[tuckbodi]

I have a friend joining the ATV world and he wants to put in a CrystalHD card, but he's not close enough to string an ethernet cable from his router to his ATV, so we need to figure out another option for him. What are people doing for networking after replacing their wireless card with the CrystalHD card? And is this with the Linux version or with the native Mac/AppleTV version?

Looking through some previous threads I saw the following recommendations:

Davilla's recommendation of Airport Express.

DaveGee's suggestion of a wireless bridge and where to buy at half the price of the Airport Express.
(note: I heard mention of "gaming adaptors several times but couldn't find any reference to a specific one)

And even cheaper, another DaveGee post with a link to this article which recommends this adaptor for use on a Mac mini (Tiger on up - can this work on an ATV though?).

I've seen mention on deal sites of these cheap (~$10) wireless n USB adaptors as well as the more expensive Powerline adaptors. Do they work for people?

Other recommendations, solutions, and/or suggestions? Thx!

[dan1son]

I tried a Linux compatible usb 802.11n card on my ATV with ubuntu (Trendnet something or another) and it worked, but was pure crap. It was unstable (dropped connection every day or two for no reason) and was oddly slow at cranking up to speed (took about 10 seconds to get going at full speed on file transfers... never got up to speed on streams).

I returned it and bought a Linksys WET610N gaming adapter. Works great.

I also have a WRT610N router with DD-wrt working as a bridge downstairs for my Revo box and have equally good luck. Those are harder to come by now since they're out of production, so I went the easy route for the ATV.


If you're running ATV OSX don't expect USB network cards to work anyway. No drivers for them... and it'd be difficult to get them working. If you're running Linux you might find a USB card that works well... but I wouldn't hold your breath.

[interceptor121]

Either Linksys WET610N or Buffalo WLI-TX4-AG300
Besides most HD sat receivers need an ethernet connection so a bridge connects the ATV, your HD receiver, your XBOX or WII to the power of wireless N
USB adaptor would only work on Ubuntu on the ATV and perform badly

[fredaroony]

I use ethernet over powerline adapters and its works quite well.

[interceptor121]

Another (expensive) option I guess

[fostewi]

Interested in upgrading to Crystal HD card on my ATV but I require wireless (no where to set up my DSL router near my ATV) and am confused on what the options are. Above I see Airport Express mentioned but I do not understand how this could work since the ethernet connection on Express seems to only be for receiving (i.e. can not receive a wireless signal from the network and send it via ethernet to the ATV)...is this correct? So what are the options to get internet access on the ATV (Tiger installed, do not want to switch to Linux) on a wireless network? I have searched through the forums and can't seem to find the answer, or at least understand how. Thanks.

[interceptor121]

read my post on this very thread few messages earlier

[fostewi]

read my post on this very thread few messages earlier

Thanks...I did which is why I posted here but I was hoping for more information. To clarify :

Davilla's recommendation of Airport Express. Like I said, I do not understand how Airport Express can technically solve the problem so I was looking clarification.

DaveGee's suggestion of a wireless bridge and where to buy at half the price of the Airport Express. (note: I heard mention of "gaming adaptors several times but couldn't find any reference to a specific one) Nothing specific mentioned here so looking for concrete examples/explanation if this is a good option.

And even cheaper, another DaveGee post with a link to this article which recommends this adaptor for use on a Mac mini (Tiger on up - can this work on an ATV though?). Again, no confirmation this works on ATV.

I've seen mention on deal sites of these cheap (~$10) wireless n USB adaptors as well as the more expensive Powerline adaptors. Do they work for people? From everything I have read I have heard there are no USB wireless drivers for Tiger on ATV (only linux).

So basically I was hoping for some details of what people are actually successfully doing or know would work so I can check it out.

Since posting I did come across another possible, but expensive option I think..Apple Time Capsule. If I understand correctly it could be used as a Wireless router/extender to my existing network (has ethernet out to connect to the ATV), includes a hard drive (1 or 2 T) which could be used to store media for the ATV and would stream to the ATV using 'n' speed/5GHz frequency which should perform well for HD (but Internet content would be limited by my g based DSL router). I guess I could use it to back up my mac at the same time so maybe its not that badly priced (1T version is $329 in Canada). Opinions on this or ANY other workable option? Thanks for your help.

[interceptor121]

USB wireless adaptors do not work on the ATV
Buy a proper wireless N bridge like those I have listed there because the other solutions are crap
Airport express is a waste of time as it has only one ethernet port and costs as much as a wireless bridge
TimeCapsule seems also not a good idea because you will need to extend the wireless network and that would cut your bandwidth in half

[nerpissad]

I use an airport express to extend my existing wireless network and use the ethernet port of the express to hook up the aTV. works without any issues whatsoever. there are no technical problems as to why it wouldn't work like this.
if I recall correctly, there's an option in the set-up of the airport express that specifically let's you choose whether or not to use the ethernet port for extending a network.
it's not the cheapiest option, but it sure works nicely.

USB wireless adaptors do not work on the ATV
Buy a proper wireless N bridge like those I have listed there because the other solutions are crap
Airport express is a waste of time as it has only one ethernet port and costs as much as a wireless bridge
TimeCapsule seems also not a good idea because you will need to extend the wireless network and that would cut your bandwidth in half

why would you need more than one ethernet port, assuming the rest of your devices have wifi?
also, my time capsule has two simultanous networks (N and G) where the express extends the G network. there's no cutting the bandwidth in half in my house!

[interceptor121]

The airport express is a device useful to create a wireless network off a LAN port or DSL but is an expensive option compared to a Wireless bridge as it costs at least 20% more than a Wireless-N bridge with 4 ports if you only need to bridge and do not need to connect to the internet through a wired connection or DSL.

The reason why I prefer a wireless bridge even like in your case is that you are more future proof and is cheaper. Besides airport express is really a portable device more than a fixed network appliance.
First you may have other devices that want connectivity such as HD receivers or Xbox that do not have wifi and would benefit from the router (I have an HD receiver and a game console)
Second a G Wireless bridge is half the cost of an Airport extreme and a Wireless N around 20%
Third when you extend networks with WDS you half the bandwidth.

Fostewi instead has only a G network and should get a wireless bridge to connect as a client, which costs about half of an airport express

A Wireless bridge as it is only a client device and does not extend the network nor transmit wireless signal will not reduce the wireless bandwidth and it is the highest performance option available and will preserve the wifi bandwidth in all cases. In your case you are extending the G network in theory if you do not have ANY G device in the network you don't loose bandwidth in practice if someone around your block starts a network search and finds your airport express that already takes bandwidth out

For your info I have a Buffalo nFinity the wireless chip is also superior to the one originally in the ATV as now I get higher transfer rates than I used to. This even if there is now an ethernet connection as 100mbit hardwired is actually faster than real Wireless N

[fostewi]

Thanks everyone for the additional information..this is very helpful. Also, my apologies to "interceptor121" on my reply earlier on...re-reading the thread I realized I actually referenced the wrong post and did fail to read your post mentioning a few specific examples...will check them out now.

[interceptor121]

No problems
In your case you only need a wireless G bridge
Linksys does one that costs £35 around $50 with 4 ports and works well

[Gridlock]

WRT54G running DD-WRT here; 12Gb 1080p file streams fine and I can also plug in my bedroom 360 and Sony music centre.

[virgahyatt]

Third when you extend networks with WDS you half the bandwidth.

Just for clarification WDS will NOT halve your bandwidth when you only have one WDS remote. It does take extra overhead so will reduce the bandwidth and the more remotes you use the bigger the overhead. But it would take quite a few to reach half. However, they act as relays not boosters so if you put the airport express somewhere that you don't get a good signal it will make it look like it's a lot slower than it should be because your computer is reporting back the speed of the connection between you and the airport express but not the connection between it and the primary station which could be a lot weaker.

On another note if you wanted to do this with an airport express it would require that you have another airport (apple) device to extend from. If both of them are newer than 2008 it doesn't use WDS but dynamic WDS which is much easier to configure and requires much less overhead.

-Buck
ACMT