Recommended Wireless USB Dongle?

If the original poster wants to stream Full HD Blu-Ray rips, then there's only one sane solution, and that's a wired network. Powerline might work, but you have to be lucky with the adapter and the electric wiring; same goes for wireless - all your devices have to support the full 802.11n spec (be it 2,4 GHz or 5 GHz) and signal conditions have to be excellent.

(2012-03-23 18:33)rodalpho Wrote:  

(2012-03-23 14:07)FishOil Wrote:  I dont have 5Ghz N and stream 1080p bluray over wireless with no issues. Works fine. Nothing special.

I said unlikely, not impossible. If you live in a rural or suburban area without much interference and you get a clean signal, 2.4Ghz N can work.

The problem is that 2.4Ghz service is highly variable. In an apartment building when your neighbor uses his microwave, or answers a call on his cordless phone, etc, your wireless can step way down in speed or even drop out for a couple seconds. Same deal with overlap, with 5 or 6 other networks on the same channel, your signal strength can vary from second to second. I can ignore that stuff while web browsing, but watching a video, the constant buffering drove me crazy.

It's always better to go wired when possible.

In any case you can reduce the transmit power for the wireless to reduce the overlap, change the channel, use 5 Ghz, move your router etc. There's plenty you can do to enhance even a poor signal. I have probably about 10 networks in my apartment and don't have any buffering issues with wireless N really. 300 Mbps \o/

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(2012-03-23 23:40).:B:. Wrote:  If the original poster wants to stream Full HD Blu-Ray rips, then there's only one sane solution, and that's a wired network. Powerline might work, but you have to be lucky with the adapter and the electric wiring; same goes for wireless - all your devices have to support the full 802.11n spec (be it 2,4 GHz or 5 GHz) and signal conditions have to be excellent.

You'll have to use expensive powerline adapters, in which case it might be just as cheap to pay someone to do the internal wiring for your network.

5Ghz maybe, if it's not too far away (5Ghz has much less range). 2.4Ghz is very unlikely to work streaming HD in an urban area with lots of other transmitters in range.

(2012-03-23 23:40).:B:. Wrote:  If the original poster wants to stream Full HD Blu-Ray rips, then there's only one sane solution, and that's a wired network. Powerline might work, but you have to be lucky with the adapter and the electric wiring; same goes for wireless - all your devices have to support the full 802.11n spec (be it 2,4 GHz or 5 GHz) and signal conditions have to be excellent.

Well, I don't do any heavy streaming. I use Transmission WebUI to download torrents directly onto the computer (Revo 1600) and I understand this may cause a drop in speed. Aside from that, I only really stream baseball games from the MLB.TV app and that's it for streaming.

I've looked for some adapters with the chipsets that others have recommended but can't find anything. Is there anyone who is using a wireless adapter that they can tell me works well? I'd do the powerline option but my wife isn't keen on spending $100+ to get this working so I'm really hoping I can find a USB wireless adapter that is fairly inexpensive and fairly easy to set up.

1) Find random USB adaptor
2) Google: <random adaptor> works on on Ubuntu?

Gotcha. That's what I have been doing but just wanted to check with the forums to see if there was any particular thing to look for and, as you can see, there were many opinions which only muddled the issue for me. So, yeah, I'll do that. Thanks.

(2012-03-26 19:41)vikjon0 Wrote:  1) Find random USB adaptor
2) Google: <random adaptor> works on on Ubuntu?

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDo...sSupported

(2012-03-24 01:37)nooryani84 Wrote:  In any case you can reduce the transmit power for the wireless to reduce the overlap, change the channel, use 5 Ghz, move your router etc. There's plenty you can do to enhance even a poor signal. I have probably about 10 networks in my apartment and don't have any buffering issues with wireless N really. 300 Mbps \o/

Reduce transmit power: Nonsense. The problem is other networks, not mine. Also transmit power has nothing to do with overlap. Excess signal power can lead to lower quality signals, but that's usually a problem when the router and wireless device are quite close together or you're running aftermarket router firmware and pumped the transmit power to excessive levels to try to fix your problem.

Change channel: This is nonsense. There are only three non-overlapping 2.4Ghz channels, 1, 6, and 11. If all three are used, you're stuck dealing with interference. Many unsophisticated people choose other channels, like 8, which overlaps with 6 and 11. Some cruddy routers even pick these channels automatically. The only way to fix that is to track then down and ask them to change their channel (or hack their wifi with Reaver and change it for them).

Use 5 Ghz: Yes, 5Ghz helps a great deal, because you can totally avoid overlap and microwaves don't interfere. It does have less range, though. I mentioned all this earlier.

Move your router: Nonsense. It doesn't matter where the router is in my apartment, when one of my neighbors microwaves a burrito my 2.4Ghz signal levels are going to plummet, providing greatly variable performance. Obviously moving the router can help, but it's not a "do this and your problems are solved" kind of thing.

(2012-03-27 00:37)rodalpho Wrote:  

(2012-03-24 01:37)nooryani84 Wrote:  In any case you can reduce the transmit power for the wireless to reduce the overlap, change the channel, use 5 Ghz, move your router etc. There's plenty you can do to enhance even a poor signal. I have probably about 10 networks in my apartment and don't have any buffering issues with wireless N really. 300 Mbps \o/

Reduce transmit power: Nonsense. The problem is other networks, not mine. Also transmit power has nothing to do with overlap. Excess signal power can lead to lower quality signals, but that's usually a problem when the router and wireless device are quite close together or you're running aftermarket router firmware and pumped the transmit power to excessive levels to try to fix your problem.

Change channel: This is nonsense. There are only three non-overlapping 2.4Ghz channels, 1, 6, and 11. If all three are used, you're stuck dealing with interference. Many unsophisticated people choose other channels, like 8, which overlaps with 6 and 11. Some cruddy routers even pick these channels automatically. The only way to fix that is to track then down and ask them to change their channel (or hack their wifi with Reaver and change it for them).

Use 5 Ghz: Yes, 5Ghz helps a great deal. I mentioned that earlier.

Move your router: Nonsense. It doesn't matter where the router is in my apartment, when one of my neighbors microwaves a burrito my 2.4Ghz signal levels are going to plummet, providing greatly variable performance.

Firstly, no need to be condescending.

I've worked with technical support for 5 years now and I never said there's an absolute solution. Wireless technology has been and will always be a best-effort-technology.

1. I agree that if the wireless signals overpower yours then reducing the output won't help though it was merely a suggestion

2. I know that there are 3 channels that don't overlap and with the help of software you can find the channel which gives your connection the least amount of noise (dB) Like inSSIDer for Windows or Wifi Analyzer for Android

3. If your router allows it you could always replace the antennas which are usually omnidirectional with directional antennas, or just larger antennas. Where you place your router is also important as the signal is easier transmitted downwards rather than upwards. So placing it on the floor would give you poorer results than placing it higher up on a bookshelf for example.

4. If you really want to solve your problems then you could find a place that sells this paint http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8279549.stm

Edit: To get back OT, I apologize to the OP. I didn't mean to hijack your thread.

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I personally went with a D-Link DWA-160 adapter which has out of the box support in Ubuntu. I can find 8 other networks in my apartment besides the 2 that are being broadcast from my own router 2.4 ghz and 5 ghz. I haven't had any issues so far and I have a laptop, android phone, ipad and HTPC all running on wifi.

At the moment I'm using it with Windows 7 though.

I also have a Revo and have been using a Netgear wireless bridge for many years (actually, from back when I ran XBMC on my original modified Xbox) and it's flawless.

Recently (last week), I upgraded this (which was only a 'G' bridge) to the Netgear 'N' equivalent called the WNCE2001. It has an extremely small footprint (shorter than my iPhone but a little thicker), can be powered from the Revo's USB port and is very easy to connect to your existing WiFi network. The big advantage, of course, to using something like this is that as far as the Revo is concerned, it's simply connecting to a wired network and the bridge does all the rest.

My router sits as far away in my house from my Revo as it's possible to be, without it actually being outside...it's 2 floors up and diagonally opposite where my TV/Revo sit; despite this, I'm still able to stream 1080 HD movies. Hope that helps.