Best wireless router?

[runf]

I'm brand new, just got Mezzmo working.
How can I stream 1080P (wireless) without hiccups?
I have a Netgear WNR 1000 and a Sony NX700 TV.
My vague impression is that in theory I have barely enough bandwidth and in practice, not enough.
Are there faster routers and if so, can the Sony take advantage of that?
Or, can Mezzmo transcode to 720p on the fly?

TIA!

[Paul]

Mezzmo can transcode videos to 1080p or 720p on-the-fly - but it is dependent on your video's codec & video bitrate (the higher the video bitrate, then more processing & the slower the transcoding) and the performance of your computer's CPU & memory. Your router should be fine - but you could choose a dual band model so you can stream on the 5GHz band. See the FAQ below.

We have an FAQ that details the causes & remedies for stuttering videos - http://forum.conceiva.com/showthread...reaming-videos.

[jbinkley60]

I'm brand new, just got Mezzmo working.
How can I stream 1080P (wireless) without hiccups?
I have a Netgear WNR 1000 and a Sony NX700 TV.
My vague impression is that in theory I have barely enough bandwidth and in practice, not enough.
Are there faster routers and if so, can the Sony take advantage of that?
Or, can Mezzmo transcode to 720p on the fly?

TIA!

There's a little more to your question than just streaming 1080P. I've done lots of testing and the other big variable is the bitrate used for 1080P. I've seen bitrates from Blu-Ray rips vary from as low as 16mb/s up to 40mb/s. A number of wireless devices will work below 25mb/s but above that range the only wireless device I have found that will sustain glitch free streaming is the Netgear WNCE-4004. It is designed for streaming by having larger buffers and reduced jitter. I have 2 of them (for 2 different rooms) connecting to a Netgear R-6300 wireless access point. With this I can stream 1080P at 40mb/s to both rooms at the same time with no issues (using the 5ghz wireless band) and you can use the extra ports to connect other devices. After testing many wireless devices, this is the only setup I have tested that works 100% of the time. I've had it in place for a year.

[smitbret]

There's a little more to your question than just streaming 1080P. I've done lots of testing and the other big variable is the bitrate used for 1080P. I've seen bitrates from Blu-Ray rips vary from as low as 16mb/s up to 40mb/s. A number of wireless devices will work below 25mb/s but above that range the only wireless device I have found that will sustain glitch free streaming is the Netgear WNCE-4004. It is designed for streaming by having larger buffers and reduced jitter. I have 2 of them (for 2 different rooms) connecting to a Netgear R-6300 wireless access point. With this I can stream 1080P at 40mb/s to both room at the same time with no issues (using the 5ghz wireless band) and you can use the extra ports to connect other devices. After testing many wireless devices, this is the only setup I have tested that works 100% of the time. I've had it in place for a year.

Your router is only one part of the equation.

A dual band router (n600, n750, n900)from a quality manufacturer like Linksys, Asus, Netgear, TP-Link, Buffalo, & D-Link should be fine. If you want to do some research, hit www.smallnetbuilder.com for the most thorough reviews of many routers.

The 2nd part is making sure that the receiving end specs out, too. If your router is n300 and the adapter is n150, you are stuck with n150 speeds to that device. Your wireless adapter should probably be n300 capable since an n150 could struggle with high bitrate Blu-Ray rips. Make sure that your channel width on the adapter is set to Auto or 40MHz if you are on 2.4GHz. A good rule of thumb is to expect 60% of the rated bandwidth under IDEAL conditions. Distance between the router and the adapter as well as the number of physical objects (Walls, Floors, etc.) create huge drops in bandwidth. So, when you connect your device to the router and it says it has 150Mbps connection, expect 90 to that device. If it says 72Mbps, then expect about 44Mbps.

5GHz tends to carry a little more bandwidth but distance and obstacles affect it about twice as much.

Quite frankly, I don't recommend playback of BR Rips across wireless. It just doesn't work well for most people. You're better off transcoding to 720p or just reducing bandwidth somehow.

[jbinkley60]

Don't forget that the 2.4gig band has a lot of interference from household things including microwaves etc.

[runf]

Thanks to all. My TV, the Sony NX700 is 802.11n so that would be a limit on the receiving end I guess?

[runf]

I'm understanding some of this, thanks.
I'm happy to view most things at 720p. Do you thing my i7-950 is fast enough to transcode on the fly. Let's say a 1080p mkv to a 720p mkv.
p.s. I haven't explored the program yet concerning how and what and when it transcodes. I have some learning to do about that also.

Your router is only one part of the equation.

A dual band router (n600, n750, n900)from a quality manufacturer like Linksys, Asus, Netgear, TP-Link, Buffalo, & D-Link should be fine. If you want to do some research, hit www.smallnetbuilder.com for the most thorough reviews of many routers.

The 2nd part is making sure that the receiving end specs out, too. If your router is n300 and the adapter is n150, you are stuck with n150 speeds to that device. Your wireless adapter should probably be n300 capable since an n150 could struggle with high bitrate Blu-Ray rips. Make sure that your channel width on the adapter is set to Auto or 40MHz if you are on 2.4GHz. A good rule of thumb is to expect 60% of the rated bandwidth under IDEAL conditions. Distance between the router and the adapter as well as the number of physical objects (Walls, Floors, etc.) create huge drops in bandwidth. So, when you connect your device to the router and it says it has 150Mbps connection, expect 90 to that device. If it says 72Mbps, then expect about 44Mbps.

5GHz tends to carry a little more bandwidth but distance and obstacles affect it about twice as much.

Quite frankly, I don't recommend playback of BR Rips across wireless. It just doesn't work well for most people. You're better off transcoding to 720p or just reducing bandwidth somehow.

[Paul]

Your computer can transcode 1080p videos on-the-fly - but it does depend on the video bitrate of the video files (the higher, the more processing and slower transcoding will be) and whether a full transcode is required rather than a re-mux (or copy - which is very fast and requires little CPU) of the audio & video channels. In cases where your computer cannot transcode on-the-fly fast enough, then you can simply pre-transcode the video in Mezzmo and it will be ready for future streaming without any further transcoding required.

I suggest you try Mezzmo and, as you come across problems, post here or email us directly at support [at] conceiva [dot] com and we'll help out.

[smitbret]

I'm understanding some of this, thanks.
I'm happy to view most things at 720p. Do you thing my i7-950 is fast enough to transcode on the fly. Let's say a 1080p mkv to a 720p mkv.
p.s. I haven't explored the program yet concerning how and what and when it transcodes. I have some learning to do about that also.

Your i7-950 will probably be fast enought to transcode a couple of 1080p files in real-time, it will certainly be fast enougvith for one. Keep in mind that this may depend on background CPU activities in the PC that you are running.

To explain wireless:

802.11n is basically rated at 150Mbps. In the real world, because of overhead, you'll normally get between 40-60% of the rated speed or 60-80Mbps.

802.11n technology lets you build routers and adapters that can use multiple streams at the same time to transfer data if the conditions are clear. This is known as channel bonding. If you see a router that says "n300" then it is able to send out 2 streams at the same time, basically becoming 300Mbps. At the high end there are also 450Mbps routers that send out 3 streams at the same time they will be distinguished with the n450 moniker.

Keep in mind that the adapter and the router have to BOTH be n300 to transfer at n300 speeds. If your adapter is just a single band, then no router in the world can make it faster than 150Mbps. Most likely, your TV is 150Mbps.

Now keep in mind that this is all on the 2.4GHz band. The 2.4GHz band tends to be kind of congested because of things like cordless phones, microwaves and every other wireless network that your next door neighbors are running. Because there can be so much noise, your 150Mbps drops even further than the 60-80Mbps that you would expect if you were doing it in a log cabin in the woods with no one around for miles. Otherwise, streaming a BR Rip (25-40Mbps) would be no problem.

The same goes for n300, if there is too much noise around you, there's just not a lot you can do unless you do something completely different. That's where the dual-band routers with labels that say things like n600, n750 and n900 come in. These routers are capable of running a second network on the 5GHz band at the same time it is running a network on the 2.4GHz band. 5GHz is newer, more expensive and a lot less common so there is a lot less noise on the 5GHz band. So if your router says n600, then it is capable of running 2 n300 networks at the same time, one each on the 2.4 & 5GHz bands, It's like doubling the amount of lanes on a highway. It doesn't make the traffic any faster, but it can handle more cars at the same time.

Because it's a higher frequency, 5GHz can also carry slightly more bandwidth than 2.4GHz anyway. However, that higher frequency comes with a cost. It only travels about half as far and it's signal is affected twice as much by obstacles like walls, floors, AC ducts, etc.

So, with these factors in mind, many people just get a dual-band router and use the 2.4GHz band for roaming around on things like laptops, tablets, phones, etc. because the range is a lot better and for most activities, the speed just isn't needed. Then, they dedicate the 5GHz band to media and the usually stationary things like HTPCs, Media Streaming boxes and TVs. That way, someone streaming NetFlix to their laptop doesn't affect someone streaming a BR Rip to their HTPC. Keep in mind, that most built-in adapters for TVs, Roku, AppleTV, WDTV Live, etc. are all 2.4GHz, so if you want to use 5GHz, you'd need a USB adapter.

There's also 802.11ac. It's about 3-4 times faster than 802.11n but runs only on 5GHz and the wireless adapters are few and far between at this point. It's relatively new and there will be some benefit to waiting on the technology to mature.

To wrap up, if you can get a good, clean wireless n signal, then you should be able to stream a BR Rip. If distance or congestion prevent it, then look into n300 or, if distance and obstacles permit (15-20 feet as the crow flies with no more than a wall or two to penetrate), a 5GHz n300 or n450 setup for your media streaming.


None of these will be as good as a Cat5e cable between boxes. I've tried all of the above scenarios, including 802.11ac bridges and I still keep coming back to my $8 Cat6 cables for stability and speed.

To answer the 720p questions. My own feeling is that you can get a similar quality 720p file for 1/2 to 1/3 the bandwidth of a 1080p BR Rip. So, if your BR Rip looks great at it's native 25Mbps, then if you transcode it down to a 6Mbps 720p stream (with good settings), you'll be hard pressed to find a lot of difference. By setting up Mezzmo to transcode the 1080p file to 720p you will solve a lot of wireless transfer issues. Services like NetFlix, iTunes, Amazon stream their best quality HD media at around 4-8Mbps to make it more palatable for internet streaming. Pixel peepers can tell the difference, but 99% of the population doesn't care that the telephone pole in the background has some jagged edges that don't appear on the Blu-Ray.

If you just can't get 1080p rips to stream smoothly, then try 720p at the highest setting and see if that doesn't work much better. It is easier on your trancoding CPU and on your wireless bandwidth.

I hope this wasn't too long.

[Paul]

Excellent post, smitbret. Thanks for the great explanation and sharing your experience with streaming video over wireless/wired.