[tman12]

I thought I would post this as it could possibly be useful to other users that have similar circumstances to me. I recently moved to Federal Hill here in Maryland with a ton of neighbors using WiFi and with most of my content being full bluray rips I needed to have good throughput to be able to play my content. The house is not designed well for running Cat5 and I'm renting so I didn't want to run cables through the walls. I had never heard of a Powerline Adapter before so I decided to give it a shot and man this thing is awesome. I'm getting enough throughput for my highest bitrate movies (Cast Away 38+ Mbps) with HD audio just by using this thing. Basically, it sends it through the electric grid from one device to the other.

You plug one into a socket and connect it with a ethernet cable to your router/modem/switch and the the other one plugs into the socket and connects via ethernet to your HTPC. I cannot be any happier with it. It is so much better than using WiFi, at least for my setup. I have read that some older electric setups don't work as well and sometimes you have to move them around for it to work right, but for me it was plug and play.

The one I went with was from TPLink and I opted for the 500Mbps, but I have a feeling the lower ones would work just as well. Hopefully I shouldn't have to say this given any user can just look through my previous posts, but I am in no way affiliated with any product or TPLink. I simply wanted to share an awesome solution to streaming content without relying onf WiFi.

http://www.amazon.com/TP-LINK-TL-PA4010K...ne+adapter

or just search Amazon for "Powerline Adapter"

[magao]

Powerline adaptors are hit-or-miss - they can be a very cost-effective way to get usable networking through a house, but it's no guarantee. Factors affecting them include electrical phases (the adaptors must be on the same phase); length of cable between adaptors; quality of cable; other devices inserting interference; etc. The signal can go over circuit breakers, but that usually results in the cable length having too much of an impact.

For example, I recently worked to get my sister's place as well networked as possible (without running cables for now). Part of it was three powerline adaptors (coincidentally, the TP-Link 500Mbps) connecting the router, server and my nephew's computer.

Apart from having to manually add the three adaptors to the same network (automatic pairing only appears to work for two adaptors), we had the following issues.

The circuit looked like:

Router - Kitchen - Server - Bathroom - Nephew.

With just two on the circuit (Router <-> Nephew) ~17Mbps.

With all 3 adaptors on the circuit:

Router <-> Server ~17Mbps
Server <-> Nephew ~17Mbps
Router <-> Nephew ~8Mbps

As you can see, having an additional adaptor between reduces the performance greatly (the adaptors did not work as repeaters or amplifiers - it's possible other brands might, but I've found no information on it).

With all 3 adaptors on the circuit, and the dishwasher going:

Router <-> Server ~9Mbps
Server <-> Nephew ~16Mbps
Router <-> Nephew ~0.1Mbps

The one for my nephew's computer has now been moved to another powerpoint which appears to be on the other side of the router (presumably on the same circuit), and he's getting decent internet speeds (which is all he wants) but I don't think it's been tested with many other devices running yet.

BTW the 200Mbps adaptors don't have as good signal strength/noise cancellation, and drop off their speeds much quicker.

[satcabler67]

I've been using the powerline adapters for some time now using a MX2 box and so far no problems. tried the wireless but had issues but with this no problems

[jacintech.fire]

I have been using powerline for 3.5 years now. With 5x TV/HD Display running (w/ HTPC onboard Gigabit Ethernet) I get an average of 23Mbps on each...)...
Belkin has a 1Gbps kit now...

[Milhouse]

Belkin has a 1Gbps kit now...

I wouldn't recommend the Belkin 1Gbps Powerline units - they're quite old now (introduced in 2009), and are based on a Gigle chipset which has been shown to perform less well than 500-AV Powerline devices based on the Atheros chipset. Also, the Belkin devices are not fully compatible with 500-AV and 200-AV devices based on Atheros chipsets, so you're basically buying into a dead-end platform (Gigle were bought out by Broadcom years ago, and there's been no sign of a more advanced chipset since the buy out).

Atheros basically own the Powerline market, as pretty much every 500-AV or 200-AV device is using one of their chipsets, so stick with what works best and avoid the Belkin.

[twelvebore]

As you can see, having an additional adaptor between reduces the performance greatly (the adaptors do not work as repeaters or amplifiers).

Really? I was under the impression that they do - or rather that some of them do.

I've been running 200Mbps Powerline for a few years now, and I've given up trying to stream video over it, as a lot of my content is full-bit-rate BR rips. I only use it for a couple of Raspberries that act as music-only stations. Wired Ethernet saves a lot of de-WAF grief, and trying to explain that she couldn't watch a movie and have the tumble-dryer on was just a conversation destined to end up in the wrong place.

[magao]

As you can see, having an additional adaptor between reduces the performance greatly (the adaptors do not work as repeaters or amplifiers).

Really? I was under the impression that they do - or rather that some of them do.

My hopes prior to testing the TP-Link adaptors was that they would amplify, but testing proved otherwise. I haven't been able to find any reviews that give useful information one way or the other for other brands - nearly every review of Powerline adaptors I've ever been able to find has only been testing two adaptors.

My comment was meant to be specifically referring to the TP-Link adaptors - I'll go and change it to be clearer.

[tential]

It's OK to use. Personally, I HATE USING IT. I hate it like NO OTHER. It makes me mad to all hell at the speedrate of it. It's decent for movies/internet, but for file transfers it's slow as sin.

I'd rather just hardwire and get decent speeds vs being capped out at 4MB/s no matter what.

[Prof Yaffle]

All I can say to anyone is "try them and see". I had awful experience with powerline, and flood-wired instead, but I know people who swear by them (rather than "at them", as I did). You start to see that coming out here... opinions vary with the quality of your wiring, the length of the circuit, other devices you may have on it - all can significantly impact your results.

My personal experience is that it'd be faster to convert the BR into octal-shifted morse code, carve it in stone, take it upstairs and hand-etch it onto the receiving disc using faerie tears than it would be to transfer over PL, though.

[magao]

Agreed - if you have the option of putting cable in, it's worth the cost if you do anything serious with your network. First thing I did when the sale was finalised on my house was to cable the place up with Cat-6.

I've strongly recommended that my sister (well, brother-in-law really) get their place cabled. They've got the money, it looks like they've got access under the house ... to me it's a no-brainer instead of futzing around with powerline and wireless for fixed devices like desktop computers and TVs.

[Milhouse]

As with WiFi, the success of Powerline is heavily dependent on the environment in which they are used.

I get 135Mbps actual throughput (tested with iperf) from a pair of 500-AV units, my brother gets over 100Mbps actual throughput between 3x 500-AV units. Yet other people with the same kit in a different property might not be able to get the system to work at all if their house wiring is ancient or their fridge or a phone charger wall wart is injecting a shedload of noise onto the mains supply.

There is no guarantee that Powerline will work, but it's usually worth a shot - there's usually a good chance you will get lucky!

My best bit of advice regarding Powerline: buy your gear only from a reputable retailer, and with a no-nonsense returns policy.

[tman12]

I figured there might be varying responses with some working well and others not working as well. The main point of this thread was to simply expand XBMC users options and let people know that such a product exists. For myself, it was worth it for me to spend $40 and try it out rather than wire a house that I'm renting and I'm glad I did. All of the comments are great though and it's definitely helpful for other users that want to evaluate their options. As far as file transfer, I can't really comment on that as I haven't really done any transferring over the adapters. I really only need 54Mbps (maximum Bluray bitrate) and I'm set.

[bluray]

The main point of this thread was to simply expand XBMC users options and let people know that such a product exists.

It has been exist for a very long time. I have been using powerlines off and on since the early days of powerline. I brought it up throughout this forum for several years now. Here are some sample of old posts- post #16, post #6....

I tried several versions of powerlines throughout the years, but nothing beat wired networking. When I built my new home, I pre-wired home network to all the major rooms. To maintain un-interrupted streaming quality of Blu-ray 1080P with DTS-HD/TrueHD movies on XBMC, nothing beat wired network switches and router. The other lesser quality Internet streaming on Laptop, iPad, Surface, iPhone, Android Phone, etc are streams using wireless router....

[un1versal]

As you can see, having an additional adaptor between reduces the performance greatly (the adaptors do not work as repeaters or amplifiers).

Really? I was under the impression that they do - or rather that some of them do.

My hopes prior to testing the TP-Link adaptors was that they would amplify, but testing proved otherwise. I haven't been able to find any reviews that give useful information one way or the other for other brands - nearly every review of Powerline adaptors I've ever been able to find has only been testing two adaptors.

My comment was meant to be specifically referring to the TP-Link adaptors - I'll go and change it to be clearer.

Normally when networking ~80 meters of cable cat5/e/6 to each portion of network segment before it needs amplifying and you amplify crap you get amped crap twice in return.

Considering powerlines use existing electrical wire and however its wired in the return portions also introduce noise in my completely non expert opinion. so ya good powerlines that do a good job in these areas would be best.

[nickr]

Really? I was under the impression that they do - or rather that some of them do.

My hopes prior to testing the TP-Link adaptors was that they would amplify, but testing proved otherwise. I haven't been able to find any reviews that give useful information one way or the other for other brands - nearly every review of Powerline adaptors I've ever been able to find has only been testing two adaptors.

My comment was meant to be specifically referring to the TP-Link adaptors - I'll go and change it to be clearer. considering powerlines use existing electrical wire and however its wired in the return portions also introduce noise in my completely non expert opinion. so ya good powerlines that do a good job in these areas would be best.

~80 meters of cable cat5/e/6 to each portion of networking segment before it needs amplifying and you amplify crap you get amped crap twice in return.

What are you on about?