What do you use for HTPC networking?

vintage-x · 31 Oct 2011 at 01:07

ubern00b said:
For £20 a GigaBYTE switch is definitely worth it My point however, which you completely missed, is that any switch be it 100mbit, gbit, or gbyte... isn't going to make a difference if there is some other underlying reason for the speed problems.

Opps

bledd · 31 Oct 2011 at 09:13

cat5e cables & gigabit switch

monkeyspank · 31 Oct 2011 at 09:41

short runs of cat5e + gigabit router + devices, also nice uncluttered 5ghz band for wifi

Clipsey · 31 Oct 2011 at 15:03

Thanks for the info again guys.
I first off have to figure out all the different terminology. I'm usually ok with PC related stuff, just can't wrap my head around networking and never could

So far, if I transfer data between PC's, I get roughly 4-5mb per second. What should I be getting if they are both wired (Cat5 I'm assuming) and plugged into your average joe router?
Replacing the cables would probably be a deal breaker as they run throughout the house.

vintage-x · 31 Oct 2011 at 15:15

Clipsey said:
Thanks for the info again guys.
I first off have to figure out all the different terminology. I'm usually ok with PC related stuff, just can't wrap my head around networking and never could
So far, if I transfer data between PC's, I get roughly 4-5mb per second. What should I be getting if they are both wired (Cat5 I'm assuming) and plugged into your average joe router?
Replacing the cables would probably be a deal breaker as they run throughout the house.

My setup consists of 3 pcs.

1) is my dads which is downstairs
2) is my main pc
3) is my htpc

Downstairs we have the basic sky router. Which is 100mbs. My dads pc is connected to that by a cat 5 cable. There is then a cable going from the router to a 4 port gigabit switch upstairs in my room. That connects to my PC ,HTPC ,PS3 and Xbox 360.
I get full transfer speeds of about 70 - 80 mbs between my pc and HTPC depending on files sizes (I rip all my dvds and blu-rays on the pc because my HTPC doesn't have an optical drive)
Transfer speeds between my dads pc and my pc are about 5 - 6 mbs but that's because his pc is connected to the router which is only 100 mbps

I hope that makes some sense

HEADRAT · 31 Oct 2011 at 15:24

I have a number of Netgear Powerline AV 500 Adapters (XAVB5001), fine for 1080p

monkeyspank · 31 Oct 2011 at 16:01

Clipsey said:
Thanks for the info again guys.
I first off have to figure out all the different terminology. I'm usually ok with PC related stuff, just can't wrap my head around networking and never could
So far, if I transfer data between PC's, I get roughly 4-5mb per second. What should I be getting if they are both wired (Cat5 I'm assuming) and plugged into your average joe router?
Replacing the cables would probably be a deal breaker as they run throughout the house.

4-5mbps is about right for 10/100. 6-7 is good

If you have cat5e cables already then you 'should' be OK for gigabit as long as the runs are fairly short, not too many tight bends, well terminated etc etc

Bossk128 · 31 Oct 2011 at 17:01

I get 1080p rips across my 100mb cat5 no problem, very good performance.

ReadyNas to Popcorn Hour A110. Both MKVs (say 6gb for 90 minutes?) and M2TSs (up to 30Gb for 90 minutes).

Maybe it's not the network speed?

bastic · 31 Oct 2011 at 17:36

HEADRAT said:
I have a number of Netgear Powerline AV 500 Adapters (XAVB5001), fine for 1080p

how many can you have at home in one network?
this is better than cables everywhere...

Bossk128 · 31 Oct 2011 at 17:58

Powerline adapters depend on your wiring, test before buying lots of terminals. For instance, my powerline run of (straight line) 8 metres was not fast enough for 1080P, but I have old electrics.

ubern00b · 31 Oct 2011 at 18:12

monkeyspank said:
4-5mbps is about right for 10/100. 6-7 is good

Really? 10-12mB/s is right for 100mbit and there is absolutely not reason not to get these full speeds with even the cheapest of switch/router/hub and cat5 cabling.

Clipsey · 31 Oct 2011 at 18:20

vintage-x said:
My setup consists of 3 pcs.

1) is my dads which is downstairs
2) is my main pc
3) is my htpc

Downstairs we have the basic sky router. Which is 100mbs. My dads pc is connected to that by a cat 5 cable. There is then a cable going from the router to a 4 port gigabit switch upstairs in my room. That connects to my PC ,HTPC ,PS3 and Xbox 360.
I get full transfer speeds of about 70 - 80 mbs between my pc and HTPC depending on files sizes (I rip all my dvds and blu-rays on the pc because my HTPC doesn't have an optical drive)
Transfer speeds between my dads pc and my pc are about 5 - 6 mbs but that's because his pc is connected to the router which is only 100 mbps

I hope that makes some sense

Yes that does, thanks for that. I will have a look into the switch and see if that improves.
Modem -> Router -> switch <- PC's. Sound right?

monkeyspank said:
4-5mbps is about right for 10/100. 6-7 is good

If you have cat5e cables already then you 'should' be OK for gigabit as long as the runs are fairly short, not too many tight bends, well terminated etc etc

The runs are not short. They go from a spare room, into the loft then to the main HTPC in the living room, and likewise to the study. Anywhere from 50ft awy to 100ft maybe?

Bossk128 said:
I get 1080p rips across my 100mb cat5 no problem, very good performance.

ReadyNas to Popcorn Hour A110. Both MKVs (say 6gb for 90 minutes?) and M2TSs (up to 30Gb for 90 minutes).

Maybe it's not the network speed?

So if I got 4-5mb/s transfer speed, then are you saying the bu-ray rips should run ok?
I currently rip them as MKV and work flawlessly on the HTPC and the 3 H/D's I have in there. Maybe, the HD in the other rig might be faulty?
Urgh who knows lol

FrankJH · 31 Oct 2011 at 18:42

Bossk128 said:
Powerline adapters depend on your wiring, test before buying lots of terminals. For instance, my powerline run of (straight line) 8 metres was not fast enough for 1080P, but I have old electrics.

Ive found the same - and even more infuriatingly , sometimes the same rip of a BD movie will play perfectly, other times it stutters like there is no tomorrow!!! (ended up moving my server to near my streamer / tv)

12TB Unraid server here - nearly @ capacity however its only got around 1/3 of my BR's on it, so I have to try and save up for expansion.

Bossk128 · 31 Oct 2011 at 18:50

Clipsey said:
snip

So if I got 4-5mb/s transfer speed, then are you saying the bu-ray rips should run ok?
I currently rip them as MKV and work flawlessly on the HTPC and the 3 H/D's I have in there. Maybe, the HD in the other rig might be faulty?
Urgh who knows lol

Yes

30gb for a 90 minute film (in my experience probably the worst case scenario) is 5-6megabytes per second. My cat5 100mb network maxs out at 10-12 megabytes per second, so ample.

vintage-x · 31 Oct 2011 at 22:32

Clipsey said:
Yes that does, thanks for that. I will have a look into the switch and see if that improves.
Modem -> Router -> switch <- PC's. Sound right?

yeah that's right

a1ex2001 · 1 Nov 2011 at 08:36

Bossk128 said:
Powerline adapters depend on your wiring, test before buying lots of terminals. For instance, my powerline run of (straight line) 8 metres was not fast enough for 1080P, but I have old electrics.

If it was a short run bettween two sockets on the same ring you probably could have fixed the issue by taking the face plates off the plug sockets and giving all the screws a tweak!

Hank_Marvin · 1 Nov 2011 at 09:38

100mb is fine for blu ray rips and the like, if your's dont work you have other problems.

Clipsey · 1 Nov 2011 at 13:07

Hank_Marvin said:
100mb is fine for blu ray rips and the like, if your's dont work you have other problems.

Such as? Not sure where to start looking?

neil_g · 1 Nov 2011 at 13:31

Hank_Marvin said:
100mb is fine for blu ray rips and the like, if your's dont work you have other problems.

id have to agree, as mentioned previously you only really need 75mbps for HD content. gigabit may not actually solve things if youre suffering from bad termination, damaged cables, interference from cat5 running next to power, something killing all of your bandwidth etc.

as for lengths of cat5, anything up to 100m run is fine.

Bossk128 · 1 Nov 2011 at 14:57

Start off by having both devices on the same 100mb switch if not already.

How are you accessing the files: ftp, Samba, DLNA, uPnP, other? Some of these have larger overheads than others: I believe Samba is pretty fast (it's what I'm using).

How are the shares set up? I don't kow much about sharing, but you may want to do a bit of research here.

Try to copy a large file from one machine to the other, what is the transfer rate (leave for a minute to let fluctuation subside)?