Streaming HD video

[o0jelly0o]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

Is there a router fast enough to stream up to 30Mbs bit rates? The best my router can do on 5Ghz is around 15Mbs I believe, if the bit rates are higher than that it will begin to skip and not play. Basically I'm wondering if apple does release a new 1080p capable apple tv, if it would even be possible to stream great quality video to it.

 

[peterjcat]

First of all you don't need 30mbps for great quality video. 10-12Mbps at 1080p can look amazing, and that's the kind of bitrate you can expect when iTunes video goes to 1080p. Second, if your router can only do 15Mbps then something is seriously wrong. 15Mbps is hardly out of the ancient 802.11b range. 801.11g can do up to 54Mbps and 802.11n can do up to 300Mbps, even higher with more recent iterations. Real-world usage is much less but I've streamed many full Blu-rays around 50mbps over 802.11n with a little network tweaking.

If you're really serious about HD streaming, though, wireless isn't the best option. The ATV has a wired Ethernet jack for a reason!

 

[o0jelly0o]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

I've personally tried the new Star Trek at 16Mbs it had very noticeable compression artifacts, at it's normal 30Mbs it had absolutely none. Now 10-12 might be good for some movies, but certainly not all.

I have 802.11n and of course my MacBook Pro says it is getting 300, and as you said real-world it isn't getting anywhere near that. So far every movie I've attempted streaming using home sharing has skipped and not played so I'm not sure what is wrong with mine if yours can do this. Also I'm not sure how you got a Blu ray rip around 50Mbs. Avatar which probably has the highest bit rate is maybe 35Mbs.

Yes, I am serious about it, but I'm pretty sure the wired solution makes this thread pointless, I'm looking for a wireless solution. Thank you for your input however.

 

[peterjcat]

Yes some movies will compress better than others, but there may be ways to improve your Star Trek rip with better x264 settings -- I dunno. Avatar is far from the highest bitrate Blu-ray. The maximum spec for Blu-ray movies is 54Mbps, and they do reach those levels even if only in spikes rather than average bitrate. Remember you have add the video bitrate plus the bitrates of all audio tracks, secondary video etc.

What kind of router are you using? I have a pretty ordinary D-Link 323 and it pulls 50Mbps on 2.4Ghz 802.11n.