Using Airport to stream video from HD to macbook help please I'm a newb

[Poozberry]

I just recently purchased the airport extreme 'n' and the only reason I bought it was to watch movies that I have on my WD hard drive without having to plug the HD directly into my macbook. I want to be able to take my macbook out into the living room (10ft away from AE) and hook up to tv or just sit anywhere and stream those videos.

The problem I have is that when I go to watch the movies using front row, itunes, or quicktime I get very bad results. The video is very choppy or most of the time front row will freeze when I am searching through the movies I have.

All the movies I have are mp4 format. Is there a way to lower the total bit rate? will that even help?

Does the internet connection have anything to do with my ability to stream video from my HD? My next door neighbor lets me bum off of his wireless (college student) so it is not very good but good enough to do basic surfing. If he has 'g' will this slow down my 'n' streaming capabilities?

very frustrated anything will help

[kastenbrust]

Its nothing to do with the wireless and signals at all, the problem is with the WD hard drive and it going to sleep when its detecting periods of inactivity. (to save power) I know how to disable this if the HD is connected using USB, but using Wifi im at a loss, but now ive explained the problem theres probably someone here who knows how to do it.

[enochpeng]

Originally Posted by Poozberry

I just recently purchased the airport extreme 'n' and the only reason I bought it was to watch movies that I have on my WD hard drive without having to plug the HD directly into my macbook. I want to be able to take my macbook out into the living room (10ft away from AE) and hook up to tv or just sit anywhere and stream those videos.

The problem I have is that when I go to watch the movies using front row, itunes, or quicktime I get very bad results. The video is very choppy or most of the time front row will freeze when I am searching through the movies I have.

All the movies I have are mp4 format. Is there a way to lower the total bit rate? will that even help?

Does the internet connection have anything to do with my ability to stream video from my HD? My next door neighbor lets me bum off of his wireless (college student) so it is not very good but good enough to do basic surfing. If he has 'g' will this slow down my 'n' streaming capabilities?

very frustrated anything will help

How big are your video files? I've had this issue with larger videos files. Say 720p ones.

[Poozberry]

they are all around 1.20 - 1.45 gb. They are all non HD movies and are mp4 format... I just started messing around with handbrake (a program that can resize for ipod and such) but it would take awhile to redo all my movies.