Finally upgraded my router

Started by derspiess, March 05, 2011, 11:58:32 PM

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derspiess

March 05, 2011, 11:58:32 PM
I was supposed to have gotten it for Christmas, but the wife flaked out & couldn't keep it straight in her head exactly which model I wanted.

I got the WZR-HP-G300NH, which is now being shipped with DD-WRT installed, with the option of downgrading to the "user-friendly" proprietary firmware.  Obviously, since I was running DD-WRT on my venerable WRT54GL I was plenty comfortable with DD-WRT so I left it on there (it's not exactly the most current build, so I may update to the latest version at some point).  From the time I opened the box, it took me about 5 minutes to get the Buffalo router configured and swapped in place of the WRT54GL.  Since I set up the same SSID & password, my wifi devices reconnected without a hitch.

It will take a while for me to figure out how to take full advantage of the router's capabilities (NAS, Print Server, bittorrent client, etc.) but none of those are big needs at the moment.

Anyway, it's nice to finally see "1.0 Gbps" show up in my network card properties.  I upgraded one of my switches to gigabit and plan to replace one of my remaining two switches as well.  I'm noticing that backups to my home server are going faster, and I can stream HD video at the same time and not come close to any sort of bottleneck.

Now if Silicondust would hurry the hell up and release their new networked cable card tuner, I could ditch my TiVos and move forward with my HTPC/Xbox 360 media center extender plan.
"If you can play a guitar and harmonica at the same time, like Bob Dylan or Neil Young, you're a genius. But make that extra bit of effort and strap some cymbals to your knees, suddenly people want to get the hell away from you."  --Rich Hall

Caliga

#1
March 06, 2011, 08:38:38 AM
"Rommel 235"? :hmm:
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derspiess

#2
March 06, 2011, 11:36:04 PM
Quote from: Caliga on March 06, 2011, 08:38:38 AM
"Rommel 235"? :hmm:

No.  I have one set up as "Free Public Wifi" and the other as "hpsetup" ;)
"If you can play a guitar and harmonica at the same time, like Bob Dylan or Neil Young, you're a genius. But make that extra bit of effort and strap some cymbals to your knees, suddenly people want to get the hell away from you."  --Rich Hall

Caliga

#3
March 07, 2011, 08:34:07 AM
Dangit, I wanted to leech. :Embarrass:
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derspiess

#4
March 07, 2011, 10:57:33 AM
Quote from: Caliga on March 07, 2011, 08:34:07 AM
Dangit, I wanted to leech. :Embarrass:

Well if you're ever on my street, let me know & I'll set one up just for you.  It will be named: GoettaImplants
"If you can play a guitar and harmonica at the same time, like Bob Dylan or Neil Young, you're a genius. But make that extra bit of effort and strap some cymbals to your knees, suddenly people want to get the hell away from you."  --Rich Hall

derspiess

#5
April 28, 2011, 02:21:40 PM
Well, I got tired of waiting on the SilconDust HDHomerun Prime networked cable card tuner to hit the market.  This was going to be my Final DVR Solution, allowing me to liquidate my Tivos & do all my DVR'ing through Win7 Media Center, but the damned device has been stuck in CableLabs for ages. 

My aging Tivo Series 2 Dual-tuner had been limping along, but I kept having to replace the hard drive & was running out of old IDE drives to swap in.  Plus I wanted something to access digital channels upstairs.

So I went to Best Buy & bought a Tivo Premiere for $99.  I'm committed to Tivo for a year at $20 a month for this new box.  I made that our living room DVR & moved the TivoHD up to the bedroom.  By shuffling around my subscriptions, it's only a net increase of $8 a month for the next year, so I'll tough it out for 12 months & then re-evaluate.

The Premiere is a step up from the TivoHD, but only a small evolutionary step.  It has more features and a nicer HD interface, but isn't the jump you would expect from a series 3 to series 4 device.

Anywho, large capacity hard drives are cheaper by the minute it seems, so I got a WD Green 1.5TB drive from Amazon for $60 shipped, ran a tool called winmfs on my PC to clone the original paltry 320GB Tivo Premiere drive & optimize the new drive for noise reduction and power saving.  Went from a shitty 45 hours of HD recording capacity to 236 (or ~2000 for recording SD content :lol:). 

So for $160 I get the 236 hours of recording capacity, as opposed to the 150 hours I would have gotten by spending $299 for a Tivo Premiere XL.  Sticking it to teh man = fun.

So while I'm disappointed that the HDHomerun thing hasn't materialized yet, I'm generally content with the Tivo Premiere.
"If you can play a guitar and harmonica at the same time, like Bob Dylan or Neil Young, you're a genius. But make that extra bit of effort and strap some cymbals to your knees, suddenly people want to get the hell away from you."  --Rich Hall

derspiess

#6
May 02, 2011, 11:13:46 AM
...and just a few days after I pull the trigger on my Tivo Premiere, I hear that the HDHomeRun Prime has finally passed CableLabs certification: http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/02/hdhomerun-prime-tv-tuner-passes-cablelabs-tests-available-for-p/

Of course, if I return the Tivo Premiere, I'll then hear that there are huge production delays on the 3-tuner HDHomeRun Prime & it won't be available until December.  I'll stay with Tivo for now :mellow:
"If you can play a guitar and harmonica at the same time, like Bob Dylan or Neil Young, you're a genius. But make that extra bit of effort and strap some cymbals to your knees, suddenly people want to get the hell away from you."  --Rich Hall
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