RA
> You will also need to get a MoCA POE/ Whole Home DVR filter.


I'm not convinced that the slowness he had observed is necessarily the powerline. Keep in mind he's dealing with S2's here. IIRC the data rates in/out of the S2's never came close to the 100Mbps of the connection speed of the port. It could very well be that the S2's are the real bottleneck here.

The powerline would have to be REALLY slow to be gasping for breath on SD video transfers.

I'd suggest doing a simple speed test over the powerline using PCs and not TiVo's.

I don't know if anyone has the numbers here, but I'd think for two mini's that anywhere close to 100Mbps is probably more the sufficient to not have any noticable buffering issues and you could go a lot lower than that and be able to stream.

And I'll call BS on the CSR saying it won't work on Roamio and that you'd need true Ethernet wiring. For that mater a Wireless Adapter could be used as long as the unit has it coming in the Ethernet port and you can supply the data (and DHCP service for the Mini's) it doesn't matter what any of the other medium that was used to get the data there.


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## rgrounds (Jun 15, 2004)

CCourtney said:


> I'd suggest doing a simple speed test over the powerline using PCs and not TiVo's.
> 
> I don't know if anyone has the numbers here, but I'd think for two mini's that anywhere close to 100Mbps is probably more the sufficient to not have any noticable buffering issues and you could go a lot lower than that and be able to stream.
> 
> And I'll call BS on the CSR saying it won't work on Roamio and that you'd need true Ethernet wiring. For that mater a Wireless Adapter could be used as long as the unit has it coming in the Ethernet port and you can supply the data (and DHCP service for the Mini's) it doesn't matter what any of the other medium that was used to get the data there.


Speedtest.net via a powerline PC is basically 30mbps down. 12 Up.

So *CCourtney* what do you think about the powerline speed at 30mbps?
It is worth the MoCA upgrade.

Or should I try my Mini's with the power line. and see how they do, if the lag or buffering is unbearable. That is the one thing that does drive me crazy with my current S2 network is that most of the time my Tivos drop off the network all the time and can't see each other. The only ones that constantly show up are the 2 in the same room that are on the same switch. I always have to unhook the USB adapters or Cat5 to get them to show back up on the Now Playing list. And most of the time it takes a reboot of all the Tivos to get them to all show up if I want to transfer a program. It is getting a little old. So I obviously don't want to have to continue to do that with the new Roamio and Mini's.

Like I stated in my original post I thought that the TIVO CSR was more or less trying to sell me on a Tivo Branded Bridge, witch looking at it, it looks like a White ActionTec to me for $10 less but not a passthru version.


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## CCourtney (Mar 28, 2006)

rgrounds said:


> Speedtest.net via a powerline PC is basically 30mbps down. 12 Up.
> 
> So *CCourtney* what do you think about the powerline speed at 30mbps?
> It is worth the MoCA upgrade.
> ...


For the Roamio <-> Mini Communication I'd go MoCA. For External Network Access, I'd say you're fine with the PowerLine. At most your streaming from a service like Netflix and 30Mbps is sufficient to get it to the Roamio.

The main pipe is going to be between the Roamio and Mini's and that you want to be MoCA given the 30Mbps speeds on PowerLine.

The Roamio itself can provide the MoCA you just need a 'Wired' connection to the Roamio from your router (and it's the way the majority of people have theirs setup from what I read.) By 'wired' it just means you can't use the Roamio's native Wireless or a TiVo-G USB adapter. As long as your plugging into the Ethernet port (or providing via MoCA) it doesn't matter what's in-between your router and the Roamio (i.e. you could use a Wireless Adapter, Powerline, ...)

So you don't need to by a MoCA adapter to set this up between a Roamio and Mini's

PS: Don't forget that you'll want to add a POE Filter.


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## rgrounds (Jun 15, 2004)

CCourtney said:


> For the Roamio <-> Mini Communication I'd go MoCA. For External Network Access, I'd say you're fine with the PowerLine. At most your streaming from a service like Netflix and 30Mbps is sufficient to get it to the Roamio.
> 
> The main pipe is going to be between the Roamio and Mini's and that you want to be MoCA given the 30Mbps speeds on PowerLine.
> 
> ...


So a POE Filter at the head of the Coax system and I am good. Just use my Powerline to get program data and app data to the Roamio and the built in MoCA jacks in the Roamio & the Mini's will create their own MoCA network for streaming to the Mini's.

I'll give it go that way and see how it goes.

I really appreciate the info. You have saved me a little cash at this point if this all works.


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## CCourtney (Mar 28, 2006)

rgrounds said:


> So a POE Filter at the head of the Coax system and I am good. Just use my Powerline to get program data and app data to the Roamio and the built in MoCA jacks in the Roamio & the Mini's will create their own MoCA network for streaming to the Mini's.
> 
> I'll give it go that way and see how it goes.
> 
> I really appreciate the info. You have saved me a little cash at this point if this all works.


Exactly :up:


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## jim1971 (Oct 11, 2015)

CCourtney said:


> Exactly :up:


I admire your persistence.

The only thing I would toss out for consideration is that powerline is not 100% reliable. I used it for several months using recent tech on one device only to see it peter out to practically zero mbps over time. After a research project and lots of trial and error, I reset it back to 100% reliable but lost faith in it and went back to a wireless bridge which was always, for me, 100% reliable in my 'low use wireless' network.


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

My experience with powerline was much the same. Solid for a while, but required monthly hard reboots to function. Could have just been my hardware though. But Moca is far more reliable.


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## fcfc2 (Feb 19, 2015)

This thread reminds me of this line, "What we've got here is failure to communicate."
I'm still not sure exactly where the OP started or where he's at now.


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## CCourtney (Mar 28, 2006)

jim1971 said:


> I admire your persistence.
> 
> The only thing I would toss out for consideration is that powerline is not 100% reliable. I used it for several months using recent tech on one device only to see it peter out to practically zero mbps over time. After a research project and lots of trial and error, I reset it back to 100% reliable but lost faith in it and went back to a wireless bridge which was always, for me, 100% reliable in my 'low use wireless' network.


Agreed, if I were to spend money on it, it would be to use a Wireless Adapter or AP/Bridge to feed the Roamio. I've used that setup myself to feed my Roamio, TiVo HD, PS3, PS4, TV and other HT Equipment with an AP with multiple ports. I've since moved and now have Ethernet running to a switch in my new HT Room and have the AP in feeding other equipment elsewhere.

That said, I'd leave the powerline adapter in place as long as it's working to feed the program guide and any pay streaming services.


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## rgrounds (Jun 15, 2004)

fcfc2 said:


> This thread reminds me of this line, "What we've got here is failure to communicate."
> I'm still not sure exactly where the OP started or where he's at now.


Ha Ha. I thought I was just asking for a simple confirmation of what I needed for what I wanted to accomplish. I really appreciate all the input.

At this point my plan is to stay with Powerline and then use my new Tivo system to create the MoCA network that it needs for the stream. Hopefully it works without much issue.

My whole reason for doing this again is because of Cox Communications "GOING ALL DIGITAL" and they say that like it is a good thing. Well it is costing me a pretty penny to continue watching TV on my terms the way I want to. Their stupid $2/month box is costing me almost $1000 to upgrade my Tivo network and home theater system that may be a little long in the tooth but it currently works just fine, but they are causing this forced obsolescence and in the end I still won't be using the $2 box, but a $2 cable card.


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## fcfc2 (Feb 19, 2015)

rgrounds said:


> Ha Ha. I thought I was just asking for a simple confirmation of what I needed for what I wanted to accomplish. I really appreciate all the input.
> 
> At this point my plan is to stay with Powerline and then use my new Tivo system to create the MoCA network that it needs for the stream. Hopefully it works without much issue.
> 
> My whole reason for doing this again is because of Cox Communications "GOING ALL DIGITAL" and they say that like it is a good thing. Well it is costing me a pretty penny to continue watching TV on my terms the way I want to. Their stupid $2/month box is costing me almost $1000 to upgrade my Tivo network and home theater system that may be a little long in the tooth but it currently works just fine, but they are causing this forced obsolescence and in the end I still won't be using the $2 box, but a $2 cable card.


My apologies, you did an excellent job of posting your situation. I posted to the wrong thread altogether....no excuse, just getting old. Very sorry.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

Revisiting this thread in light of your followup debrief over in another thread, here (thanks for that), and my subsequent feedback...


krkaufman said:


> ... the only way it would ever work would be if your Minis *AND* your Roamio Pro were all communicating with each other via MoCA, as that is required in order to handle the higher bandwidth TiVo Multi-Room Streaming (MRS) traffic between the Roamio and Minis.
> 
> What sometimes works, when there's no other way to get Ethernet to the MoCA-creating DVR, is to use a Powerline bridge to supply an Ethernet connection for the DVR, enabling the DVR to create your MoCA network. ... Still, *the Powerline/... bridge might prove insufficient depending on the number of concurrent Internet streaming sessions and the associated quality of the streams.*



With the above focused just on basic video streaming for TiVo devices, given everything you want to load on the MoCA segment, per the above, yeah, that Powerline connection bridging the MoCA segment to Ethernet would be a problem -- and certainly well below the performance possible with MoCA 2.0 adapters. Thankfully, it sounds like you've arrived at the proper solution; sorry getting there had to be like getting Sondra Locke to the courthouse.

Regarding the specific MoCA adapters suggested in your OP, above...


rgrounds said:


> My question is this - If I have the *Tivo Bridge* connected to my router to create the MoCA network is it possible to add an *ActionTec ECB6200 Bonded MoCA 2.0 Network Adapter* to a couple of rooms that currently use Powerline for internet connections to get a speed boost for other internet connected devices in other rooms in the house.


Any 2 MoCA nodes spec'd at MoCA 1.1 and higher would communicate with each other at the highest spec supported by _both_ adapters. Since the TiVo Bridge is just a rebranded Actiontec ECB6000 standard MoCA 2.0 adapter, using a TiVo Bridge or ECB6000 as your MoCA/Ethernet bridge would effectively limit the bonded MoCA 2.0 ECB6200 adapters to just standard MoCA 2.0. Ideally, you'd match the MoCA specs between your main bridge and satellites, or ensure the main bridge is of the highest spec, for future-proofing.

Fortunately, as with the Powerline bottleneck, you appear to have arrived at the correct solution, per your debrief post...


rgrounds said:


> So this is how I ended up getting it to work;
> 
> I installed a ActionTech MoCa adapter to my router.
> 
> I also along the way also installed the *same adapter* at each of my Mini's.


.... though I'm curious as to which Actiontec adapter you settled on. :edit: (Oh, and what the brand & model number is on that amp installed by your cable technician.)


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