Possible?

[UKGuest44]

I was just wondering if something like this would be possible. I've never tried anything like it, so I thought I'd ask in case anyone has experience in this area.

I have a laptop connected to the wireless network in my house. The laptop is usually near the upstairs TV. The laptop's ethernet port is free, because it's only connected to the network by wireless.

Could I make a second "network" from the laptop's Ethernet port by a crossover cable to an MVP to connect to the TV? This would need to be seperate to the main network.

Would this be possible?

[wfooshee]

Not unless you can serve the MVP an IP address via DHCP and build a route through the laptop for the MVP to access the Internet. All the rest is easy: USB Win-PVR tuner, or something like that, and GB-PVR running on the laptop, the IP on the wired interface a different subnet from the wireless (i.e. 192.168.5.x as opposed to 192.168.1.x). But getting the MVP an address on that network is not what you would call straightforward.

To explain: the MVP pulls its IP address from your network's DHCP server. Well, you don't have one on the network where you want your MVP, on the wired card of your laptop. And even then, your laptop would have to have a route to the other network to get to the Internet for schedules and whatnot.

Not your basic home networking task.

[Pioneer4x4]

Could I make a second "network" from the laptop's Ethernet port by a crossover cable to an MVP to connect to the TV? This would need to be seperate to the main network.

Would this be possible?

I beleive if you have XP, you can 'bridge' the 2 networks. I don't know how well it will work, but it should connect.

[Lucas_24]

pretty sure wondows 2000 allows you to do this as well.

[capone]

I've had some problems w/ two network connecitons open at the same time w/ XP. It tends to conbine them automatically, using one for up and the other for down. I never found a way to tell it to favor one connection (the cat5 when active, leaving the wifi as backup/off automatically when lan detected). If it decided to use the wfi for down while streaming video on the LAN, it would stutter.

It may something you can defeat if the connections are comepletely independent (if they join separate netoworks, and don't use the same gateway).

[wfooshee]

The bridging in XP is for combined bandwidth on a single subnet, not for routing between two subnets. Two 100-Mb cards can combine for a 200-Mb connection. XP does not have routing functions built in to allow two networks to join at the machine, nor does it have a DHCP server to get an IP to the MVP.

If this were a server OS, it would probably be doable.

[markm]

Bridging is for doing what the original poster asked. I've done it before to turn my XP box into a wap. It basically worked. I had some issues with the wireless going up and down all the time, but that was unrelated to them being bridged.

It's not hard to do if you just want to try it, and just as easy to undo it. At least it was for me.

[Lucas_24]

You can bridge a network in XP using the internet connection sharing services. This will provide DHCP on the connection that does not connect to the internet. My dad has a wireless router for his laptop, but does not yet have high speed internet. His desktop has a dialup connection to the internet, which is shared with his NIC. I've turner DHCP off in his router. When his laptop connects to the network, his desktop assigns a IP address to it, and automatically connects to the internet through his dial up connection as soon as he tries to access the internet. I don't believe you can select a IP range for the DHCP services running in XP, so you may be limited to 1 connection share. I'm hoping to do this on my network soon. I want to add another NIC to my GBPVR server so I can seperate my normal netowrk traffic from my video traffic.

[UKGuest44]

Thanks for the responses I apreciate it

Sadly bridging is out of the question as the computer runs XP home rather than pro - I'm not sure if bridging was directly what I wanted though - the mediaMVP doesnt need any access to anything other than the media server pc

I get the impression sdaly that I cant be connected to two networks at once? The wireless (main network) and non-wireless (MVP crossover)?

I dont know if it helps, but I used to be able to connect to both my wireless network (main network) and to a broadband modem by ethernet (wired ethernet port) at the same time? Isnt that in a way two different networks?

It's just frustrating that the media server and the mediamvp would be in the same room, but in order to connect them, I'd have to give up access to the main network and the internet.

[Lucas_24]

Why don't you just try it, My dad's setup is running on XP home edition, On your wireless connection properties, check the box asking if you want to share this network, Just search for XP and internet connection sharing on google, there are plenty of tutorials explaining how to do it.

http://www.chicagotech.net/icssetup.htm

Hope this helps