SageTV's HD Theater: With CAT5, It's A Screamer

As of last Thursday night, I was pretty underwhelmed with SageTV’s HD Theater’s ability to activate and sustain network conections, as well as to stream DVR-MS files over those connections. Friday night, SageTV released a beta firmware upgrade that explicitly mentioned network-related improvements, but it didn’t rectify the specific issues I was encountering.

On a hunch, the next morning I bypassed the HomePlug AV powerline networking spur that I’d been using to tether the unit to my router, instead direct-connecting the SageTV HD Theater to my Apple Airport Extreme ‘N’ (through a SMC 8-port GbE switch intermediary) via a lengthy span of CAT5 cable. All of my past problems abruptly disappeared; I was able to make and maintain network connections to other LAN clients over both SMB/CIFS and UPnP, and Windows Media Center recordings made at ‘fair’, ‘good’ and ‘better’ quality settings subsequently played back glitch-free, with ‘best’ quality recordings exhibiting only brief glitches on rare occasions.

Given my past track record with powerline networking, you might think my reaction would be to absolve SageTV and once again vilify HomePlug AV. Not exactly. My Xbox 360s and PlayStation 3s, along with several other LAN clients, are also tethered to the router via powerline network links and exhibit none of these issues. By technology-separating the high-definition video stream going to the router from the one subsequently going to the console, for example, I’m able to reliably stream ‘best’ quality high-definition DVR-MS recordings to my Xbox 360s (acting as Media Center Extenders) over HomePlug AV.

I’ve forwarded my findings to SageTV, who plans to purchase a few HomePlug AV adapters and work on resolving the issues I’ve uncovered. I suspect, for example, that for some unknown reason the HD Theater is streaming over powerline using the TCP protocol instead of the bandwidth-optimum UDP alternative, thereby explaining the stuttering not seen with CAT5. As a prerequisite to user acceptance and consequent market success, any new piece of network-tethered equipment must evolve to be compatible with the existing topology and protocol infrastructure to which it’s been added; ideally, this includes more obscure networking technologies such as powerline.

Still, this situation represents the latest in a long list of powerline-caused incompatibilities I’ve faced over the years, giving me even more motivation to wean myself off HomePlug AV and onto more mainstream networking technologies. To extend access to my residence’s downstairs office and living room equipment stacks, I’ve yanked a spool of CAT5 cable out of storage. Once the under-house crawl space currently wet with melting snow dries out, I’ve resigned myself to wriggling down there with drill and wire in hand to punch holes in the floor and install requisite cable runs.

For the upstairs entertainment center, I’ll migrate to 802.11n using D-Link’s DAP-1522. This means creating a second bonded (40 MHz-wide) Wi-Fi channel via hardware mated to the router, so as to avoid disturbing the wireless stream coming from the Dell XPS M1330 laptop. Since my existing 802.11g access point operates on channel 1, leaving non-overlapping channels 6 and 11 available, I could create this second channel out of 2.4 GHz spectrum. Trendnet, for example, makes some inexpensive 2.4 GHz-only 802.11n access points.

But in doing so, I’d expose the stream to degradation from other interference sources in this particular ISM band, such as the microwave oven, my wireless audio setup, Bluetooth devices, and neighbors’ 802.11b, 802.11g and 2.4 GHz 802.11n gear. Instead, then, I’ll probably carve out an additional chunk of 5.8 GHz spectrum. D-Link and NETGEAR both make dual-band access points, but since they’re intended for enterprise applications, they’re pretty pricey.

Right now, NETGEAR’s 5.8 GHz-only WNHDE111, at sub-$100, seems to be the most likely candidate. I already have Linksys’ WGA600N in-house, but unfortunately the company has only software-enabled the hardware for single-client bridge capabilities. Linksys’ follow-up WET610N may be suitable, though, since reviews indicate that it can act as a multi-client bridge when paired with a multi-port switch (such as the one built into my router).

Stay tuned for updates here at Brian’s Brain as my evaluations progress.