Ethernet over coax?

AWBbox

AWBbox

AWBbox

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I am still living at home with the parents (living the dream...) and we're shortly moving house to a large Victorian terrace. From a techies perspective it's got a lot going for it considering its age; two phone lines with twin BT phone sockets in every room and 75ohm coax in every room going back to a signal booster up in the loft.

The tricky part for me is that I want to be able to stream large amounts of video content from my room upstairs to the living room and possibly elsewhere in the house. I'd really like to be able to run Cat5e/6 around the place but this would be difficult as the build of the house means thick walls and a lack of places to run new cable, also my parents aren't keen on the idea of having trunking everywhere as it might spoil the aesthetics.

So my question to you is this: Is there some means of using the coax cable in the house to provide ethernet connectivity whist still being able to use it for TVs at the same time? And will it offer decent enough speeds to stream HD content to my HTPC? I've ruled homeplug and WiFi out already.

I welcome any suggestions you might have
 
I fear that 10Mbp/s just isn't going to cut it, I could probably get better speeds with WiFi or homeplug.
 
How come you've ruled out HomePlug? I'd say (unless the wiring doesn't permit) that it's a pretty good solution for what you want.
 
It's just that I haven't found a single good report of it being a viable means of streaming high bitrate video content, it just seems to be an unreliable form of networking. Having said that, the whole house was completely re-wired 6 years ago so I would think that the electrics would be fairly good. If anyone has anything good to say about homeplug then I would be interested in hearing it.
 
This forum is full of glowing reports from people using homeplugs for exactly the sort of things your after with no problems what so ever. Contrary to your research everyone I know who has used homeplugs has been nothing but impressed by them.
 
You won't be able to use BNC (even if you could find NICs that work with modern OS's), as the impedence used by BNC co-ax is different to TV aerial co-ax. The terminators won't work and the cards won't see a connection.

a1ex2001 said:
This forum is full of glowing reports from people using homeplugs for exactly the sort of things your after with no problems what so ever. Contrary to your research everyone I know who has used homeplugs has been nothing but impressed by them.
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I've never been impressed by homeplugs. Perhaps it depends on your level of networking knowledge, but when it's your day-job and livelihood, homeplugs are cheap and dirty.
 
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The only way to know if homeplugs are going to be good or rubbish is to try them in the conditions you want to use them. If the wiring turns out to be rubbish then just resell and use wireless instead.
 
Westyfield2 said:
I've not tried it as I just annoyed mother and ran cat6 down through the wall cavities (not fun when they're full of insulation balls!), but.... have you had a look at MoCA? http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/lanw...a-d-link-dxn-221-a-actiontec-ecb2200-reviewed http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=668 http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/lanw...tgear-moca-coax-ethernet-adapter-kit-reviewed
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Those devices all run over the type of Co-Ax you get with the likes of Virgin "cable", which is again not the same impedance you'll get from TV aerial co-ax, which is what will be in the guys walls.

In short, they won't work for this situation I fear.
 
I've been using Devolo 200MB homeplugs for a little over 2 years now and I've never looked back!

While its true that 1080p content can stutter a little, I've found that for the vast majority of films, they work perfectly!

If you are unsure, cant you get 1GB homeplugs now!?!?
 
I'd like to end up with a solution that's neat, professional and reliable. Given that I have several rooms to cater for and with quite a distance between them, I just don't think that homeplugs are going to cut the mustard. Gigabit homeplugs don't seem to have any performance benefits over 200Meg ones from the looks of things.

Westyfield2 said:
I've not tried it as I just annoyed mother and ran cat6 down through the wall cavities (not fun when they're full of insulation balls!), but.... have you had a look at MoCA? http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/lanw...a-d-link-dxn-221-a-actiontec-ecb2200-reviewed http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=668 http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/lanw...tgear-moca-coax-ethernet-adapter-kit-reviewed
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Yes I had seen this, it looks very interesting indeed! My knowledge on coax is limited, if I replaced the end of a 75ohm coax lead to suit both the socket in the wall on one end and the fitting for the ethernet adaptor on the other, would that work? 100Mbp/s is enough for streaming large video files isn't it?
 
I'm very happy with my 200Mb/s set of TP-Links (which were around £40 at the time from OCUK), get at least 80Mb/s each way over them which is more than enough for 1080p videos (anything over 25Mb/s is enough). Latency between pc's at either end of the link is a stable 3ms. They have been running uninterrupted for months now.
I'm not in a small house either, the straight line distance between the rooms i'm connecting is around 20 meters, through several walls and actual cable distance is probably a lot more than that.

Ideally of course you'd run some CAT6 between the rooms, but if your home wiring is reasonably good Homeplugs are easy, fast and reliable.
 
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I've used a set of Devolo 85 Mb/s homeplugs in a range of houses, from new build (electrics no more than 2 years old) to my current house (1900 - electrics look pretty old. Fuse box is mid 90s). I've never seen it them connect at less than 75 Mb/s.

If there's ever a connection problem, I've stopped checking them as it's always the router.

Big thumbs up from me - Simple and effective.

Rich
 
Can you not use the existing wall conduit that carrys the tv aerials to take a cat6 too? Then have a switch in the loft with the tv aerial booster?

paradigm said:
Those devices all run over the type of Co-Ax you get with the likes of Virgin "cable", which is again not the same impedance you'll get from TV aerial co-ax, which is what will be in the guys walls.

In short, they won't work for this situation I fear.
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Virgin use 75ohm coax just like what is in your walls (atleast in my place they did)

MoCA works fine on 75ohm coax
 
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AWBbox said:
It's just that I haven't found a single good report of it being a viable means of streaming high bitrate video content, it just seems to be an unreliable form of networking. Having said that, the whole house was completely re-wired 6 years ago so I would think that the electrics would be fairly good. If anyone has anything good to say about homeplug then I would be interested in hearing it.
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In that case you have just been unlucky with your searching, the older 14Mb and 85Mb homeplugs aren't really that great for media streaming but ones built to the the 200Mb "Homeplug AV" standard work great unless the is a fault with the wiring.

Please note Gigabit homeplugs are not going to be shipping till the end of 2011, if you see any advertised they will be manufacturer specific ones similar to the "Draft pre N" wireless stuff that was flooding the market before 802.11N was ratified.

In my setup at home I use AV (200mb) homeplugs, I have one connected to the Router, another in the next room connected to the PS3, and a third on a separate A/C circuit in my room connected to my gigabit switch to which my Desktop, Laptop and server all connect.

Thus far I have been able to play WoW on my desktop flawlessly while a 1080p movie is streamed to the PS3 from the server in my room. Thats quite a bit of traffic.
 
ubersonic said:
In that case you have just been unlucky with your searching, the older 14Mb and 85Mb homeplugs aren't really that great for media streaming but ones built to the the 200Mb "Homeplug AV" standard work great unless the is a fault with the wiring.

Please note Gigabit homeplugs are not going to be shipping till the end of 2011, if you see any advertised they will be manufacturer specific ones similar to the "Draft pre N" wireless stuff that was flooding the market before 802.11N was ratified.

In my setup at home I use AV (200mb) homeplugs, I have one connected to the Router, another in the next room connected to the PS3, and a third on a separate A/C circuit in my room connected to my gigabit switch to which my Desktop, Laptop and server all connect.

Thus far I have been able to play WoW on my desktop flawlessly while a 1080p movie is streamed to the PS3 from the server in my room. Thats quite a bit of traffic.
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Homeplugs at my house are crap.. Its very dependant on the size of house, wiring layout and interference. The wiring is also relatively new (late 90s)
 
Homeplugs are definitely the easiest and most reliable (if your wiring is decent!)

Best way would be to borrow some to test I guess :) Just don't connect them to extension leads and expect fast speeds :P Need wall sockets that haven't been wired by monkeys.
 
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