Possible to have a sub-network for video streaming?

[kyledoo]

Hello,
It has been awhile since I've visited these forums, but I have a question that i think I know the answer to but would like some help.
In one room of my house I have my main computer/media center server and in the same room I have my xbox, printer, and various other networked devices. Currently these are all plugged into a switch that is served by a wireless ethernet bridge for a wireless connection to the main router in another part of the home. It is fairly difficult to run a cable and the cable that is currently installed is broken somewhere along the route, which is why I have resorted to wireless.
My question is can I have a self-contained network in this room? Mainly I want this because this room is wired for gigabit and I will be doing lots of video streaming, etc. Currently to stream from PC to xbox all the data must flow through the wireless bridge, to my router, then back. Is there a way to localize traffic like that while still allowing the components to access the rest of my network? (there is a NAS, printer, and the internet connection on the other part of the network)

 

[riser]

You could set up a wireless switch to create that 'self contained' network and use the wireless portion to connect back to your network for internet access.

 

[Catsrules]

I thought that it just makes a direct connection with the switch once it has the IP of the device it tries to locate. Why does it try to go to the router? Maybe it is an Xbox thing?

 

[kyledoo]

I thought that it just makes a direct connection with the switch once it has the IP of the device it tries to locate. Why does it try to go to the router? Maybe it is an Xbox thing?

I don't know how it works or that it goes back to the router at all actually. But I am getting lag whether i am streaming live tv or just music, so I thought the only possible problem could be that there is a bottleneck somewhere.
To the other poster: What is a wireless switch? currently I have a switch, with my computer, printer, and wireless bridge plugged into it. plugged into that is a cable going to ANOTHER switch which has outputs going to some wall jacks, one of which has the xbox plugged in.

 

[riser]

Sorry, meant an AP to connect back. It was a quick post.

The streaming quality could be affected by other things aside from the network. Isolate the issue by connecting the computers together by a switch and try streaming. If it lags, it is a computer and not the switch. If that runs fine, it will be the network.

 

[kyledoo]

Sorry, meant an AP to connect back. It was a quick post.

The streaming quality could be affected by other things aside from the network. Isolate the issue by connecting the computers together by a switch and try streaming. If it lags, it is a computer and not the switch. If that runs fine, it will be the network.

Ok. I think I kinda have that setup already, they are directly connected with a switch and use a bridge to connect to the wireless network. However, there is not a DHCP server on this side of the gap and I was under the assumption that a DHCP server was needed to make it all happen. Could this possibly be solved by using static IP's? It just seems like a weird problem because it does it whether I am streaming only music or HD live TV and with the same frequency. I suppose i will have to look into the issue of it being the PC causing the issue. I just hate to think that after building a brand new i7 rig that it cannot handle a simple task like streaming to one device

 

[kyledoo]

have you tried portforwarding?

Nope, how does that work?

 

[kyledoo]

go to portforward.com. there is a application plus intructions how to do it in every os and on most routers. if you want to send certain data received on a certain port to a certain ip you do portforward. ok more specific port to specific ip. So the router will just forward it straight to that ip without checking. also what OS are you using?

Windows 7 64 bit.
Do you know which port(s) are used for video streaming?
I have the netgear WNDR3700 router

 

[kyledoo]

I forwarded the ports and it made a little difference, but did not stop the problem completely. just to test the theory about the wireless being the problem I started a stream, then unplugged the wireless bridge completely. All network traffic between the Xbox and PC is indeed handled through the switch, because the video kept streaming(albeit with errors) Unfortunately I am still having the problem. I was hoping to use this as a PVR solution, but it is looking more and more like I will be building a HTPC for this task... probably better off anyway.

 

[Catsrules]

I forwarded the ports and it made a little difference, but did not stop the problem completely. just to test the theory about the wireless being the problem I started a stream, then unplugged the wireless bridge completely. All network traffic between the Xbox and PC is indeed handled through the switch, because the video kept streaming(albeit with errors) Unfortunately I am still having the problem. I was hoping to use this as a PVR solution, but it is looking more and more like I will be building a HTPC for this task... probably better off anyway.

I have two HTPC love them, I use windows media center for the program. the only thing I don't like is that Media Center records in weird formats dvrms and WTV, that most converters don't recognized. But other then that is it works great.

 

[kyledoo]

I have two HTPC love them, I use windows media center for the program. the only thing I don't like is that Media Center records in weird formats dvrms and WTV, that most converters don't recognized. But other then that is it works great.

Sorry I am late in replying, but I was wondering what kind of parts you suggest for an HTPC? How much ram, what speed/brand of cpu, and even what sort of case?
I'm not looking to break the bank, but I know that the tuner card that I want (hauppauge 2250) is around 120, at least it was last time I checked. I do have a socket 775 microATX board that I am not using, so if it is possible to build something on that platform it would save me some dough, although I do like the idea of the Atom's ultra low power and the miniITX format.

 

[Catsrules]

Sorry I am late in replying, but I was wondering what kind of parts you suggest for an HTPC? How much ram, what speed/brand of cpu, and even what sort of case?
I'm not looking to break the bank, but I know that the tuner card that I want (hauppauge 2250) is around 120, at least it was last time I checked. I do have a socket 775 microATX board that I am not using, so if it is possible to build something on that platform it would save me some dough, although I do like the idea of the Atom's ultra low power and the miniITX format.

You actually don't need that powerful of computer to run media center. (My 1.6GHz netbook barily runs Media center and can play and record HD tv shows). I would say minimum setup is a 2GHz processor and 1.5GB Ram, and a 1TB hardrive. The MEC interface might be a bit sluggish but it should play and record HD just fine.
If I was going to build a HTPC today I think I would look at an Intel i3 with at least 2GB or RAM and a big Hard drive 1TB or bigger. I get about ~60 show recorded on my 500GB. it is 5-8GB for a 1 hour TV show. Make sure you have a HDMI port or another digital audio like a Fiber optic for sound. If you have a speaker system you will want you 5.1 sound, that make a lot of difference. I like the HDMI so I only have one cable.

One of my HTPC is a Acer Revo very very small foot print (net top) The ION video card makes up for the slow processor, and it comes with the wireless mouse and keyboard for a remote control. I love this thing, hides behind my TV, and does a great job. I just doesn't have a Drive in it for playing DVDs or Blu-Rays or room to add a tuner card (Unless USB)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883103297&cm_re=revo-_-83-103-297-_-Product

The only bad thing is it doesn't come with a tuner so I had to buy a HDhomerun tuner
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815327005&cm_re=hdhomerun-_-15-327-005-_-Product

I had to get 2 HDHomerun so that gives me 4 tuners to play around with and both computers will share them, only one computer can use one tuner at a time, even if it is the same channel. But there are cheaper tuners out there for like $50 that will do the same thing. I just didn't want to run Coax cables everywhere. And benefits of HDhomerun, all I need is a network connection and I can get live TV on any computers, on my network.
But this was a year or 2 ago since i set this up.