Buying MediaMVP

[jpete1019]

Worked on my basement today....tickled as hell to find out that the contractor that built our house used CAT5e (1000mbps) to run to all of our phone lines rather than CAT3. SO, I know a project to work on along with the basement now.....FORGET WIRELESS NETWORKING!

[jpete1019]

sorry wtg i total ignored your post from before. Thanks for the tip! Good thing I checked!

[SFX Group]

Hi

Bad idea, phone is 50v, network is about 2v, if they cross (and the good old physics voltage creation from twisted wires) takes over your shoot your network card (whole PC if on board) to a BBQ, seen it before.

Many Thanks
Ashley

I think Cat5 has fewer twists than Cat5e and so is not as good for high speed or long runs. I've never tried it before to know whether you would get acceptable performance or not. And as FuzzyPapaBear pointed out, if they're daisy chained from room to room instead of being a dedicated wire to each room, then that's a problem too. In my 4 year old home the phone installer ran a dedicated 5e line to each room, so it was ideal.

Re: the wiring though, 10/100Mb ethernet uses wires 1, 2, 3 and 6, while phone line #1 in the home is usually wired to wire 4 and 5, so you really can share both a phone and network drop.

One other potential problem is drop-outs when the line rings, as in theory you can have up to 70V coming down the wire, much higher than the 5V used by the network and potentially creating disturbance on the other wires. I've not experienced this at all though, and the 70V potential was more likely in the old days when people had real, large bell ringers on their phones. These took a lot more juice to fire up than today's small and mostly electronic ringers. I've never bothered to measure the voltage on the line when the phone rings at my house, but it doesn't disturb my network.

[wtg]

Hi

Bad idea, phone is 50v, network is about 2v, if they cross (and the good old physics voltage creation from twisted wires) takes over your shoot your network card (whole PC if on board) to a BBQ, seen it before.

Many Thanks
Ashley

Yeah, it's probably worth testing on your lines if you go this route. I didn't bother testing mine on a ring and just did it. I haven't any trouble whatsoever in 4 years, but that's not to say someone else wouldn't.

I suppose you could 1) test what the incoming voltage is on the phone line during a ring, and 2) test if you get any induced current and at what voltage on the network lines during a ring. It'd certainly be easy to test beforehand.

Hmm, maybe I'll check mine just out of curiosity.

[jpete1019]

Yeah, but I totally disconnected my phone system from my CAT5e system. I don't use land line phone (the joy of cellphones) so I have a dedicated CATe ethernet.

Wasn't this post about Buying a MVP? BTW...does everyone here like there MVP? Function pretty much like a Tivo? Do you get alot of lag or not? (i'll be wired not wireless).

[jpete1019]

Here is ultimately what I want to have in my basement. Could be a pretty nice rig having a power protected control media box as such, and then under it in the utility room I would have my home server running my GBPVR "Backend" (sorry for the MythTV lingo) and running client for everything else. Maybe some home automation, or security cameras....

I'll have to put some pictures up when I get done....

[FuzzyPapaBear]

Hi

Bad idea, phone is 50v, network is about 2v, if they cross (and the good old physics voltage creation from twisted wires) takes over your shoot your network card (whole PC if on board) to a BBQ, seen it before.

Many Thanks
Ashley

It is possible but I too have not had any problems. In fact in the last "major" cabling install I participated in we used AMP Netconnect ACO Modules to run data and voice (Avaya digital phone sets) to each desk.

Worked on my basement today....tickled as hell to find out that the contractor that built our house used CAT5e (1000mbps) to run to all of our phone lines rather than CAT3. SO, I know a project to work on along with the basement now.....FORGET WIRELESS NETWORKING!

FYI; I believe the Gigabit spec uses all 4 pairs of wires in Cat5e so you cannot use splitters on the runs where you want to try and get Gigabit speeds.

[soccerdad]

Wasn't this post about Buying a MVP? BTW...does everyone here like there MVP? Function pretty much like a Tivo? Do you get alot of lag or not? (i'll be wired not wireless).

You are correct, this is a major thread hijack.

As far as the MVP goes, I think it works great for its job. I would not say it is like Tivo, it really is just a way to get the GBPVR funtionallity distributed to the TVs. It does not really have much of a lag, except for live TV. I takes a couple of seconds to switch channels. You have to wait a second for the menus to change, but you get used to that pretty fast. You can't directly play anything except MPEG2 files, but again, that is all I record in anyway. I use a DVD player and not my HTPC for DVDs anyway. Video quality is good, although you may need to tweek some settings like brightness. Search the forums and you will find miles of simple tweaks.

You can't do highdef with them, but for the money, they are pretty good. The MVPMC project has been adding some functionallity.

All in all, I have had 2 for a couple of years and am very happy with them.

Good luck.

[FuzzyPapaBear]

Wasn't this post about Buying a MVP? BTW...does everyone here like there MVP? Function pretty much like a Tivo? Do you get alot of lag or not? (i'll be wired not wireless).

Ahh, yeah. Sorry about participating in the thread hijack. :o

The MVPs work great for MPEG2 content recorded on your GBPVR box. There is a slight delay for menus to change (half a second to a second) but it is not unbearable. You really can't beat'em for the price.