Whirlpool

I'm looking to get a 200Mbps EoP kit for streaming 1080p content from my NAS to my HTPC. I'd rather something with manual QoS controls, but ultimately as long as the device knows to put audio and video data before everything else should be ok.

My question is which 200Mbps EoP device should I get if I am looking for the best quality, performance and reliability (if you have any other suggestions, then please suggest away)?

I voted for the ZyXEL PLA-400 as that's what my HTPC runs on and its been excellent since I put it in.

I use the Belkin product 200mbs.

I have four of the plugs in use with my Xbox 360 as an extender.

Belkin have a life time warranty, can't get more confidence in a product than that.

On the Windows Media Centre Network Tuner it is a flat line above HDTV at the very top!

• 37 year old house, with upstairs and downstairs.

lol 6 votes and 6 answers all different , dont ya love random questions

imho use the netcomm , its well known and works as it should

just dont expect full 200M anywhere in the house , they drop quite quickly over distance and cable connection quality

btw the 85 will handle hd streaming anyway , but may struggle if anything else is going on at the same time

pete y testing writes...

just dont expect full 200M anywhere in the house

A bit hard as the only use a 100mbps connection.

I have 201av's on power boards 25 metres apart, and I get 16mbps.

engmod writes...

I have 201av's on power boards 25 metres apart, and I get 16mbps.

You don't happen to know if your units are on the same circuit do you? I only need to go about 10 meters, however I have no idea how far the wiring itself needs to go. I'm am pretty sure however the power points I plan on using are on the same circuit.

engmod writes...

A bit hard as the only use a 100mbps connection.

then employing the 200M versions is a waste at best you may only get 15M better out of the 200M versions

if you choose the 200M versions you need to use gigaport ethernet at ether side to get the benifit of the 200M eop's

pete y testing writes...

then employing the 200M versions is a waste at best you may only get 15M better out of the 200M versions

if you choose the 200M versions you need to use gigaport ethernet at ether side to get the benifit of the 200M eop's

Treat the EoP devices like you would wireless ... 200mbit is not actually 200mbit throughput. On my Zyxel, I get around 70mbit throughput. So I reckon if I had an 85mbit device, it'd be around 40-50mbit max.

brashquido writes...

You don't happen to know if your units are on the same circuit do you?

different circuit, I am running the worst case, to see what they do.
In the future, I will configure them a bit better.

pete y testing writes...

if you choose the 200M versions you need to use gigaport ethernet at ether side to get the benifit of the 200M eop's

pete, they are using 100Mb connections not gigabit.
They are NOT 200Mb

engmod writes...

hey are using 100Mb connections not gigabit.

exactly my point , thus using 200M eop's is a waste as they will never achieve the rated speeds as the network ethernet will limit it

pete y testing writes...

exactly my point , thus using 200M eop's is a waste as they will never achieve the rated speeds as the network ethernet will limit it

They never reach 200Mpbs just like 11n wireless never reach 300Mbps.
So 100Mpbs NIC won't be a bottleneck for a 200Mbps EoP at all.

Just thought I'd post an update on this for anyone considering getting EoP devices for their network. I ended up getting the Billion BiPAC 102 kit, and so far I've found that it is not really up to the task of HD video streaming as claimed by the vendors.

With nothing else plugged into the power points in two different rooms where both points where on the same circuit, I found the Billion management software was reporting a connection speed very close to theoretical maximums. 192Mbps and 191Mbps for raw Tx and Rx, and 147Mbps and 146Mbps for coded Tx and Rx. This can be seen in the image linked here;

http://brashquido.org/Billion.PNG

As the coded Tx and Rx rate was well over 100Mbit a second I hoped I was going to be able to achieve a very high transfer rate, however after a couple of test I found that actual network throughput (using FTP) was less than a third of the coded Tx/Rx rates.

To test throughput I transferred a single large HD video file from my HTPC to my file server using a single FTP connection. The file was 3820683447 bytes (3.82GB) large, and according to my FileZilla logs took 711 seconds over EoP, and only 325 seconds over my cat 5e cable. For EoP this equated to an average transfer rate of 42.9Mbit, and 94Mbit for my cat 5e cable.

While a long way short of the 100Mbit Ethernet selling point, this should have still been plenty to be able to playback full HD video which is well under 20Mbit for video and audio. I tried playing several movie files ranging in bitrate from 15Mbit to as low as 6Mbit, and all of them suffered significant video and audio stutter to a point that made them not work watching.

I'm still to do some testing and tweaking (buffers, etc), however I can't see myself being able to get HD playback to a level that is completely stutter free.

Interesting. And good comparison, by the way. I don't have EoP, so I'm interested to see people's experiences.

wow no option of manning up and getting a cable installed...

brashquido writes...

all of them suffered significant video and audio stutter to a point that made them not work watching.

If you're using WMP to stream, you can set the buffer time for the video. So buffer ahead and then you will avoid stuttering. This is because the video is not just a constant bitrate, it's variable bitrate and some video segments are higher bitrate than others. Something like 30 seconds ahead should be fine.

This slightly off topic but can you mix and match these things say netcom with netgear or tplink and throw a zyexel into the mix.

The reason I ask is that I currently have some CNC-1000's setup around my house and scored some netgear XETB1001's in bonus offer will these talk to each other or are they all proprietary.

PugsDaGeek writes...

wow no option of manning up and getting a cable installed...

Unfortunately not as I'm currently renting. I use Mplayer with x.264 encoded movies using the mkv container mainly. Will have to check the Mplayer doco to see what (if any) buffering options are there.

Not sure if you can mix and match brands of EoP devices. Logically you'd think so, but practically I have no idea.

Just out of interest I recently spotted EoC (Ethernet over Coax) which gives you 128Mbps and can share the cable with a TV signal. Might be good where your house might be on old copper or run different phases/circuits.

Cheers
Ben

Did some more testing tonight, and think there may have been some inconsistencies with my FTP tests as my FTP server is configured to use aggressive FTP stream compression. Unfortunately my new results appear to be even worse, but go a long way to explaining the playback issues I was having.

I ended up using JPerf v2.02 which is a Java based network performance measurement tool made specifically to quantify actual network throughput. Using the default settings for JPerf using a test length of 60 seconds I achieved the following on my 100Mbit network.

Using Cat 5e cabling;
652 MBytes 91.2 Mbits/sec

Billion BiPAC 102 (2 x 2070's) configured as advised by Billion support to test maximum throughput (see this for EoP sync speeds);
156 MBytes 21.9 Mbits/sec

Billion BiPAC 102 plugged directly into power points where I intend to use them (see this for EoP sync speeds);
75.6 MBytes 10.6 Mbits/sec

The Cat 5e cable test was about what I'd expected. Pretty close the 100Mbit/sec mark. The Billion however has under performed by a long way in every test I've done. Using the configuration suggested by Billion support to achieve maximum throughput (plugging both EoP devices into a double adapter and then directly into a power point) ended up producing very poor 21.9Mbit/sec despite the coded Tx/Rx sync being at 150Mbit/sec. The "real world" test where I plugged the EoP devices directly into the actual power points I was planning to use (no powerboards, double adapters or other devices) resulted in only 10.6Mbit/sec, and this was despite the coded Tx and Rx rates being well over 100Mbit (116 and 122 respectively).

I did figure out the cache command option for Mplayer ( it was just -cache <mem size>) which helped a lot, but with these transfer speeds even using a 512MB cache eventually emptied and the stuttering returned. Think I'll be returning my Billion BiPAC 102 on Monday.

Send Quentin. a whim and he might be able to assist you.

Hi brashquido

This is definitely not what we're seeing here & from other users, please email full details & I'll check it out.

Cheers

Hi Quentin,

Thanks for your offer! Typical that I have this issue and others don't. From my reading around the net of other peoples experiences it appears that it either works really well, or really poorly. Unfortunately I seem to be among the later. I have sent you an email with my support ticket details and anything else I could think of that might be relevant. Thanks again!

brashquido writes...

I have sent you an email with my support ticket details and anything else I could think of that might be relevant.

Was there an out come here?