WiFi vs ethernet connection

[sktn77a]

I've used an Amazon FireTV Recast for several years. It's OK but I'm looking for something better. I was all ready to pull the trigger on an HDhomerun 4kFlex until I saw you have to hard-wire it via ethernet to your home router. That killed the deal for me. I use an attic mount 8-bay Antenna connected to my Recast in a closet on the 2nd floor (I run the antenna cable through the ceiling in the closet). The Recast then connects via WiFi to my router on the first floor and then to the TVs throughout the house.
So, I'm sure there are many folks like me that require a WiFi connection to their home router. Until SiliconDust can come up with that, its stick with Recast [removed my moderator - see forum rules]

[wilme2]

(I run the antenna cable through the ceiling in the closet)

You can use a wireless bridge, there are people on the forum who do that.

But I would recommend using that same closet ceiling to pull ethernet in addition to the coax. I wired up my 3 story townhouse by using closet ceilings and other accessible locations. I would have been easier if I knew how to patch drywall!

[jxxaxxy]

I have used wireless bridge with mixed results. Generally works fine and then stops after sometime and had to reboot with several brands. I ended up running a wire over to where my antenna comes into the house and never looked back. Most houses have old coax running through the house. You could get coax moca adapter if you have a coax line near your router and where your closet is.

[sktn77a]

Yeah, a wireless bridge would be a kludge - the real solution is for SiliconDust to do it right and have the WiFi option.

[jasonl]

Adding more wireless hops greatly increases the chances of network problems. It's less of a concern on competing devices that are transcoding the video to a lower rate, but with the HDHomeRun sending the original unmodified stream, it starts to be an issue, especially if you try to get 4 streams going to 4 wireless devices. 4 streams from the HDHomeRun to the router, then 4 from the router to the clients.

For what it's worth, if you really want to go that route, mesh networks tend to handle things more reliably than wireless bridges. Most of them have an ethernet port or two on each node so it's simple to hook the HDHomeRun up to one. The higher end systems that use one frequency range for node to node communication and another for device to node also work a lot better since it splits the 4 and 4 onto separate networks.

[techpro2004]

Just wondering if moca (media over coax) is an option.

[sktn77a]

Just wondering if moca (media over coax) is an option.

Not sure what that is but the only coax would be from the antenna to the recast/homerun. The network and TVs must stay where they are, inaccessible to the recast/antenn by and physical cable.

[techpro2004]

moca allows you to use a coax cable like a ethernet cable and is more stable than wifi. If you have coax in your attic and in the rest of your house, chances are it connects to each other via a series of splitters. in that case you would just need 2 moca bridges. one by the hdhomerun and another somewhere in your home where coax and ethernet are physically close to each other.

[jxxaxxy]

The basic idea is if your house was wired to multiple places for cable tv that you could use the existing wires with moca adapters. But if your house was never wired for cable tv to different rooms in the house then moca wouldn't be an option. You can always youtube it to see how it works for a better understanding.