# Wireless-N for Tivo S3



## rmason92066 (Mar 9, 2007)

Anybody, please let me know if this question has been asked.

Is Tivo looking at going Wireless-N in the future? I have a wireless-N router (works fine with wireless-g adapter in Tivo) and was just curious as to a timeframe.


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## byrne (Dec 24, 2006)

What difference does it make if there is no TivoToGo? 

I still use 802.11b and wouldn't even consider upgrading unless there TTG was enabled.


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## TydalForce (Feb 9, 2006)

There's no 802.11n wireless adapter at this point. You could always get a Wireless Bridge (sometimes called "Gaming adapter") and hook it up to the S3's Ethernet port if you really wanted one.


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## rmason92066 (Mar 9, 2007)

I appreciate the quick response. Guess I'll keep watching for updates.


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## Gregor (Feb 18, 2002)

byrne said:


> What difference does it make if there is no TivoToGo?
> 
> I still use 802.11b and wouldn't even consider upgrading unless there TTG was enabled.


It makes a huge difference for downloaded content like that available from Amazon.


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## Amnesia (Jan 30, 2005)

Gregor said:


> It makes a huge difference for downloaded content like that available from Amazon.


How so? 802.11b goes at, what? 11MB? That's faster than the vast majority of broadband connections. What good would it be to have your TiVo talk to your router at speeds faster than that if your router is limited in how fast it communicates with the Internet?


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## byrne (Dec 24, 2006)

eric_mcgovern said:


> That is the theorictal limit of 802.11b, the real world limit of 802.11b is between 2 and 5, which plenty of home connections can max out now. Keep in mind that is total bandwith, so if anything else is wireless and is using any of that bandwith it will drop.


The original poster was talking about upgrading from 802.11g which theoretically supports up to 54 Mbps.. Typical residential high speed connections are 6Mbps or 8Mbps.

N does have a better range, so if that's what one is after it could be good to have.

As far as me, I'm completely content with my B connection. I doubt I will do anything with the amazon unbox deal, as I am not at all impressed with any part of it. An 11Mbps connection is more than enough to download software updates while I'm sleeping, and to communicate with the Tivo any Online Scheduling requests.


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## Gregor (Feb 18, 2002)

eric_mcgovern said:


> That is the theorictal limit of 802.11b, the real world limit of 802.11b is between 2 and 5, which plenty of home connections can max out now. Keep in mind that is total bandwith, so if anything else is wireless and is using any of that bandwith it will drop.


+1

If you live in a high-density area, ie apartments, condos, etc, the bandwidth interference can be awful due to having multiple wireless networks in the area.


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## Amnesia (Jan 30, 2005)

Gregor said:


> If you live in a high-density area, ie apartments, condos, etc, the bandwidth interference can be awful due to having multiple wireless networks in the area.


Still, let's say you get 5MB from b. How fast is your broadband connection?


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## Gregor (Feb 18, 2002)

Amnesia said:


> Still, let's say you get 5MB from b. How fast is your broadband connection?


I have an 8mb connection.

But...down to my laptop when I was running 802.11b? Never got more than 1 MB speed.

Even with a G connection now, there's just too much interference to get a lot of speed, and it's rarely over 5 MB (tonite it's 4.7)


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Gregor said:


> I have an 8mb connection.
> 
> But...down to my laptop when I was running 802.11b? Never got more than 1 MB speed.
> 
> Even with a G connection now, there's just too much interference to get a lot of speed, and it's rarely over 5 MB (tonite it's 4.7)


You should find out what channels are in use and change your wireless to a channel not being used or that has less usage. My wireless G network hits the max most of time. and when using the Internet there is no difference between my laptop wireless connection and the wired connection on my PC. They both hit 26mbs with the Comcast powerboost and then when that's done it drops to 8.8mbs which is the max speed I have without powerboost. I have several wirelss networks near me but most of them are on channel six so my two access points use channel one and channel 11.


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## rdrrepair (Nov 24, 2006)

I am sure this has been stated before... and apologies to anyone who might tell me I stated the obvious - If his house allows it, wouldn't it be better to just run an ethernet cable back to the wireless router? How about adding a repeater? I've also seen larger antennas for the router at Office Max that claims to increase speeds. 

What is the limits to adding an ethernet cable? 100'-1000'... How many repeaters? 

Wouldn't his speeds increase? I noticed when my Linksys Wireless-G w/ TiVo adapter was passive I had 80%-90% and when downloading an Unbox TV show it went down to 55%-65%.

I know this should probably be asked in the "TiVo Home Media Features & TiVoToGo" forum but the OP might be looking at this thinking he has limited options like a Wireless-N.


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## rdrrepair (Nov 24, 2006)

Additional info, food for thought:

I just did a MRV transfer from 1 TiVo downstairs at 75% to another TiVo at 85% and at the *same time* I did a Unbox download to the one at 85%. The Unbox was at 1 minute while the MRV was at 14 minutes. This indicates a slowdown at the internet and not at the wireless.


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## stevetd (Sep 23, 2006)

Has a wireless-n standard been set yet? Everything I've read so far says it hasn't.


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## PressureDrop (Sep 20, 2004)

byrne said:


> What difference does it make if there is no TivoToGo?
> 
> I still use 802.11b and wouldn't even consider upgrading unless there TTG was enabled.





Amnesia said:


> How so? 802.11b goes at, what? 11MB? That's faster than the vast majority of broadband connections. What good would it be to have your TiVo talk to your router at speeds faster than that if your router is limited in how fast it communicates with the Internet?


Photos, Music, Transfers (between our two Series 2 boxes), and system updates and program guides are all VERY noticeably faster on G versus B (what I used to have).

I tested it out for kicks with the exact same everything except different (identical) boxes and one on a B adapter and the other on a G adapter. The G setup finished in less than 1/3 the time of the B setup and the place it showed the most was channel guide downloading.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

stevetd said:


> Has a wireless-n standard been set yet? Everything I've read so far says it hasn't.


No not yet. They say it probably won't be ratified by the IEEE until 2008. But they do have the final specs now and only expect minor changes, if any. All the exisiting Pre-N devices are supposed to be able to be upgraded to the final spec if what I read was true.


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## drew00001 (Jan 13, 2007)

Gregor said:


> I have an 8mb connection.
> 
> But...down to my laptop when I was running 802.11b? Never got more than 1 MB speed.
> 
> Even with a G connection now, there's just too much interference to get a lot of speed, and it's rarely over 5 MB (tonite it's 4.7)


For comparison only, I too have a 8mb connection but have an IBM Thinkpad with wireless G, which averages about 3.5mb.


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## rmason92066 (Mar 9, 2007)

Lots of input. Appreciated. As for my broadband connection, I am not worried about that. I am only concerned about my internal network. I realize that it doesn't really matter if you have lightning speed internally if you only have 1,2, 8Mbps, etc out to the internet. As far as running cable, I am waiting to do this when I actually do some more major remodels in my house. At that time I will cable the house. In the meantime, I am just trying to get the best signal I can via wireless. Big house, lots of walls, electrical to interfere. So far, the G-adapters in the Tivo's are working very well with the N-router. Again, thanks to everyone for the input. As for the "N" specs to be finalized, it has not been done yet, but all N devices will be upgradeable from what I have been reading.


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## jacksonian (Nov 3, 2003)

I've been using a Belkin Pre-N wireless router with my RoadRunner 5mb connection for over a year now. I got a significant boost in range and speed when I switched from a b/g router to the N.


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## aaronw (Apr 13, 2001)

For all those getting lots of interference on 802.11 B/G, I recommend trying out 802.11 A. My laptop supported it, so I picked up an A/B/G router. when I had the laptop on B/G it would drop constantly, every hour. It didn't do so at work. Now that I have A at home, it's rock solid.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

You can also pick what channels your wireless G network uses. Channels 1, 6, and 11 don't overlap other channels. Many of the wireless devices will default to channel 6 leaving 1 and 11 wide open. Around here there are several wireless networks but they are using channel six. I set my two access points to channel 1 and 11 and have no interference problems because of that. I just used a free program called Network Stumbler on my laptop to find all the local wireless networks and the channels they are using.
The exact same situation applied at my girlfriends when I set up her wireless network for her Series 2 TiVos I gave her. All the wireless networks in her area are using channel 6 and I believe one was on channel 1. So I set her one wireless access point on channel 11 and she has zero problems with interference.


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## slimoli (Jul 30, 2005)

I am using channel 4 because I live in a condo with many people using 1,6 and 11. Is there any downside if we don't use 1,6 or 11?

Thanks

Sergio


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## Higuchem (Jan 3, 2006)

To your question no nothing has come out but when I do I will be getting two for my two tivos. 

A good reason to get a wireless N card for our Tivo is that if you already have a N wireless system (aka Pre-n) or plan of getting a wireless-N system your network has to go all N as well. What I mean by that for example is that if you have a wireless N router and a laptop with a wireless G card in it then the router will slow down to G speed (5x decrease in speed). To keep your N speed your wireless card like the one we have for our Tivo it needs to be N to prevent the router to go to G speed (which is about 54mb) For myself at this time I would hook up my Tivo S3 by ethernet to my router until I can get a N-wireless card for it to ensure it will not slow down my network from n to g.


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## aaronw (Apr 13, 2001)

Simoli, the reason that 1,6, and 11 are preferred is that they're 'non-overlapping'. The frequencies for 2-5, 7-10 are sufficiently close so that you're going to get some bleed over from people on 6 if you're using 4. Whatever works for you is the right answer.

http://www.quepublishing.com/articles/article.asp?p=413459&rl=1

and

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/wireless/ps430/prod_technical_reference09186a00802846a2.html


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## cokyq (Jan 21, 2007)

What good will N be if most households Internet connection is below 11Mbits! It will speed internal network transfers, but as far as internet downloads, unless you have a T1, you are not going to see much benefit!


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

cokyq said:


> What good will N be if most households Internet connection is below 11Mbits! It will speed internal network transfers, but as far as internet downloads, unless you have a T1, you are not going to see much benefit!


Why would to want a T1? Most internet connection download speeds are much faster than a T1. I had a 5mbs down and 1mbs up 10 years ago. A T1 is only 1.5mbs in each direction. Faster than the majority of most upload speeds, but much slower than download speeds. My COmcast connection with powerboost hits 26mbs for the first 40MB that is downloaded. After the Powerboost it drops to 8.8 mbs.

Here are some line speeds for clarification.
DS0 - 64 kilobits per second 
ISDN - 128 kilobits per second 
T-1 - 1.544 megabits per second 
T-3 - 43.232 megabits per second 
OC-3 - 155 megabits per second
OC-12 - 622 megabits per second 
OC-48 - 2.5 gigabits per seconds 
OC-192 - 9.6 gigabits per second


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## rsilvers (Dec 3, 2007)

byrne said:


> The original poster was talking about upgrading from 802.11g which theoretically supports up to 54 Mbps.. Typical residential high speed connections are 6Mbps or 8Mbps.


I have FIOS. When my laptop is plugged into the Verizon gateway, I get 26mbps down. When I use 802.11G, I get 8mbps down. In other words, Wireless-G is much slower than using a cable, even when going to the internet. My PC serves to my Tivo and I would benefit from a cable or Wireless-N.

Don't let anyone tell you that Wireless-N has no speed advantage over G because G is already faster than the internet. That is simply not true but you need to test it to be convinced as the marketing people are misrepresenting speeds.

And on my home network, 1000-T gives me almost 100mbps whereas 100-T gives me about 30mbps. Again, they lie. Tests must be done rather than quote their BS claims.


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## Interpol (Nov 13, 2007)

And you're answering a 9 month old thread on wireless because...?


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

rsilvers said:


> I have FIOS. When my laptop is plugged into the Verizon gateway, I get 26mbps down. When I use 802.11G, I get 8mbps down. In other words, Wireless-G is much slower than using a cable, even when going to the internet. My PC serves to my Tivo and I would benefit from a cable or Wireless-N.
> 
> Don't let anyone tell you that Wireless-N has no speed advantage over G because G is already faster than the internet. That is simply not true but you need to test it to be convinced as the marketing people are misrepresenting speeds.
> 
> And on my home network, 1000-T gives me almost 100mbps whereas 100-T gives me about 30mbps. Again, they lie. Tests must be done rather than quote their BS claims.


When I connect to FIOS from my Gigabit wired network I get 30mbs down(I can transfer between machines at several hundred mbs)If I switch to 100mbs I will still get 30mbs down.. When I connect with my laptop with Wireless G I still get 30 mbs down from my FIOS internet connection. I can still max it out, but I also have a wireless router and an access point so I have full strength signal where ever my laptop is located. You must not have a full strength signal from your wireless for the speed to be so slow.


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## rsilvers (Dec 3, 2007)

Because I used the search function rather than open a new thread.

Perhaps my wireless is slow because of the card in the laptop. It was only 5 feet away so I assume the signal was full. I also tried it with the Verizon tech's laptop and it was the same slower speed.


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## rsilvers (Dec 3, 2007)

I just did some testing....

My wireless-G setup is in a large house, so I may not be getting full speed...

When I transfer from my PC (Pentium D, 3.2 Ghz, 4 GB ram) a show that Tivo Desktop Plus is transcoding on the fly, both CPU meters are pegged at 100&#37; and a wired connection and wireless are the same speed. Basically about 32 minutes to transfer a 42 minute episode of Stargate Atlantis which is 358 MB on disk. If I had a faster CPU, maybe wired would run faster than wireless-G. Right now it is about 1.5 mbps (including transcoding).

With a show that was originally recorded on the Tivo, an 830 MB, 30 minute Futurama, it took about 10 minutes with wired and 13 minutes with wireless-G. So about 30% difference. I am now happy to stay with wireless-G as I mostly want to transfer downloaded shows. This is about 11mbps wired and about 8.5 mbps wireless-G. So perhaps if I had higher wireless signal strength there would be no difference.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

The transfer rate to/from the TiVo is limited by the TiVo. I get the same speeds for that whether I'm wireed or wireless. the fastest I've seen was around 22mbs witha Series 3. It was in standby with both tuners on an empty channel. under normal conditions i'll see around 14 mbs and even slower with the TiVoHD.


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## prisk (Nov 19, 2006)

So, has anybody actually _tried _hooking up a wireless N USB adapter to their TiVo S3 to see if it works? As I recall, it wasn't that long ago that wireless B was the standard and we were all trying to see if "G" would work. Even though there were no "supported" wireless G adapters, several people tried out various ones and posted on whether they worked. Now, wirelss G is the suported standard (although I imagine many people out there are using something other than the official TiVo adapter with success) and it is time to see if N will work.


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## JakiChan (Sep 20, 2006)

Wireless throughput can be affected by many things. One thing to realize is that if there are any 802.11b-only radios in range if your 802.11g network then everything will run at 802.11b speeds. Also 2.4Ghz is very crowded these days. That can slows speeds as well.

Unless the 802.11n radio is dual band (802.11n can run on the 2.4Ghz bandwidth of b/g or the 5Ghz bandwidth of 802.11a) and can run on 5Ghz then it probably won't help if you have a lot of interference.


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## bizzy (Jan 20, 2004)

JakiChan said:


> One thing to realize is that if there are any 802.11b-only radios in range if your 802.11g network then everything will run at 802.11b speeds. .


false.


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## ciper (Nov 4, 2004)

JakiChan said:


> One thing to realize is that if there are any 802.11b-only radios in range if your 802.11g network then everything will run at 802.11b speeds.


You are almost right,
- Setting the network to G only mode will result in higher speeds 
- Interferance from other APs, either 802.11g or 802.11b will interfere with your current network if on a close enough frequency and reduce speed.


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## JakiChan (Sep 20, 2006)

bizzy said:


> false


Uhm, ok.

G gets is speed from using OFDM (like 802.11a), but OFDM won't work with 802.11b. When a g radio detects a b radio it has a couple of options: 802.11g requires support for CCK. Once that happens you're basically doing 802.11b. There are some optional modes - like CCK-OFDM - that allows better performance for g clients while still interoperating with b clients - but it's still not as fast as pure OFDM. CCK has a preamble of 72 microseconds, OFDM has a preamble of 16 microseconds so just transmitting the header using CCK (which is what CCK-OFDM does) clearly impacts performance. And CCK-OFDM is optional - no one has to support it (but most do).



ciper said:


> Interferance from other APs, either 802.11g or 802.11b will interfere with your current network if on a close enough frequency and reduce speed.


Exactly. However, there are only 3 channels for 802.11b/g in the US, never mind your bluetooth devices, your xbox 360 controller, your cordless phone, and your microwave.

From our front conference room at work, in downtown SF, I detected 34 other b/g APs and we were seeing miserable performance. We switched to 5Ghz (couldn't find a single 5Ghz AP in range of our space) and everything works great. Not only is 5Ghz less polluted but it offers a lot more channels - and since 802.11n uses MIMO the chances of finding 2 out of 3 channels not in use are unlikely unless you live out in the middle of nowhere. But on 5Ghz n screams.


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## bareyb (Dec 1, 2000)

TydalForce said:


> There's no 802.11n wireless adapter at this point. You could always get a Wireless Bridge (sometimes called "Gaming adapter") and hook it up to the S3's Ethernet port if you really wanted one.


*I just did that today and my speeds went through the ROOF! Unbelievable. On par with my hardwired network. :up:*

EXAMPLE:

MRV transfer of 30 minute HD show with wireless G = 50 minutes
MRV transfer of 30 minute HD show with wireless N (connected to S3 ethernet ports) = 15 minutes!!!

Color me thrilled. Now I can finally watch transferring shows in real time. In fact, the N router is so fast, that it's actually twice as fast as real time so you don't even have to let it get ahead before starting to watch it. It downloads so fast it even outruns commercials.


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

bareyb said:


> *I just did that today and my speeds went through the ROOF! Unbelievable. On par with my hardwired network. :up:*
> 
> EXAMPLE:
> 
> ...


 Could you provide the model details of the 802.11n router and 802.11n wireless ethernet adapter you are using? I've also been looking to get my wireless speeds up to the equivalent of wired mode as 802.11g doesn't cut it.
Thanks.


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## bareyb (Dec 1, 2000)

moyekj said:


> Could you provide the model details of the 802.11n router and 802.11n wireless ethernet adapter you are using? I've also been looking to get my wireless speeds up to the equivalent of wired mode as 802.11g doesn't cut it.
> Thanks.


My setup:

One Apple Airport Express in my home office wired to my Cable Modem. Another Apple Airport Express in my entertainment rack in the living room. The two Airports communicate together wirelessly (WDS) at "N" speeds. The router in the living room is directly connected (via ethernet cable) to the ethernet ports on my two Series 3 TiVo's.

It's that simple. Without the wireless G adapters in the equation, my network can now operate at "N" speeds (both routers are connected wirelessly so no having to crawl under the house to run a cable). 

As I said, it is faster than you need. You can start watching transferred shows immediately and even skip commercials and never catch up to "live" or have to wait for more of the program to be transferred. A common occurrence I faced when trying to transfer shows using the TiVo G adapters. MRV was almost useless to me before the upgrade to "N" because I used to have to wait until the show was almost completely downloaded before beginning to watch it... Now I can see me using it all the time. Comes in very handy when the kids are using "TiVo 2" and there's a show on there I want to watch. Now I can just transfer the show and watch it immediately. I really thought all the talk about "N" was just a bunch of hype. It's not. For MRV purposes, it is just as fast as a hard wired network. :up:


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

bareyb said:


> My setup:
> 
> One Apple Airport Express in my home office wired to my Cable Modem. Another Apple Airport Express in my entertainment rack in the living room. The two Airports communicate together wirelessly (WDS) at "N" speeds. The router in the living room is directly connected (via ethernet cable) to the ethernet ports on my two Series 3 TiVo's.
> 
> ...


 OK great, thanks for the details. Another question if you please. So when you WDS bridge the 2 airport extremes is WPA encryption still supported? I ask because when looking at other routers (such as Trendnet 802.11n draft 2.0 routers) there were restrictions such as:
* WPA encryption cannot be used in WDS bridge mode
* WDS bridging only supported in "G" mode when using WEP encryption.
* In order to support WDS bridging in "N" mode no encryption can be used.
Hopefully the Airport Extreme does not have these limitations?
Thanks again.


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## bareyb (Dec 1, 2000)

moyekj said:


> OK great, thanks for the details. Another question if you please. So when you WDS bridge the 2 airport extremes is WPA encryption still supported? I ask because when looking at other routers (such as Trendnet 802.11n draft 2.0 routers) there were restrictions such as:
> * WPA encryption cannot be used in WDS bridge mode
> * WDS bridging only supported in "G" mode when using WEP encryption.
> * In order to support WDS bridging in "N" mode no encryption can be used.
> ...


No such limitations in the Apple router even in WDS "N" mode. Both my Airports are using WPA/WPA2 Wireless security. 

Side Note: If you have two of the same Apple "N" Gigabit Airports the process for bridging them is ridiculously easy. All you do is plug in your second router near your TiVo's and then open up the Apple Airport utility on any computer wirelessly connected to the network. You will see both your routers in the pane on the left. After that you choose each one and select a couple of options:

1. Select one of the Airports as the "base" (the one connected to the internet) and click the box that says "allow this network to be extended". Boom! Done on that one.

2. Select the "other" Airport and select the option in the drop-down menu that says "Extend a Wireless Network". Lastly, select the name of your network in the other drop-down menu below that. Boom! Done on the second one.

Whole process takes about 1 minute to accomplish and it works flawlessly and is smokin' fast. Faster than you can watch and skip commercials. This is a god send for us because my kids both use "TiVo 2" all the time and often I have my own shows on there too. This way, even if they are using the other TIVo I can download a show off of it and begin watching it immediately. I don't even have to let it get ahead to compensate for skipping commercials.

MRV went from being something I'd probably rarely use to being something I will use all the time. Truly a night and day difference. I am very pleased with my purchase. Once I get my money back on the two wireless G adapters I bought (about a hundred bucks for both) I'm only out about $80.00 for the second Airport (Amazon.com has pretty good prices on them).


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

bareyb said:


> No such limitations in the Apple router even in WDS "N" mode. Both my Airports are using WPA/WPA2 Wireless security.
> 
> Side Note: If you have two of the same Apple "N" Gigabit Airports the process for bridging them is ridiculously easy. All you do is plug in your second router near your TiVo's and then open up the Apple Airport utility on any computer wirelessly connected to the network. You will see both your routers in the pane on the left. After that you choose each one and select a couple of options:
> 
> ...


 Great, thanks for all the info... When you performed your MRV tests with this new setup did you have any "G" clients on the network at the time? If it's not too much to ask can you try MRV again with a "G" client on the network to see how much impact that has? I'm wondering if I need to upgrade all my wireless clients from "G" to "N" to see the full benefit of this solution (or be careful to disable "G" clients at the time I do MRV transfers). Really appreciate it.


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## bareyb (Dec 1, 2000)

moyekj said:


> Great, thanks for all the info... When you performed your MRV tests with this new setup did you have any "G" clients on the network at the time? If it's not too much to ask can you try MRV again with a "G" client on the network to see how much impact that has? I'm wondering if I need to upgrade all my wireless clients from "G" to "N" to see the full benefit of this solution (or be careful to disable "G" clients at the time I do MRV transfers). Really appreciate it.


We only have one computer that still uses the "G" protocol and it's the iMac in my daughters room. When it's in "sleep mode" it's off the network which is most of the time so it's not an issue. She's in there right now playing on the Disney website (flash city) so that should be a good test. I'll transfer the same 30 minute High Def show and I'll let you know how it effects the speed. I'll be back in (hopefully) about 15 mins.


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## bareyb (Dec 1, 2000)

moyekj said:


> Great, thanks for all the info... When you performed your MRV tests with this new setup did you have any "G" clients on the network at the time? If it's not too much to ask can you try MRV again with a "G" client on the network to see how much impact that has? I'm wondering if I need to upgrade all my wireless clients from "G" to "N" to see the full benefit of this solution (or be careful to disable "G" clients at the time I do MRV transfers). Really appreciate it.





bareyb said:


> We only have one computer that still uses the "G" protocol and it's the iMac in my daughters room. When it's in "sleep mode" it's off the network which is most of the time so it's not an issue. She's in there right now playing on the Disney website (flash city) so that should be a good test. I'll transfer the same 30 minute High Def show and I'll let you know how it effects the speed. I'll be back in (hopefully) about 15 mins.


Wow. It's already done... It only took 11 minutes this time! It actually downloaded FASTER so obviously having one "G" client doesn't have any adverse effect on speed. In point of fact, not only was there a "G" client on my network, she was actively downloading and playing Flash games the whole time I was downloading.

30 minute High Def show (2.75 Gigs)
Start time: 4:27
End time: 4:38

11 minutes for 2.75 Gigs.


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

bareyb said:


> Wow. It's already done... It only took 11 minutes this time! It actually downloaded FASTER so obviously having one "G" client doesn't have any adverse effect on speed. In point of fact, not only was there a "G" client on my network, she was actively downloading and playing Flash games the whole time I was downloading.
> 
> 30 minute High Def show (2.75 Gigs)
> Start time: 4:27
> ...


 Great, thanks for the experiment. Based on your times above you are getting a rate of 33.33 Mbps (15.00 GB/hour). One tip is if you tune all tuners of your S3s to channels you don't subscribe you should see the rate jump up to as high as 44 Mbps, so this particular show would take about 8 minutes to transfer.


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## bareyb (Dec 1, 2000)

moyekj said:


> Great, thanks for the experiment. Based on your times above you are getting a rate of 33.33 Mbps (15.00 GB/hour). One tip is if you tune all tuners of your S3s to channels you don't subscribe you should see the rate jump up to as high as 44 Mbps, so this particular show would take about 8 minutes to transfer.


My main goal was to simply be able to watch stuff WHILE it's transferring. As long as it could download faster than I could watch it, then I was happy. This surpasses that by a big margin. It does that and even allows me to skip commercial and still never catch up to "live". I'm beyond happy at this point. MRV has gone from a feature that I'd NEVER use to one I'll use all the time now. I hope this helps others who are having the same issues.

If you decide to add another "N" router, please get back and let us know how it works out!


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

bareyb said:


> My main goal was to simply be able to watch stuff WHILE it's transferring. As long as it could download faster than I could watch it, then I was happy. This surpasses that by a big margin. It does that and even allows me to skip commercial and still never catch up to "live". I'm beyond happy at this point. MRV has gone from a feature that I'd NEVER use to one I'll use all the time now. I hope this helps others who are having the same issues.
> 
> If you decide to add another "N" router, please get back and let us know how it works out!


 Most definitely. Now I just have to convince myself it's worth spending about $500 (3x $170) for these puppies to up my MRV speeds from 19 Mbps I'm getting now to around 30 Mbps you seem to be getting.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

moyekj said:


> Great, thanks for the experiment. Based on your times above you are getting a rate of 33.33 Mbps (15.00 GB/hour). One tip is if you tune all tuners of your S3s to channels you don't subscribe you should see the rate jump up to as high as 44 Mbps, so this particular show would take about 8 minutes to transfer.


The fastest I've seen using my gigabit network or G wireless is around 22mbs. And that is with tuning to a vacant channel and putting it in standby.

My PCs on my gigabit network have no problem transfering data at several hundred mbs.


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## bareyb (Dec 1, 2000)

moyekj said:


> Most definitely. Now I just have to convince myself it's worth spending about $500 (3x $170) for these puppies to up my MRV speeds from 19 Mbps I'm getting now to around 30 Mbps you seem to be getting.


I hear you on that one. This stuff can get expensive in a hurry. I went back and forth over getting the second Airport, but I can tell you that the results have left me more than happy I spent the money. My wife wanted to hire "Geek Squad" to setup our wireless network, and they wanted to charge us around $300.00 just for labor, so I figure since I did it myself, I came out ahead.

Are you sure you need three of them? The range on these in "N" mode is pretty phenomenal. Maybe you could get by with only two. That's all I'm using and our house is pretty large. Just a thought...


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

bareyb said:


> Wow. It's already done... It only took 11 minutes this time! It actually downloaded FASTER so obviously having one "G" client doesn't have any adverse effect on speed. In point of fact, not only was there a "G" client on my network, she was actively downloading and playing Flash games the whole time I was downloading.
> 
> 30 minute High Def show (2.75 Gigs)
> Start time: 4:27
> ...


Now I see why you can transfer the show and still watch it. My 30 minute HD shows from FIOS and OTA are between3.5GB and 4GB. Best case it takes around 27 minutes for me to transfer a 30 minute show. And that's with both units being tuned to vacant channels. And it's the same speed when transferring to a PC.
I'm using a bandwidth monitoring program to tell me the speed of the transfer and what the max rate that it hits.


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

aaronwt said:


> The fastest I've seen using my gigabit network or G wireless is around 22mbs. And that is with tuning to a vacant channel and putting it in standby.
> 
> My PCs on my gigabit network have no problem transfering data at several hundred mbs.


 44 Mbps max is for S3->S3 MRV. THD->THD (or THD<->S3) maxes out at half the speed of S3s around 22 Mbps (from several accounts I've heard), and TTG is about half as fast as MRV due to CPU load on the Tivo. So when you say 22 Mbps what exactly are you referring to? S3->S3 MRV or is a THD in the picture?


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

aaronwt said:


> Now I see why you can transfer the show and still watch it. My 30 minute HD shows from FIOS and OTA are between3.5GB and 4GB. Best case it takes around 27 minutes for me to transfer a 30 minute show. And that's with both units being tuned to vacant channels. And it's the same speed when transferring to a PC.
> I'm using a bandwidth monitoring program to tell me the speed of the transfer and what the max rate that it hits.


 Still doesn't change the fact he is getting > 30 Mbps (~14 GB/hour) on a wireless network which is pretty darn good considering most HD recordings are 8GB/hour or less. At those speeds you can watch in real time and all commercials can be skipped without any waiting.


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

bareyb said:


> Are you sure you need three of them? The range on these in "N" mode is pretty phenomenal. Maybe you could get by with only two. That's all I'm using and our house is pretty large. Just a thought...


 It's not a range problem. The problem is I have DVRs in 3 different rooms in the house (I have 3 ReplayTVs in addition to the 2 S3s), and 2 of the rooms are away from where my main router & cable modem reside, hence I need the main router + 2 bridges. My wife & kids still use the ReplayTVs so I have to keep them networked.

Now that I think about it however, I could keep the "G" setup I have now to use with my PCs and ReplayTVs and run a separate "N" network with 2 routers just for the Tivos (and put "G" network on channel 11 & "N" network on separate SSID on channel 1 to minimize interference between them). For TTG purposes (which I use less frequently) I could switch PC over to my "N" network when necessary but keep in on the "G" network most of the time. Sounds workable....


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## bareyb (Dec 1, 2000)

moyekj said:


> It's not a range problem. The problem is I have DVRs in 3 different rooms in the house (I have 3 ReplayTVs in addition to the 2 S3s), and 2 of the rooms are away from where my main router & cable modem reside, hence I need the main router + 2 bridges. My wife & kids still use the ReplayTVs so I have to keep them networked.
> 
> Now that I think about it however, I could keep the "G" setup I have now to use with my PCs and ReplayTVs and run a separate "N" network with 2 routers just for the Tivos (and put "G" network on channel 11 & "N" network on separate SSID on channel 1 to minimize interference between them). For TTG purposes (which I use less frequently) I could switch PC over to my "N" network when necessary but keep in on the "G" network most of the time. Sounds workable....


That sounds like a good plan. The AE came with some instructions for a Dual Network such as the one you describe and it's quite doable. There's just a setting or two you have to select and it's done.

By the way, I saw in your post that wireless G adapters you got at Amazon didn't function as well as you had hoped they would. That alone is a valid enough reason for a free return to Amazon. Amazon acknowledges this as a valid reason for return so you don't even have to feel guilty for sending them back. It is one of the choices on the "reason why you are returning this product" drop-down menu. Not only is it okay, they will pay the shipping back since "it's not your fault". So that's $85.00 you could get back and put towards the new router right there... Just sayin'...


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

moyekj said:


> Still doesn't change the fact he is getting > 30 Mbps (~14 GB/hour) on a wireless network which is pretty darn good considering most HD recordings are 8GB/hour or less. At those speeds you can watch in real time and all commercials can be skipped without any waiting.


I still don't know why my speeds don't reach that. I guess i can try putting my TiVos on a separate VLAN and see if that helps. I just know bandwidth isn't a problem. 500mbs is easy from my pcs if I transfer to my NAS drives and another PC concurrently.


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## aristoBrat (Dec 30, 2002)

bareyb said:


> My setup:
> 
> One Apple Airport Express in my home office wired to my Cable Modem. Another Apple Airport Express in my entertainment rack in the living room. The two Airports communicate together wirelessly (WDS) at "N" speeds. The router in the living room is directly connected (via ethernet cable) to the ethernet ports on my two Series 3 TiVo's.


For the sake of folks not familiar with Apple's Airport routers, you mean Airport Extreme ($179) above instead of Airport Express ($99), right?


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## Rolento76 (Nov 18, 2006)

bareyb said:


> My setup:
> 
> One Apple Airport Express in my home office wired to my Cable Modem. Another Apple Airport Express in my entertainment rack in the living room. The two Airports communicate together wirelessly (WDS) at "N" speeds. The router in the living room is directly connected (via ethernet cable) to the ethernet ports on my two Series 3 TiVo's.


Just to clarify... you have both TiVos connected by ethernet cables to the same router?


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

Rolento76 said:


> Just to clarify... you have both TiVos connected by ethernet cables to the same router?


 No, the setup is a wireless bridge configuration which allows you to connect distant ethernet enabled devices wirelessly:
Tivo1 ethernet---router1***router2---Tivo2 ethernet
where:
*** = wireless connection
--- = wired connection


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

aristoBrat said:


> For the sake of folks not familiar with Apple's Airport routers, you mean Airport Extreme ($179) above instead of Airport Express ($99), right?


 Yes. I just ordered 2 from Amazon:
Apple AirPort Extreme Base Station (Gigabit) MB053LL/A (current $167 at Amazon)
Here's a link to apple site for product description:
http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APP...USB4905127&esvadt=999999-0-56227-1&esvid=2097


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## Rolento76 (Nov 18, 2006)

moyekj said:


> Yes. I just ordered 2 from Amazon:
> Apple AirPort Extreme Base Station (Gigabit) MB053LL/A (current $167 at Amazon)
> Here's a link to apple site for product description:
> http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APP...USB4905127&esvadt=999999-0-56227-1&esvid=2097


Please keep us updated in this thread when you have your Airport Extremes set up. I am considering the same setup. Thanks!


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## bareyb (Dec 1, 2000)

aristoBrat said:


> For the sake of folks not familiar with Apple's Airport routers, you mean Airport Extreme ($179) above instead of Airport Express ($99), right?


Oh Jeez. I'm sorry about that. Yes of course you are correct. Make sure you get the NEW (Gigabit) version. The link provided by moyekj is where I bought both of mine.


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## bareyb (Dec 1, 2000)

moyekj said:


> Yes. I just ordered 2 from Amazon:
> Apple AirPort Extreme Base Station (Gigabit) MB053LL/A (current $167 at Amazon)
> Here's a link to apple site for product description:
> http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APP...USB4905127&esvadt=999999-0-56227-1&esvid=2097


Hey congratulations! 
As Rich would say, "welcome to the "N" club. I just did a one hour transfer of an HD program and am still getting outrageous download speeds. Transferred the whole hour show in 28 minutes. The best part being of course, that we were able to begin watching it immediately and even with skipping commercials never caught up to "live". MRV is an awesome feature with an "N" router.:up:


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## bareyb (Dec 1, 2000)

Rolento76 said:


> Just to clarify... you have both TiVos connected by ethernet cables to the same router?


My setup is slightly different from moyekj's since I have both my Tivos located in the same place. So I bascially have one router in the office which transmits wirelessly to another one where my two TiVos are connected directly with cables. Here's my setup in more detail.

I have one Airport Extreme (Gigabit) in the office that is connected to my cable modem. That is the "base".

I have a second Airport Exteme (Gigabit) located in my entertainment rack in our living room. THAT router is connected wirelessly (at "N" speed and range) to the one in my office. On the back of that AE there are 3 Ethernet ports. I connected two of these directly to the Ethernet jacks of my two Series 3 TiVos located in the same rack. So the TiVo's are directly connected to the AE with cables. Not wireless G adapters. This allows the router to communicate with the base station in the office at "N" speeds and range and by connecting it directly with a cable you bypass any "G" adapters and remain at "N" speeds and range. Took my speeds from transfer speeds from about 1/2 "real time" to at least 2 x's real time speeds. Roughly four times faster than it was using G adapters.


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## Rolento76 (Nov 18, 2006)

bareyb said:


> My setup is slightly different from moyekj's since I have both my Tivos located in the same place. So I bascially have one router in the office which transmits wirelessly to another one where my two TiVos are connected directly with cables. Here's my setup in more detail.
> 
> I have one Airport Extreme (Gigabit) in the office that is connected to my cable modem. That is the "base".
> 
> I have a second Airport Exteme (Gigabit) located in my entertainment rack in our living room. THAT router is connected wirelessly (at "N" speed and range) to the one in my office. On the back of that AE there are 3 Ethernet ports. I connected two of these directly to the Ethernet jacks of my two Series 3 TiVos located in the same rack. So the TiVo's are directly connected to the AE with cables. Not wireless G adapters. This allows the router to communicate with the base station in the office at "N" speeds and range and by connecting it directly with a cable you bypass any "G" adapters and remain at "N" speeds and range. Took my speeds from transfer speeds from about 1/2 "real time" to at least 2 x's real time speeds. Roughly four times faster than it was using G adapters.


My setup will be like MoyekJ's.

moyekj - Please let me know how your speeds are after you install your Apple Extreme routers. I will need to justify the cost with my wife!


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

bareyb said:


> My setup is slightly different from moyekj's since I have both my Tivos located in the same place. So I bascially have one router in the office which transmits wirelessly to another one where my two TiVos are connected directly with cables. Here's my setup in more detail.
> 
> I have one Airport Extreme (Gigabit) in the office that is connected to my cable modem. That is the "base".
> 
> I have a second Airport Exteme (Gigabit) located in my entertainment rack in our living room. THAT router is connected wirelessly (at "N" speed and range) to the one in my office. On the back of that AE there are 3 Ethernet ports. I connected two of these directly to the Ethernet jacks of my two Series 3 TiVos located in the same rack. So the TiVo's are directly connected to the AE with cables. Not wireless G adapters. This allows the router to communicate with the base station in the office at "N" speeds and range and by connecting it directly with a cable you bypass any "G" adapters and remain at "N" speeds and range. Took my speeds from transfer speeds from about 1/2 "real time" to at least 2 x's real time speeds. Roughly four times faster than it was using G adapters.


 Wow, that's very different than I thought you were doing and now you have me concerned... In your setup for MRV purposes you are not using any wireless connection since the Tivos are both hardwired on the same switch and simply communicating with each other through the switch. So you changed from 802.11g setup to hard wired setup for the purposes of MRV which makes sense why you are now getting speeds equivalent to wired setup. For my use I have a wireless connection between Tivos in different rooms and that's the part I was looking to improve. I am still hopeful that I will see an improvement, but looks like I will be the guinea pig for that use model... If I can get >= 30 Mbps for MRV I will be happy...


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## bareyb (Dec 1, 2000)

moyekj said:


> Wow, that's very different than I thought you were doing and now you have me concerned... In your setup for MRV purposes you are not using any wireless connection since the Tivos are both hardwired on the same switch and simply communicating with each other through the switch. So you changed from 802.11g setup to hard wired setup for the purposes of MRV which makes sense why you are now getting speeds equivalent to wired setup. For my use I have a wireless connection between Tivos in different rooms and that's the part I was looking to improve. I am still hopeful that I will see an improvement, but looks like I will be the guinea pig for that use model... If I can get >= 30 Mbps for MRV I will be happy...


Using your diagram mine is like this:

Cable Modem---router1***router2---Tivo1 ethernet & Tivo 2 ethernet

*** = wireless connection
--- = wired connection

I'm sorry for the confusion. I thought I had explained my setup clearly, but this is my first "Wireless" network. I have always used hard-wired networks so I still think of networking with that mentality. In hard wired system the info would run back and forth between the hub in my office. It didn't occur to me that with a second hub connected to both TiVo's that they would simply communicate directly with each other through that hub. Now that you explain it, it makes sense they would do that. It's certainly more efficient if that's how they do it. I have high hopes that even with your TiVo's at opposite ends of the house, that you will still see a great deal of improvement. Amazon is awesome about returns. Just go easy on the packaging and keep everything in case it doesn't work out as well as you hope. Other than hard wiring your whole house, this is still your best option for speed increases. I've read the speeds and range can be up to 6 times more than with G. I have both my fingers and all my toes crossed! I can't wait to see your results.


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

moyekj said:


> Wow, that's very different than I thought you were doing and now you have me concerned... In your setup for MRV purposes you are not using any wireless connection since the Tivos are both hardwired on the same switch and simply communicating with each other through the switch. So you changed from 802.11g setup to hard wired setup for the purposes of MRV which makes sense why you are now getting speeds equivalent to wired setup. For my use I have a wireless connection between Tivos in different rooms and that's the part I was looking to improve. I am still hopeful that I will see an improvement, but looks like I will be the guinea pig for that use model... If I can get >= 30 Mbps for MRV I will be happy...


Since the TiVos do not support gigabit ethernet, using wireless-N would actually provide more bandwidth. However, it all depends on your signal quality you have between the two Airport Extremes.


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

rainwater said:


> Since the TiVos do not support gigabit ethernet, using wireless-N would actually provide more bandwidth. However, it all depends on your signal quality you have between the two Airport Extremes.


 With this solution we are still going through the Tivo 10/100Mbps ethernet ports, so 100Mbps is the hard ceiling here even if the 802.11n connection is perfect. In that mode then the Tivos are the limiting factor, not the network. What I'm hoping is that the wireless bridge and hence my network will no longer be the limiting factor as it is now for me (there's about a 19 Mbps limit due to my 802.11g wireless bridge right now).


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

Well I got my 2 airport extremes last night and set them up in WDS configuration and I am VERY disappointed at the results. I'm getting a maximum transfer rate of about 10 Mbps between them which is half the speed I was getting with my 802.11g bridge!

I've tried all kinds of things including keeping the routers very close to each other as well as their intended locations and nothing I do seems to pass the 10 Mbps barrier. I'm going to do a little more testing to see if perhaps I have a bad cable somewhere in the setup that is limiting my speed but I'm not hopeful.

Reason I'm not hopeful is that as soon as you choose WDS setup you are forced to pick only 1 wireless channel and the max transmit rate automatically drops to 54 Mbps (i.e. G mode). So while Apple doesn't state it anywhere, as with other 802.11n routers I researched it seems like WDS bridging is only supported in 802.11g mode!

Unless I have a breakthrough these are going back to Amazon pretty quickly... it was too much money to spend to get half the speed of my existing setup.


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## Rolento76 (Nov 18, 2006)

moyekj said:


> Well I got my 2 airport extremes last night and set them up in WDS configuration and I am VERY disappointed at the results. I'm getting a maximum transfer rate of about 10 Mbps between them which is half the speed I was getting with my 802.11g bridge!
> 
> I've tried all kinds of things including keeping the routers very close to each other as well as their intended locations and nothing I do seems to pass the 10 Mbps barrier. I'm going to do a little more testing to see if perhaps I have a bad cable somewhere in the setup that is limiting my speed but I'm not hopeful.
> 
> ...


According to Apple, you can set the routers to N only mode at 5GHz. Of course, this will disable any b/g machines from joining. Maybe you cen set them as 5GHz bridges and let all your other b/g machines connect to your old router. I envision my setup would resemble the following:

(G Router 2.4GHz, G clients allowed)--ethernet--(Apple Extreme 5GHz, no routing, bridge only, no wireless clients)==wireless==(Apple Extreme WDS Remote 5GHz)--ethernet--(TiVo S3)


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

Rolento76 said:


> According to Apple, you can set the routers to N only mode at 5GHz. Of course, this will disable any b/g machines from joining. Maybe you cen set them as 5GHz bridges and let all your other b/g machines connect to your old router. I envision my setup would resemble the following:
> 
> (G Router 2.4GHz, G clients allowed)--ethernet--(Apple Extreme 5GHz, no routing, bridge only, no wireless clients)==wireless==(Apple Extreme WDS Remote 5GHz)--ethernet--(TiVo S3)


 When setting WDS mode the choices are: 802.11b/g or 802.11n(2.4GHz). There is no 5GHz option in WDS mode. I tried both above settings and noticed no difference.


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## aristoBrat (Dec 30, 2002)

Do you have the remote end of your WDS setup for RELAY or REMOTE?


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

aristoBrat said:


> Do you have the remote end of your WDS setup for RELAY or REMOTE?


 REMOTE. I didn't try RELAY but that doesn't seem to be what I want - I just want the 2 AEs to talk to each other, not extend the network to anywhere else. I also tried wireless channels 1, 6 and 11. The fact that you can only use 1 channel however I think tells the story...


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## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

As far as I know, there are no 802.11n routers that support WDS @ 5Ghz.

Most routers do not support WDS for 802.11n at all, even when implied by setup. I am only aware of two from Buffalo and Trendnet that are confirmed to do so; if the Apple Airport Extreme supports WDS for 802.11n, then that is news to me. 

Can you set bridge mode manually and forget WDS?


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

bkdtv said:


> As far as I know, there are no 802.11n routers that support WDS @ 5Ghz.
> 
> Most routers do not support WDS for 802.11n at all, even when implied by setup. I am only aware of two from Buffalo and Trendnet that are confirmed to do so; if the Apple Airport Extreme supports WDS for 802.11n, then that is news to me.
> 
> Can you set bridge mode manually and forget WDS?


 I looked at the Trendnet routers, but from what I read you could only WDS bridge in 802.11n mode with no encryption enabled. The Apple Extreme offered possibility of WDS bridging with full WPA2 encryption, which I confirmed you can do, but apparently only in effectively 802.11g mode.
With the Extreme the only way to bridge is using WDS AFAIK.


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## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

moyekj said:


> I looked at the Trendnet routers, but from what I read you could only WDS bridge in 802.11n mode with no encryption enabled. The Apple Extreme offered possibility of WDS bridging with full WPA2 encryption, which I confirmed you can do, but apparently only in effectively 802.11g mode.
> With the Extreme the only way to bridge is using WDS AFAIK.


You could try a Buffalo Nfiniti (WZR-AG300NH) router. That router supports 802.11n with WDS, although I don't know if it will do that with WPA2 encryption.

Another alternative would be a set of Motorola NIM100s purchased on ebay. That's probably cheaper, too.


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## Rolento76 (Nov 18, 2006)

bkdtv said:


> You could try a Buffalo Nfiniti (WZR-AG300NH) router. That router supports 802.11n with WDS, although I don't know if it will do that with WPA2 encryption.
> 
> Another alternative would be a set of Motorola NIM100s purchased on ebay. That's probably cheaper, too.


I have also been taking a look at the possibility of DLink's media bridges:

http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=1&pid=570

From reading the User Manual. it appears it can do N bridging at 5GHz usinf WPA.


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

bkdtv said:


> You could try a Buffalo Nfiniti (WZR-AG300NH) router. That router supports 802.11n with WDS, although I don't know if it will do that with WPA2 encryption.
> 
> Another alternative would be a set of Motorola NIM100s purchased on ebay. That's probably cheaper, too.


 Buffalo would seem like a good one to try - I have their 802.11g routers presently using WDS bridging which I am achieving 19 Mbps and was trying to best. However they are currently under injunction due to CSIRO patent infringement lawsuit and cannot sell 802.11g/a/n products:
http://www.buffalotech.com/products...finiti-dual-band-gigabit-router-access-point/


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

Rolento76 said:


> I have also been taking a look at the possibility of DLink's media bridges:
> 
> http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=1&pid=570
> 
> From reading the User Manual. it appears it can do N bridging at 5GHz usinf WPA.


 That looks pretty interesting - no full router needed, just a pair of bridges, though of course they run around $180 each. Good news is they do not seem to use WDS for bridging so hopefully none of these WDS related problems apply.


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## Rolento76 (Nov 18, 2006)

moyekj said:


> That looks pretty interesting - no full router needed, just a pair of bridges, though of course they run around $180 each. Good news is they do not seem to use WDS for bridging so hopefully none of these WDS related problems apply.


The pricing seems on par with the Apple Extreme Base Stations. I am also interested in the NIM100 coax bridges but it is tough to find documentation on them.


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

Rolento76 said:


> The pricing seems on par with the Apple Extreme Base Stations. I am also interested in the NIM100 coax bridges but it is tough to find documentation on them.


 Please let me know if you decide to try one of these other solutions - the D-link one certainly looks promising. I am already boxing up the Apple Extreme units to send back to Amazon...


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## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

Rolento76 said:


> The pricing seems on par with the Apple Extreme Base Stations. I am also interested in the NIM100 coax bridges but it is tough to find documentation on them.


There is really not much to document.

There is no setup or configuration. You just connect one NIM100 to a LAN port on your router (plus coax, before it enters your cable modem), and then one inline before each TiVo. That's it. There is no other setup or configuration.

It is a coax->ethernet network bridge, so all devices pull an IP address from your main router.


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## Rolento76 (Nov 18, 2006)

bkdtv said:


> There is really not much to document.
> 
> There is no setup or configuration. You just plug connect one NIM100 to a LAN port on your router (plus coax, before it enters your cable modem), and then one inline before each TiVo. That's it. There is no other setup or configuration.
> 
> It is a coax->ethernet network bridge, so all devices pull an IP address from your main router.


I have also been trying to find speed testimonies regarding the NIM100s and MRV between two S3s. According to the MOCA Alliance, the NIM100s should have no problems with 100Mbps even over several splitters.

MoyekJ - I am going to take the plunge and try the NIM100s. 1 for my living room, 1 for my bedroom, and 1 to connect to my current router. I'll let you know how they perform. If I am not happy with them, I can always put them back up on eBay.


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

Rolento76 said:


> I have also been trying to find speed testimonies regarding the NIM100s and MRV between two S3s. According to the MOCA Alliance, the NIM100s should have no problems with 100Mbps even over several splitters.
> 
> MoyekJ - I am going to take the plunge and try the NIM100s. 1 for my living room, 1 for my bedroom, and 1 to connect to my current router. I'll let you know how they perform. If I am not happy with them, I can always put them back up on eBay.


 OK great keep us posted. What kind of prices are you getting on eBay? I see some Buy It Now prices of <= $50.


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## generaltso (Nov 4, 2003)

moyekj said:


> Please let me know if you decide to try one of these other solutions - the D-link one certainly looks promising. I am already boxing up the Apple Extreme units to send back to Amazon...


Why does DLink show one of these N bridges in front of their N router? Can't the bridge on the far side just connected directly to the N router/AP?


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## Rolento76 (Nov 18, 2006)

moyekj said:


> OK great keep us posted. What kind of prices are you getting on eBay? I see some Buy It Now prices of <= $50.


I went for the buy it now at $50 since this seller had 5 and I needed three. I felt better buying all three from one person.


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## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

Rolento76 said:


> I have also been trying to find speed testimonies regarding the NIM100s and MRV between two S3s. According to the MOCA Alliance, the NIM100s should have no problems with 100Mbps even over several splitters.


I use NIM100s to network my computers in different rooms / floors. File transfers across floors are ~11 megabytes per second, which works out to 88 Mbps. That's about what you would expect with 100Mbps minus TCP overhead.

I saw just a bit more than half that with 802.11n.


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## Rolento76 (Nov 18, 2006)

generaltso said:


> Why does DLink show one of these N bridges in front of their N router? Can't the bridge on the far side just connected directly to the N router/AP?


I think it is because their current N router only uses the 2.4GHz frequency so to get optimal performance, you need two N bridges that can use the 5GHz frequency.


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## Rolento76 (Nov 18, 2006)

bkdtv said:


> I use NIM100s to network my computers in different rooms / floors. File transfers across floors are ~11 megabytes per second, which works out to 88 Mbps. That's about what you would expect with 100Mbps minus TCP overhead.
> 
> I saw just a bit more than half that with 802.11n.


That sounds promising. My main desire is to achieve real-time (or better to hopefully 30-sec skip commercials) viewing when using MRV between two S3s. Have you used the NIM100s to network your TiVos?


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

bkdtv said:


> I use NIM100s to network my computers in different rooms / floors. File transfers across floors are ~11 megabytes per second, which works out to 88 Mbps. That's about what you would expect with 100Mbps minus TCP overhead.
> 
> I saw just a bit more than half that with 802.11n.


 So would the following setup work OK with 2 Tivos?:

```
UPSTAIRS
Key: ==== Coax   ---- Ethernet

            =========|NIM100|-------
            =                      -
WALL====|splitter|             |Router|
            =                      -
            =========|Tivo  |-------

DOWNSTAIRS
(Same thing but replace Router with Switch)
```
 Does the NIM100 actually even get an IP address? If so does it use DHCP?


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## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

moyekj said:


> So would the following setup work OK with 2 Tivos?:
> 
> ```
> UPSTAIRS
> ...


That's right.

You won't need a splitter downstairs. The NIM100 has a coax output (passthrough).

You would only need a splitter if you need to split coax to a (1) cable modem, (2) Tivo, and (3) NIM100 in the same room.



moyekj said:


> Does the NIM100 actually even get an IP address? If so does it use DHCP?


I'm sure it uses one internally, but you don't see it. You don't see the NIM100 as a device on your network; you only see the devices attached to it. They are assigned IP addresses by your router, just as if they were directly connected [to your router] via ethernet cable.


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

bkdtv said:


> You would only need a splitter if you need to split coax to a (1) cable modem, (2) Tivo, and (3) NIM100 in the same room.


 OK very nice. So for my setup actually I would not need any additional splitter. Now I can't resist the urge to go on ebay and pickup a couple of these NIM100s...
One more question: I have an 8-way ampilfied splitter in the garage through which all coax connections go through - hopefully that's not an issue? (the return path is not amplified but cable modem works fine currently with that setup).


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## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

moyekj said:


> One more question: I have an 8-way ampilfied splitter in the garage through which all coax connections go through - hopefully that's not an issue? (the return path is not amplified but cable modem works fine currently with that setup).


That should not be an issue.


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

bkdtv said:


> That should not be an issue.


 Great thanks for all of your input... off to Ebay now


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## generaltso (Nov 4, 2003)

Rolento76 said:


> I think it is because their current N router only uses the 2.4GHz frequency so to get optimal performance, you need two N bridges that can use the 5GHz frequency.


That makes sense, although it's annoying. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before they release a new router that does 5Ghz.

Thanks.


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

I have 2 Motorola NIM100 units on the way (bought from Ebay) - scheduled to arrive by Monday Dec 17. I will try them out and post my findings here, hopefully with more positive results this time.


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## Rolento76 (Nov 18, 2006)

moyekj said:


> I have 2 Motorola NIM100 units on the way (bought from Ebay) - scheduled to arrive by Monday Dec 17. I will try them out and post my findings here, hopefully with more positive results this time.


I too ordered 3 from ebay scheduled to arrive Monday and I'll let you know how it goes and how I attached them.

Too bad they come Monday. I was hoping for a Friday arrival so I can "play" with them over the weekend.


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## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

moyekj said:


> I have 2 Motorola NIM100 units on the way (bought from Ebay) - scheduled to arrive by Monday Dec 17. I will try them out and post my findings here, hopefully with more positive results this time.


You have your Tivo directly connected to your router, right?

If not, you'll need three NIM100s. One for each Tivo, plus one to connect to your router.


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

bkdtv said:


> You have your Tivo directly connected to your router, right?
> 
> If not, you'll need three NIM100s. One for each Tivo, plus one to connect to your router.


 Yes, 1 of my Tivos (the upstairs one) connects directly to the router which is why for my case I only need 2 NIM100s to make a Coax Ethernet bridge between upstairs and downstairs units.


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

Don't you love it when things just work! Got my 2 NIM100s today - just hooked them up using the RF passthrough. Initiated an MRV transfer between S3s and here are the results:
*Took 28 mins to transfer 6.66GB => ~32 Mbps transfer rate during normal viewing!*
That is a big improvement over the 19 Mbps I was getting with my 802.11g wireless bridge.
Very happy camper and thanks for the tips here. I would definitely recommend this solution to anyone looking for a better alternative to wireless.

I shall have to do some more testing later to see what kind of speeds I can get with ftp to see what my max rate is.


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## bareyb (Dec 1, 2000)

moyekj said:


> Don't you love it when things just work! Got my 2 NIM100s today - just hooked them up using the RF passthrough. Initiated an MRV transfer between S3s and here are the results:
> *Took 28 mins to transfer 6.66GB => ~32 Mbps transfer rate during normal viewing!*
> That is a big improvement over the 19 Mbps I was getting with my 802.11g wireless bridge.
> Very happy camper and thanks for the tips here. I would definitely recommend this solution to anyone looking for a better alternative to wireless.
> ...


Wow. That's as fast as direct wired. Congrats moyekj! That is a great result. :up:


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## Rolento76 (Nov 18, 2006)

moyekj said:


> Don't you love it when things just work! Got my 2 NIM100s today - just hooked them up using the RF passthrough. Initiated an MRV transfer between S3s and here are the results:
> *Took 28 mins to transfer 6.66GB => ~32 Mbps transfer rate during normal viewing!*
> That is a big improvement over the 19 Mbps I was getting with my 802.11g wireless bridge.
> Very happy camper and thanks for the tips here. I would definitely recommend this solution to anyone looking for a better alternative to wireless.
> ...


I am so glad. I received my NIM100s tonight as well but unfortunately didn't have time to set them up. I did plug them in and logged into their web interface to make sure they were in working order. The eBay seller did a great job on packing and the NIM100s were as described. Now I can't wait to hook them up. I won't have a chance until Thursday but I am so happy you got the speeds you were looking for. I'll report back here how my setup works out.


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## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

To test maximum throughput on the network, set both tuners to channels you do not receive _on both Tivos_ and then:



> *How do I calculate my MRV transfer rate?*
> 
> The first step is to determine the time a recording took to transfer. The transfer start time is on the bottom-right of the recorded program screen. You do not need to sit and wait for the recording to finish, because the exact time of transfer completion will be listed under the "Keep Until" date for the newly transferred recording. Subtract the start time from the "Keep Until" time to find the total transfer time.
> 
> MRV transfer rate in Mbps = (Size in Gigabytes on TiVo Info Screen * 1000 * 8) / ( Minutes to Transfer Recording * 60)


The Tivo rounds up or down to the nearest minute, so your result won't be 100% exact, but it will give you a close approximation.


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## Rolento76 (Nov 18, 2006)

I finally connected my 3 NIM100s and I have to say that I am astonished! I can finally transfer HD shows and watch them immediately and even forward through commercials. The transfer of a one-hour HD show (6.61GB) was happening fast enough that if I paused the show, I can see the green bar filling up the timeline. Finally, I can explain to my wife that she no longer needs to queue up her shows from the Bedroom TiVo.

I know for many of us in this thread that it was a long road of trial and error to get the speeds we wanted. I highly recommend the NIM100s to anyone wanting faster than real-time transfers of HD shows between two S3s.

Thanks to bkdtv for the heads up regarding the NIM100s and thanks to moyekj for being the "guinea pig" when it came to testing out the technologies (Airport Extreme, NIM100s, etc.) Happy Holidays indeed!

Now if only the screen writers can come back to work so we can have more shows to MRV!


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## generaltso (Nov 4, 2003)

Nice. I just ordered 3 NIM100s from ebay. Looking forward to it.


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## bareyb (Dec 1, 2000)

generaltso said:


> Nice. I just ordered 3 NIM100s from ebay. Looking forward to it.


What an ingenious little device. I'm surprised these aren't more widely available.


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## generaltso (Nov 4, 2003)

bareyb said:


> What an ingenious little device. I'm surprised these aren't more widely available.


Do you suppose this would work with any other kind of cable modem?


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