Getting the most from an Airport Extreme for media use?

[cosmichobo]

G'day,

What are the best settings to use on my 2011 Airport Extreme Base Station to stream movies to a 1.5GHz G4 Mac Mini?

It also needs to service a MacBookPro 2009, iPad Retina, iPad Mini, iPhone 3GS and iPhone 5S...

Will moving the newer devices all to the 5GHz service allow the Mac Mini to perform better??

Thanks,

 

[kage207]

The 5GHz frequency just gives you less interference to other household electronics and manages data about the same as 2.4GHz. This would not improve streaming media from the Mac Mini. If you can hardwire it, that would be the best option.

 

[warvanov]

The bottleneck in this set up will be the processing power of the G4 mini, not the wifi or wired network connection.

 

[blueroom]

First rule of home networking: All stationary devices should use wired Ethernet.

 

[cosmichobo]

First rule of home networking: All stationary devices should use wired Ethernet.

I like that rule... it's a great rule... with just 1 minor drawback. I can't use wired ethernet.

When the HDD is directly connected to the Mini, it plays the movies without issue... (The only problems I've had were with files with too high resolution/data rates, which I've replaced with lower res files to avoid such issues) It wasn't until accessing wirelessly that the issues occurred...

Using iStumbler on my MacBookPro (couldn't get it to work on the G4), standing in the same room as the AEBS, only scores a 65% signal/13% noise. By the time I get to the living room where the G4 Mini lives, it's down to around 25-33% signal, similar noise.

 

[MultiFinder17]

Don't forget that the mini, unless you have added an external USB adapter, only has 802.11g wifi, which is limited to 54Mb/s, much slower than modern 802.11n-based devices. This could be your bottleneck. I would suggest an external USB adapter since you cannot use wired ethernet.

 

[blueroom]

I like that rule... it's a great rule... with just 1 minor drawback. I can't use wired ethernet.

When the HDD is directly connected to the Mini, it plays the movies without issue... (The only problems I've had were with files with too high resolution/data rates, which I've replaced with lower res files to avoid such issues) It wasn't until accessing wirelessly that the issues occurred...

Using iStumbler on my MacBookPro (couldn't get it to work on the G4), standing in the same room as the AEBS, only scores a 65% signal/13% noise. By the time I get to the living room where the G4 Mini lives, it's down to around 25-33% signal, similar noise.

The next best option is high speed Ethernet over Power adapters. Still that ancient G4 is probably not up to the task.

 

[cosmichobo]

The G4 was the perfect price - free. And it does a better job than my 1st Gen AppleTV, which it replaced.

Yes, it can't handle HD material, but then, I'm using a 32" S4 Samsung LCD TV, which isn't full-HD anyway.