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The transmission of video over wireless networks requires the 54Mbit/sec 802.11G network.
The biggest problem with playing wireless video on MediaMVP is making sure there are no
802.11B devices slowing down your 802.11G network. There are several symptoms of a
wireless network not running at the full 54 Mbits/sec:
-
you will see jerky video or stuttering video when playing Videos
-
you will get a loss of connection to your media server when playing videos and will
see a message ‘Contacting server’
Make sure your network is really running 802.11G only.
Most wireless networks will
back down to the slower 801.11B speed if there is any device on the network which is run-
ning with 802.11B. For example, if your laptop is running at 802.11B speeds (max datarate:
11Mbits/sec), your entire network will run at the slower 802.11B speed and you will not be
able to play videos.
In order to optimize a wireless network for high speed video operation, here are a few
things you can do:
-
choose another wireless channel:
most Access Points come programmed to use
channel 2 or 6, but you might find the default channel is being used by other wireless
Access Points in your area. Therefore, change the setting on your Access Point to
another channel (the preferred channels are channel 1, 6 or 11). Changing channels is
done through the setup program on your Access Point.
-
Set your Access Point to 802.11G only.
Some access points can run at either
802.11B or 802.11G. This is also done via the setup program on your Access Point.
-
add another Access Point just for video:
Access Points are relatively inexpensive,
and adding another Access Point to your network, with a different channel number,
might significantly increase your network performance.
Microsoft has a good web page which talks about improving your wirelss network perform-
ance. The link to this page is here:
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/moredone/wirelesstips.mspx
Tips on optimizing your wireless network for MediaMVP
