# Recommendation for Wireless N Adapter



## GatorDaveS (Mar 30, 2012)

Sorry if this is a re-post, but I couldn't find anything that was within a year old. I need a wireless adapter for my TiVo Premiere. Years ago with my Series 2 the TiVo adapter was much better than the netgear I was also using. Is it still better to use the TiVo branded Wireless N adapter than other solutions on the market? Price independent, does anyone have experience with an adapter that provides fast streaming? Thank you!


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## Jackamus (Sep 20, 2010)

I had a TiVo wireless N adapter. It was horrible. Go with hardwire. It is well worth it!!


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## GatorDaveS (Mar 30, 2012)

Jackamus said:


> I had a TiVo wireless N adapter. It was horrible. Go with hardwire. It is well worth it!!


I have a living room and a family room, it would be very difficult to have both hardwired. Any other thoughts?


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## Jackamus (Sep 20, 2010)

I have all my rooms hard wired. I use a router switch. If that is not an option, then the TiVo Wireless N device is your best device to go with. Just do not plan on streaming TV shows!


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## sharkster (Jul 3, 2004)

I have two of the Tivo branded N wireless adapters and they have worked well. 

Of course, when I was purchasing my Premieres and decided to go on my wireless network (instead of having them wired together as my old S2 boxes were), the guy on the phone, at Tivo, told me that I simply HAD to use the Tivo branded ones. I had an idea that it was probably b.s., but he gave me a deal for 2 of them that saved me $120.


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## sharkster (Jul 3, 2004)

Forgot to say - if you are thinking about the Tivo brand N adapter, look on the sale page as they have the refurbed ones for $30 LESS.


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## cherry ghost (Sep 13, 2005)

A wireless bridge will work as well if not better than a TiVo N and will probably be cheaper. Streaming works fine for me with a wireless bridge.


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## Beryl (Feb 22, 2009)

GatorDaveS said:


> I have a living room and a family room, it would be very difficult to have both hardwired. Any other thoughts?


Try Powerline

I use Netgear and specifically got this  some time ago because I didn't want to sacrifice the wall plug. It is quick easy to set up and expand. I've added a couple more Powerline plugs (and switches) for rooms and now have powerline in a living room, office, and bedroom. I anticipate adding more for my exercise room, other bedrooms, and basement.

There are others.

Unless the device is actually portable, it is smarter to avoid wireless, IMO.


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## Brighton Line (Mar 15, 2006)

Tivo N adapter is a Bridge, it plugs into the Ethernet port on the Tivo.
Try MOCA, Multimedia of Coax, that's what I've done, works great. 
Just search on Ebay for MOCA to see the kits out there.
There are some coax setups it won't work on, just do your homework.


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

Jackamus said:


> I have all my rooms hard wired. I use a router switch. If that is not an option, then the TiVo Wireless N device is your best device to go with. Just do not plan on streaming TV shows!


The TiVo branded adapter has worked great for me. I have no problem streaming content. It really depends on how good your router is and what type of interference issues you have (assuming you get good signal quality).


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

GatorDaveS said:


> Sorry if this is a re-post, but I couldn't find anything that was within a year old. I need a wireless adapter for my TiVo Premiere. Years ago with my Series 2 the TiVo adapter was much better than the netgear I was also using. Is it still better to use the TiVo branded Wireless N adapter than other solutions on the market? Price independent, does anyone have experience with an adapter that provides fast streaming? Thank you!


As Brighton Line points out, the TiVo wireless N adapter does not use the USB port the way the G adapter did, it uses the Ethernet jack, which means that unlike the G adapter, which had a built in microprocessor to do some of the work that would otherwise fall to the TiVo's CPU, the TiVo itself will be doing the same work as if you had CAT5 running from the Premiere to an RJ-45 jack on your router.


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## Chris Gerhard (Apr 27, 2002)

I have been using the TiVo Wireless-G adapters with great success the last couple of years. Before that, I used a Linksys WGA600N ethernet to wireless adapter and it worked flawlessly for TiVo and everything else I have used it with.


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## compnurd (Oct 6, 2011)

rainwater said:


> The TiVo branded adapter has worked great for me. I have no problem streaming content. It really depends on how good your router is and what type of interference issues you have (assuming you get good signal quality).


Yes you need to play with the channels. For me Channel 11 has great signal, but the throughput sucks. Switch it to 3 and signal drop slightly but bandwidth maxes out


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

rainwater said:


> The TiVo branded adapter has worked great for me. ...


The G or the N?


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## fyodor (Sep 19, 2006)

GatorDaveS said:


> Sorry if this is a re-post, but I couldn't find anything that was within a year old. I need a wireless adapter for my TiVo Premiere. Years ago with my Series 2 the TiVo adapter was much better than the netgear I was also using. Is it still better to use the TiVo branded Wireless N adapter than other solutions on the market? Price independent, does anyone have experience with an adapter that provides fast streaming? Thank you!


Use MoCA, which provides stable and fast speeds over your existing coaxial wiring. If you search for MoCA on the forums you'll see that people's experiences have been almost universally positive.

This kit, which is basically plug and play, is only $79.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NETGEAR-MCA...299?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item45fcc6c873


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## ThAbtO (Apr 6, 2000)

The Tivo wireless G or N adapter are the only ones supported on the Premiere.

you can look on amazon.com


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## Jackamus (Sep 20, 2010)

rainwater said:


> The TiVo branded adapter has worked great for me. I have no problem streaming content. It really depends on how good your router is and what type of interference issues you have (assuming you get good signal quality).


I meant to say using multi-room viewing.


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## sharkster (Jul 3, 2004)

Jackamus said:


> I have all my rooms hard wired. I use a router switch. If that is not an option, then the TiVo Wireless N device is your best device to go with. Just do not plan on streaming TV shows!


When I first got my new Premieres hooked up (and Tivo was still going through a lot of updating I think) I thought the streaming, only when streaming HD shows, was a little wonky. But it seems to have worked itself out and now, still using the Tivo N wireless adapters, I am experiencing seamless streaming.


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## sharkster (Jul 3, 2004)

unitron said:


> The G or the N?


Check if your particular router is an 'N' and, if so, get the N adapter.

It's faster than G. That's about all I know about that.


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

Jackamus said:


> I meant to say using multi-room viewing.


MRV and MRS works great for me using the TiVo branded adapter. I never have to wait to load or stream.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

Yup, just get a regular WiFi router that works as a bridge.. some do out of the box (e.g. two Buffalo ones), some do when you convert them to ddwrt.

That way is (1) cheaper, and (2) you can plug 4 (sometimes 5, using the 'WAN' port if it's in bridge mode) items into it.


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## Chris Gerhard (Apr 27, 2002)

ThAbtO said:


> The Tivo wireless G or N adapter are the only ones supported on the Premiere.
> 
> you can look on amazon.com


I don't know what you mean by that but any ethernet to wireless adapter that works with the router being used should work with the TiVo Premiere, no TiVo Premiere support is required. The Linksys WGA600N Dual Band Wireless-N adapter I use has worked with every ethernet port I have plugged it into. Computers, Blu-ray players, TiVos, HD DVD players, no matter, all it needs is a working ethernet port that meets the required specifications.


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## catfan64 (Mar 7, 2002)

fyodor said:


> Use MoCA, which provides stable and fast speeds over your existing coaxial wiring. If you search for MoCA on the forums you'll see that people's experiences have been almost universally positive.
> 
> This kit, which is basically plug and play, is only $79.
> 
> http://www.ebay.com/itm/NETGEAR-MCA...299?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item45fcc6c873


I have 2 Tivo Premieres. If I got this kit, could I just hook up 1 of the adapters at each Tivo, and use that to transfer recordings between the 2 Tivos, and still use my Tivo wireless G adapters, so each Tivo can get guide info over my wireless network? Or would I have to get a third Netgear MoCA adapter, to hook up to my wirless router, or cable modem?


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## fyodor (Sep 19, 2006)

catfan64 said:


> I have 2 Tivo Premieres. If I got this kit, could I just hook up 1 of the adapters at each Tivo, and use that to transfer recordings between the 2 Tivos, and still use my Tivo wireless G adapters, so each Tivo can get guide info over my wireless network? Or would I have to get a third Netgear MoCA adapter, to hook up to my wirless router, or cable modem?


Sorry-I didn't realize that neither device was connected to your router. I don't think that you can use the wireless 
g adapter and the Ethernet port (which would connect to the MoCA bridge) at the same time, but I can't say for sure.

If you're comfortable with basic router configuration you can buy an ActionTec MI424WR for about $25-30 on ebay and use it as a bridge for the third node.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1145636


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## ThAbtO (Apr 6, 2000)

catfan64 said:


> I have 2 Tivo Premieres. If I got this kit, could I just hook up 1 of the adapters at each Tivo, and use that to transfer recordings between the 2 Tivos, and still use my Tivo wireless G adapters, so each Tivo can get guide info over my wireless network? Or would I have to get a third Netgear MoCA adapter, to hook up to my wirless router, or cable modem?


You can only have 1 network connection at a time, which can get guide data, transfers etc. and Tivo can only transfer to other Tivo or PCs connected to the same router.

If you get slow wireless connections, there may be interference on the wireless channel and you can try another channel, you can also try re-positioning the adapter for better signal if its weak.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

catfan64 said:


> I have 2 Tivo Premieres. If I got this kit, could I just hook up 1 of the adapters at each Tivo, and use that to transfer recordings between the 2 Tivos, and still use my Tivo wireless G adapters, so each Tivo can get guide info over my wireless network? Or would I have to get a third Netgear MoCA adapter, to hook up to my wirless router, or cable modem?


You might be able to have an ad hoc network between 2 TiVos without a router involved.

BUT

You'd have to keep going into the networking sub-menu and changing between the N and the G, since it will only use one at the time, judging by my experiments with an S2 DT (with Ethernet port) and an S3.

HOWEVER,

Since the Premiere pretty much has to be connected to the internet every second, it's all academic. Whatever the Premieres use to talk to the router is what they'll have to use to talk to each other.

You can use an N adapter on each Premiere and then use a 3rd, acting as a wireless bridge, plugged into one of the wired ports on your router, which will mean N speed between the Premieres and the router.

You might be able to use some other brand N wireless bridge as well, but I don't know that for sure, and have no idea which brands and models.

Of course you could also look into a router that does both G and N, on two different frequencies, it might be cheaper and your other devices can still talk G to it.

Gots to do your homework.


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## Jackamus (Sep 20, 2010)

My wireless adapter died today. It's okay. I hated that thing. I have every box hardwired and a much better experience.


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## parson_weems (Apr 8, 2012)

I just got the TiVo Wireless N Adapter. Very slow. Tried several resets; also tried running my laptop off of it (since it is a bridge). Same results; about 50x slower than the built-in wireless in my laptop. I emailed TiVo support and this was part of their response:

"The first thing we want to check is if the adapter is connecting at 5 GHz (N Speed) or 2.4 GHz (G Speed)."

If they don't understand the difference between 802.11 protocols and radio frequency ranges, I don't have a lot of confidence that they'll be able to fix my adapter.

I'm going to follow the advice of others here and just buy a bridge.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

parson_weems said:


> I just got the TiVo Wireless N Adapter. Very slow. Tried several resets; also tried running my laptop off of it (since it is a bridge). Same results; about 50x slower than the built-in wireless in my laptop. I emailed TiVo support and this was part of their response:
> 
> "The first thing we want to check is if the adapter is connecting at 5 GHz (N Speed) or 2.4 GHz (G Speed)."
> 
> ...


Just out of curiousity, did you check to see if it was using 5GHz or 2.4?

Maybe TiVo set those things up to do N on 5 and G on 2.4 instead of something more intelligent and flexible.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

With the cost of the TiVo N adapter being so expensive, it makes more sense to just buy a wireless Bridge. You can get one for as much or even less than the TiVo wireless N adapter. Also allowing you to connect multiple devices to it. And it seems achieve faster speeds as well.


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## parson_weems (Apr 8, 2012)

My router is an N router, but operates in the 2.4 GHz spectrum (as do about 80% of N routers on the market right now). 2.4 GHz actually provides longer range. There are lots of articles comparing the two, but the bottom line is, if you claim to support N, you have to support it over 2.4 GHz. It's part of the IEEE standard.


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