Wireless Bridge with 4 port Switch needed.

[crscoles]

Ok, here is my situation. I need a way to connect my home theater gear to my network and unfortunately a wired connection (while preferable) is not really an option without a considerable expense (concrete walls and floors, I live in Germany). I have the following components all with ethernet connections.

Sony 40" LCD
Western Digital Live TV
LG BD 390 (has wifi already)
Alice HD Media Receiver (coming next week)

My priority is maximizing downlink throughput as the set top box will be pulling the HD TV signals from the dsl and has only a ethernet connection (no WiFi). I am assuming the signal will be compressed coming over the dsl (16Mbs), so I don't know how high the downlink needs to be. There shouldn't be too much need for high uplink capabilities except for the occasional firmware update request.

The question then becomes am I better off getting a router with bridging capabilities or buying an AP/Bridge? My network is all in the 2.4 gHz band. I will be using the stock wireless router from Alice, I believe it is an AVM box. Advice and recommendations, please.

 

[thiggins]

If you are connecting to a wireless router and it supports WDS bridging/repeating, then you can use either another router with WDS or a client bridge.

If your wireless router doesn't support WDS, then you need a bridge, since it doesn't use WDS.

Don't worry about getting a bridge with built-in switch. You can add a switch to any bridge to expand ports.

Be aware that reliable streaming of HD content is difficult to do, even with N equipment. N does not provide consistent enough throughput.