# Trying to setup Tivo Mini with wireless bridges



## Todd17 (Mar 16, 2017)

So in my current setup, I have an ASUS AC router in the middle of the house with my desktop. On one end of the house is my living room and the other end of the house is my bedroom. This is a single story ranch house so it's a decent distance between each of these rooms and the router. I have purchased and setup 2 MikroTik hAP Lite devices for the living room and bedroom and have them working as wireless bridges. 

I have the main Tivo Roamio hooked up in my living room along with a PS4 and other various components. The PS4 gets 20-25 Mbps download and 5 Mbps upload speeds on my 35/5 internet connection. 

In my bedroom I have a Roku 3 hooked up to the bridge and it works well. Watching my router's traffic analyzer, it sees the Roku jump up and down from 20 Mbps when streaming. I never get any buffering on this. The MikroTiks are both Wireless N and 100 Mbps switches. Which is plenty of speed for my internal networking and faster than my internet connection for connecting to external sources.

I just installed my TiVo Mini in my bedroom yesterday and got it all synced up. It sees the living room tivo and shows me a listing of all my recorded shows and I can change the channels on my Live TV. But the connection is always very choppy and regularly errors out that my connection is no good. When watching the traffic on my network, I will see the Roamio and Mini bounce back and forth 20-200 kbps for a second or two. Why are these devices not utilizing more of the bandwidth. My lowest point is the 100 Mbps introduced by the switches of the hAP Lites. All other wireless devices are Wireless N or AC, so the wireless network should be operating at around 1.3 Gbps since I have eliminated all Wireless B and G devices.

I now know the Mini says it needs to be hardwired, but as far as it's concerned it is hardwired. And my other devices on this bridge have no issues working with the external internet connection. I do not have coaxial running in my bedroom so MoCa is not an option and I'd prefer to not run ethernet cables all over my house as we are getting ready to build a new house, and I have already worked out with the contractor that I will get a weekend to run Cat 6 cable throughout the house, so in the next year my Mini will be hardwired.

Any ideas if I am able to make this current setup work? The Mini has no problem connecting to TiVo services and testing it's network connection always passes.

Thanks!
Todd


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## fcfc2 (Feb 19, 2015)

Hi,
I tried to look at the specs for those MikroTik hAP Lite devices and I am confused as to which model you have. One of the least expensive is 2.4GHz only is that what you have or do you have one of the more expensive AC versions. 
Also in either case, what band are these using to connect to your Asus router?


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## Todd17 (Mar 16, 2017)

So in the Living Room I have the RB941-2nD and in the bedroom I have the RB941-2nD-TC. So I do not have the AC version and must just be the 2.4 GHz versions and probably don't hit the max of wireless N speeds, but should still be fast enough for this I would think. My ASUS router is the RT-AC56R which is just the retail version of the RT-AC56U. What exactly do you mean by which band are they connecting with? I can look at this when I get home in an hour if I know what exactly to look for.


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## fcfc2 (Feb 19, 2015)

Todd17 said:


> So in the Living Room I have the RB941-2nD and in the bedroom I have the RB941-2nD-TC. So I do not have the AC version and must just be the 2.4 GHz versions and probably don't hit the max of wireless N speeds,* but should still be fast enough for this I would think.*


To take advantage of the 5GHz AC router's much higher potential throughput, you would probably need dual band devices, hopefully AC rated. 
Since your devices only use the 2.4GHz band, they are forced to use this lower potential speed band. There are issues using this band, because there are simply too many devices that operate in that band and therefore cause congestion/interference and there are only 3 non-overlapping channels available, 1,6, and 11. 
In order for a mini to run live TV signal steadily, it must be capable of recieving up to 20Mbps steadily and consistently with no studder in the signal at all. Any irregularity in the signal and you will see problems in the picture. This is common and many streaming devices, which actually use much less bandwidth, also "buffer" a portion of the video to compensate for this. The mini is receiving a "live" signal, no buffering involved, so it is much more sensitive than steaming services.
Here are some tools which can be used to help "see" what your wireless environment looks like and may help you select a wireless channel which works better, but on the 2.4GHz band, it is hard to do. Further, these softwares only show "traditional" wireless sources, there are others in the 2.4GHz band which don't show up. I had a microwave oven which would take down my wireless every time I used it.
Free version of inSSider.
inSSIDer

For windows XIRRUS WI-FI INSPECTOR-(Just make up a company name)
Wi-Fi Inspector | Xirrus

For android use "WiFi analyzer", a free app.
For MACS
inSSIDer Alternatives for Mac OS X - AlternativeTo.net

Here is a good place to get a better understanding of actually setting up and operating a dual band network.
Designing a Dual-Band Wireless Network


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

Todd17 said:


> I have the main Tivo Roamio hooked up in my living room along with a PS4 and other various components.
> Thanks!
> Todd


Hi Todd. Please verify that your Roamio is connected with Ethernet to your router. Thanks.

I use the free version of inSSIDer. It's great.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

Todd17 said:


> So in my current setup, I have an ASUS AC router in the middle of the house with my desktop. On one end of the house is my living room and the other end of the house is my bedroom. This is a single story ranch house so it's a decent distance between each of these rooms and the router. I have purchased and setup 2 MikroTik hAP Lite devices for the living room and bedroom and have them working as wireless bridges.



Internet service type? (cable, DSL?)
Internet Provider?
Modem and router model numbers? XXX and *RT-AC56R*
Roamio model? (base 4-tuner, or 6-tuner Plus or Pro?)
TV signal source? (OTA antenna or cable TV?)
# of cable connections in router location? Connected to?
# of cable connections in Living Room? Connected to?
# of cable connections in Bedroom? *Zero.*
Cable connection in any room near Bedroom?

Depending on the answers to the above, one possibility is to ensure that the Roamio has a wired networking connection, via MoCA, and, if possible, using a MoCA connection to locate an access point closer to the bedroom so that you can leverage the greater bandwidth of a 5GHz AC wireless connection (which doesn't have the range of the 2.4 GHZ band). Also, Powerline is a working alternative for some.


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