HTPC and HD content – wired or wirelessly?

[atticcat]

Hi. I’m a noob to this forum and HTPC, but I’m hoping to build an HTPC for my family in the near future, so I plan on reading as many beginner’s guides as I can and gleaning as much information before purchasing anything.  Anyway, I have a question about HD content and the best medium for networking it through a home.  A few months ago I  spoke with a person at a website called Assassinhtpc.com and ask if steaming HD content wirelessly from an HTPC throughout a home was a reliable and stable method and his answer seem to indicate that it was not that stable of a medium at this time even though the HTPCs they build for customers have wireless capability. 

So, my question is, do you think that HD content is best served thru a wired network, i.e, Cat 5e, 6 or 6A or is it just as easy to stream wirelessly?  Just wanted to post this before I purchased any cable to see what the general consensus was.

Thanks for any input.

[jserrat]

Excellent question and I’m glad you’re considering the alternatives before you build your HTPC. I have to agree completely with the person you previously spoke with:  use cabled network instead of wireless. It’s not only more stable but you’ll get better performance.  Good luck with your build!

[Aaron Ledger]

The simple answer is that wireless is not as easy to stream as wired. It can be possible to have success with wireless depending on the exact requirements and circumstances, but it’s not sure-fire.

An alternative wired connection technology using coaxial cable (stuff you may already have in your walls for CATV/Cable modem) is MoCA. I have been using some Netgear MoCA bridges successfully in my apartment that was not wired with twisted pair. It can handle the full bit rate of Blu-ray without issue.

[Mike Garcen]

agreed, if you can go wired, always go wired. I’ve got a small place, and even with the top of the line Wireless-N Dual Band routers and adapters, every now and then i still will get a stutter that just doesn’t happen when i go hard wired.

[captain_video]

Wired is the definitely the way to go.  Wireless is fine for surfing the net or checking your e-mail but hardwired is by far the best way to go for transmitting data and streaming video.

[umdivx]

As said before MoCA is another viable option. Will support 1080p HD streaming and all that and uses the same cable tv coax already in your home.

Here’s a review I did a while back: http://www.missingremote.com/review/actiontec-ethernet-over-coax-moca-network-adapter

-Josh

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