Wi-fi broadband signal for Blu-ray player

[johnb]

PS If you do need a network switch you might as well get an (unmanaged) Gigabyte switch. They are only marginally more expensive that 100Mbps switches and there are no downsides.

There are lots of switches of the market but I've used the Netgear Gigabyte switch (one of the two that I linked to before) for a few years and would buy the same.

[Dave2002]

PS If you do need a network switch you might as well get an (unmanaged) Gigabyte switch. They are only marginally more expensive that 100Mbps switches and there are no downsides.

There are lots of switches of the market but I've used the Netgear Gigabyte switch (one of the two that I linked to before) for a few years and would buy the same.

I have used Netgear kit before, and it's generally good, but TP-Link is cheaper and I've not had any problems. If gigabit ethernet is overkill - it might be - then the cheapest 10/100 Mbps switch that I know of is under £8. Gigabit ones are around £12. See http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_...thernet+switch

[Dave2002]

I have used Netgear kit before, and it's generally good, but TP-Link is cheaper and I've not had any problems. If gigabit ethernet is overkill - it might be - then the cheapest 10/100 Mbps switch that I know of is under £8. Gigabit ones are around £12. See http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_...thernet+switch

Ps:Stanfordian - your avatar/icon now appears on my iPad x3 where the reply buttons go! This might also help to explain what looks like my duplicate post.

[johnb]

I have used Netgear kit before, and it's generally good, but TP-Link is cheaper and I've not had any problems. If gigabit ethernet is overkill - it might be - then the cheapest 10/100 Mbps switch that I know of is under £8. Gigabit ones are around £12. See http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_...thernet+switch

Different people, different approaches.

As I said the cost of a Gigabyte (10/100/1000 Mbps) switch is only marginally higher than a 10/100 Mbps switch and a Gigabyte switch might be useful if circumstances change. (But I would most definitely buy a Gigabyte switch if it was to be connected to the router.)

I tend to avoid the cheapest gear because of the, probably mistaken, belief that you get what you pay for.

When buying computer related kit I tend to use specialist online suppliers rather than Amazon (they are often cheaper anyway).

As I said, different people, different approaches.

[Dave2002]

I agree that some cheap kit is not good, but I have had several different units and of different types from TP-Link, and they all seem to have been good to me - they have worked, and continued to work. I don't see any point in paying more than necessary for reasonable kit.

re Stanfordian's icon/avatar which seemed to cause a problem on my iPad, I think this was a local issue. Deleting the Safari history didn't fix it, but reloading some of the pages eventually cleared it. It appeared that the images had somehow been connected with the links for posting. It was a curious "bug", which I suspect others won't encounter.

[Stanfordian]

I connected my Blu-ray player to my Router using a 20 metre run of Cat 5 ethernet cable. The picture quality seems big improvement. Now I know of the improvement it makes I will run the cable under the floor. Thanks everyone for the helpful suggestions.

[Dave2002]

Glad to hear it works. Good luck with the cabling. I don't know how difficult that'll be for you - it's been years since I've done anything like that. As I recall, if you have floorboards, it makes a difference whether you are going parallel to the joists (easy), or across them (a pain). There's still the occasional wall to get through too. Of course if you just tuck the wire in under the carpet edges - if you have carpet, it may be a lot easier - apart from the wall bits. If you use ready prepared cable, there are cheap connectors which can be used to join them together - for example http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/like/28111...f13=80&ff14=83 I don't know what that one's like, but I just gave it as an example. Ideally you shouldn't use connectors, there is a slight loss, but it might make some of the cabling easier, though if you place connectors somewhere relatively inaccessible it'd be a good idea to ensure that the cables are unlikely to come adrift, which is one reason why going all the way with one cable is the best way, according to some. However, these may be the same people who'd recommend doing your own cable connectors - which is something I've never done with ethernet cables. It's probably easy enough, but I'd just not done it, and you need a special tool - something like this - http://www.ebay.co.uk/bhp/ethernet-cable-kit One advantage of doing the connectors that way is that you only need a small hole through walls to poke the cable through, not a larger hole for the cable plus connector.

You might need longer cable if you go under the floor, or up to the ceiling, because diagonal and other short cuts may be ruled out.

Maybe you won't have the hole in the wall problem, in which case you are in luck.

I considered some of these options here, but some of the floor is concrete. One option for a black hole room was to take cable up, and inside the ceiling of several rooms, and then down and through a garage wall with a few more tricky bits to traverse, while another was to take cable right round the exterior of the house and through the garage. For a while we tried wireless links, and powerline adapters to avoid having to use cables. In the end we simply put another router+ADSL in the hard to get at room, and it was certainly worth it for a few years as generally at least one of the ADSL services would be working except when the BT lines all went down. Oddly enough we still use powerline for much closer connections simply to avoid having to drill holes in the wall, and even for communications within the room with the TV to avoid having cable under the carpet or other possibly unsightly solutions. Part of that floor is boarded, but part is concrete I think.