Is it worth upgrading to gigabit ethernet?

[JP23]

Will this significantly increase MVP performance?

To what extent is network speed a limiting factor when watching TV or recordings?

[dgeezer]

I don't think it would matter at all. I can stream HDTV 1080i across my regular ethernet no problem. So surely SD is not taxing your network.

[martint123]

I don't know how accurate Task Manager is at reporting network usage, but mine is saying it is running at less than 3% one the server streaming to an MVP on 100mbps ethernet.

[HarryH3]

I just checked network usage with NetMeter while an MVP was playing a show. Throughout never appears to go above 623kB/sec. That wouldn't even tax a 10 mb/s standard Ethernet feed. So going with GigaBit would only net you bragging rights.

My house is wired with Cat5e cable that is rated for GigaBit, but due to the price difference between a 100 mb/s 24-port switch and one rated for GigaBit on all ports I'm just using a D-Link 100 mb/s switch for now. We can watch TV on 2 MVP's while my kids play on the internet and never have a single problem with bandwidth.

[mvallevand]

It really depends on what you have on your network. With an HDHomeRun for HD capture, a quality NAS for storage and maybe a streaming HD client or media extender playing, there isn't a lot left for your MVP.

Martin

[wtg]

Martin's right, it does depend on what you have going on on your network. The situation he describes maxes out a 100Mbit network, and since actual throughput is usually only 60-70% theoretical, it would actually be too much for most.

However, if you aren't talking about a bunch of HD streams running all about like Martin was, a 100 Mbit network has bandwidth for many MVPs running simultaneously. At it's highest quality settings the Hauppauge cards record 720x480 MPGs at 12 Mbit/s (a bit different with PAL), so 4 MVPs running simultaneously would only hit 48% of the theoretical throughput.

[JP23]

Thanks for the advice, won't be wasting any money on that then.

[ASD]

Hi,

I have a small home network.

1 media PC
1 Games PC
1 nas (freenas on an EPIA board)
2 MVP's
2 laptops (wifi G)
NTL cable

House is cabled with Cat 6 as I used the best I could get while fitting it but some of the patch cables are cat 5E. From what I've read gigabit works fine with cat 5E on short to medium runs.

Too make it gigabit all I did was buy a netgear gigabit switch for approx £20 uk. I have a Linksys router that sits between the switch and the NTL broadband to take care of the wireless and also provide one 100mps output to an MVP. Everything else is cabled off the switch in the attic.

Overall throughput is great, I can pull a 2Gb file from the media server to the games PC for recoding or burning to disk in 45 secs.

Overall the cost of gigabit is only a little more if it's just a switch, I think the gigabit switch was arounf £6 more that the 100mps.

Regards

ASD

[mvallevand]

I've been playing with a new media extender and I realized I forgot a scenario When I use the devices 8x fast forward on an SD mpeg 2 (which is really just accelerated play), I can easily hit 35% of 100 Mbs so it's not just HD content that needs to be considered.

Martin