Wifi-N Bridge for Home Theater and Video Streaming

haisaikat

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I am looking for a wifi repeater that will be able to tap into the 5GHz band of my router and allow to connect my TV, PS3, OPlay media player in wired manner with it. Presently very few devices support 5GHz and moreover I do not intend to buy a wifi adapter for each device so thinking of buying a 5GHz repeater that will have 4 lan ports (preferably Gigabit, but I am flexible on Ethernet). If it still allows extending the range to other side of my side (opposite to router) nothing like it but this can even be optional.

Anyone having any suggestion please pitch in.
 
If you have any old 5Gz router you can update it with dd-wrt firmware and configure as wireless bridge, or u can buy a cheap one too. I had a old Cisco router which i was not using , updated it with dd-wrt and currently using as wireless bridge and connecting my TV, PS3, PCH to internet and NAS....the router i configured is a G router and its beautifully streaming 720p content from my NAS but its not able to stream blu ray rips/iso.... Cisco linksys has a wireless bridge which they claim capable of streaming 1080p video in wireless N , not sure through and i guess it will be expensive....
 
If you have any old 5Gz router you can update it with dd-wrt firmware and configure as wireless bridge, or u can buy a cheap one too. I had a old Cisco router which i was not using , updated it with dd-wrt and currently using as wireless bridge and connecting my TV, PS3, PCH to internet and NAS....the router i configured is a G router and its beautifully streaming 720p content from my NAS but its not able to stream blu ray rips/iso.... Cisco linksys has a wireless bridge which they claim capable of streaming 1080p video in wireless N , not sure through and i guess it will be expensive....

one question, will a repeater be able to work as repeater and bridge at the samne time?
 
I'm not sure. The basic principal for wireless bridge is that it connects two LAN segments with a wireless link. These two segments will be under same subnet. It almost like two Ethernet switches connected by a cable but its wireless here.My setup is only one wireless network and the wireless bridge router uses the main routers DHCP to get ip address. So all devices connected with these routers can talk to each other.

But if you want the second router to have a separate wireless network then i guess you need to configure it as a repeater. This repeater router will connect to the primary and primary is its ISP. So effectively you will have two different networks with different DHCP or ip addresses range. This can also be achieved using DD-WRT guess they call it universal wireless repeater. Not tried this though.
 
I'm not sure. The basic principal for wireless bridge is that it connects two LAN segments with a wireless link. These two segments will be under same subnet. It almost like two Ethernet switches connected by a cable but its wireless here.My setup is only one wireless network and the wireless bridge router uses the main routers DHCP to get ip address. So all devices connected with these routers can talk to each other.

But if you want the second router to have a separate wireless network then i guess you need to configure it as a repeater. This repeater router will connect to the primary and primary is its ISP. So effectively you will have two different networks with different DHCP or ip addresses range. This can also be achieved using DD-WRT guess they call it universal wireless repeater. Not tried this though.

In that case if you look at a riuter just for now it connects to wired internet on one side and allows 4 land ports to allow giving separate netwrok to these 4 hosts,.
 
Sorry I didn't get that. I guess you can either of the options

Option 1: One wireless network and two routers connected wireless. Primary router is connected to ADSL modem. Devices connected both routers will be in same network.

Option 2: Two wireless network + two routers
Router 1 - connected to adsl modem - Wireless nw 1
Router 2 - connected to Router 1 through wireless but the devices connected to it will be under diff nw wireless nw 2...
 
Sorry I didn't get that. I guess you can either of the options

Option 1: One wireless network and two routers connected wireless. Primary router is connected to ADSL modem. Devices connected both routers will be in same network.

Option 2: Two wireless network + two routers
Router 1 - connected to adsl modem - Wireless nw 1
Router 2 - connected to Router 1 through wireless but the devices connected to it will be under diff nw wireless nw 2...

I am talkiing about 2, but my question was if router 2 will also be able to connect some devices wirelessly on its own network where it is functioning as wireless bridge already.
 
Yeah if you are talking about option 2,you can connect to the 2nd router wirelessly as it will have it own wireless SID. If you are talking about Option 1 then you can't, this is how i have configured and the second router can't connect to any device wirelessly , only wired...since i didn't feel the need for another wireless nw i went with option 1....
 
Yeah if you are talking about option 2,you can connect to the 2nd router wirelessly as it will have it own wireless SID. If you are talking about Option 1 then you can't, this is how i have configured and the second router can't connect to any device wirelessly , only wired...since i didn't feel the need for another wireless nw i went with option 1....

my apologies manny, i isread, mine was option 1. so that means I will not be able to connect wirelessly to the 2nd router.
 
Yes thats correct....only wired connection, but the advantage you get is that all devices connected with these two routers can communicate which each other since they are in the same subnet
 
Jumping in late. But you can do what you describe as option 1. If you are using dd-wrt 24-sp2. You can create a virtual access point. In fact my TV related media devices connect to the vap, where as everything else connects to the base AP.
 
Jumping in late. But you can do what you describe as option 1. If you are using dd-wrt 24-sp2. You can create a virtual access point. In fact my TV related media devices connect to the vap, where as everything else connects to the base AP.

So what you are saying is that the TV etc connect wired to the router (acting as a wireless bridge) and you still have a spare wifi signal to connect other devices. If not then will DD-WRT work for a simultaneous dual band router where one bacd for connecting to another network and another band to allow other wifi devicxes to connect?
 
Btw I finally purchased a Dlink DAP 1522 selectable 2.4 / 5 GHz router cum bridge for 71 USD from Amzon.com and plan to get shipped via Aramex. I will use its 5GHz band to connect to the 5GHz signal of my base Cisco WRT 610N router and then connect the TV, Media Player and PS3 in wired fashion with this new router. The 5GHz band in WRT610N v 1 hardware is very poor in range so hope to make some use of it this way. Will post updates once it arrives.
 
Yeah please post your impression after it comes. I am actually looking for a better wireless bridge/router. Currently i'm using a old G router for bridge but wanted to upgrade it to N and see if i can stream blu ray rips from my NAS.....people had mixed results, some are saying they are able to stream blu ray rips with good N routers with dd-wrt... and some through proper wireless bridge...
 
You could have done it through an Apple Airport Express too then connect a switch to it for expanding the ethernet to all your devices.
 
Can Airport Express be used as Wireless bridge , connecting to existing wireless network from a linksys router?
 
All,
I rceived 2 days back via aramex the Dlink DAP 1522 bridge.

Setup was not a breeze since I was trying to use the web console for the setup and inbuilt help was not that detailed but still managed to finish the setup and this is the final architecture

1. DAP 1522 is connecting (in bridge mode) to my existing Linksys WRT610N router's 5GHz radio band, getting a continuous signal strength of 50-54% (shown from web console). There are two concrete walls in between the bridge and my home router and the linear distance is about 20/25 feet. The channel width of my Linksys 5GHz band is set to 40MHz for better throughput. The existing 2.4 GHz N-band is still running in Mixed mode to support my normal home clinets laptops, desktops, etc. The 5GHz band is set to run on N-only mode.
2. The DAP has 4 gigabit ports and 3 of it I have used to connect my PS3, the Pansonic Viera Plasma TV and the ASUS O!Play Air (earlier this was connecting via my 2.4 GHz N band).
3. The DAP 1522 has been assigned a fixed ip (through DHCP reservation on my Linksys router) and it is assigning IPs to its child (PS3, etc) in the same segment as my existing home network. All the child devices are being configured to automatically receive IP address under the DHCP server of DAP 1522.
4. All the child devices are able to connect to other devices on my home netwrok like the Dlink NAS, Windows 7 PCs, etc which are in direct connection to the parent router (Linksys) either though wired or wireless connection.
5. Have been able to upgrade the formware of my Viera and PS3 post the new connection.

I have not done a detailed throughput test but earlier my ASUS oPlay Air which had N receiver used to read files (this rate was displayed before playing any movie file) from my Dlink NAS connected directly to Linksys Router in a variable range of 11 MBPS to as low as 200 kbps in worst case when there was network congestion or poor signal strength, however average was at 5 to 6 MBPS. Now it is getting a read spead of minimum 11 MBPS and in some case getting 17Mbps and in one rare case I got 25Mbps but that was only on one instant.

The PS3 is now downloading the demo of Killzone 3 which is 1.5 GB from PSN and earlier even smaller file downloads I had to abort because of slow connection (not PS3 has wireless G built in)

I will do a file copy test and a 10+GB file play test next week and post the results.

Overall so far I am happy with this except for the the following facts
1. The blinking lights on DAP 1522 can be annoying unless someone can cover it (in my case I have put it behind the TV.
2. The stock network cable that came with it is actually reading 100 Mbps when connected to my laptop and my Viera TV and PS3 refused to recognize it, not sure why.
3. The stock power adapter was 110 V, so I am connecting it using a mini plu type 240 to 120 V converter that I had purchased earlier.
4. The web UI of DAP 1522 is limited in functionality (but allows to do the basic necessitites of a bridge) in Bridge Mode (however the same allows more of less good features in AP mode) but is a ditto copy (except color styles) of the Linksys router's web console.

Regarding the cost

Aramex charged me around 15% Rs 540 (valuation to customs showed was around Rs 3200 although my card was charged around Rs 3900 while purchasing from amazon.com) as customs but shipping charge was a little over Rs 1000 since the package was around 1 pound, so Aramex is correct in terms of their charges. Overall I paid around Rs 5300 which is still Rs 300 cheaper than the ebay Global Easybuy price of Rs 5600.
 
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