any similar application that requires a high-throughput and reasonably reliable network. Just because a network-oriented PVR system is not currently a mainstream application doesn't mean it isn't useful or desirable to non-specialised users. It's certainly not just willy-waving.
I'm using MythTV to great success on a wired network, but from what I've read on the user lists, 802.11G works reasonably well for SD content[1], assuming the network isn't being degraded by other traffic, the wrong kind of walls or interference. Which is a fairly large assumption.
There's more reason as well. LV wiring isnt only good for computer networks & phone, there are a bundle of apps that are fairly likely to become wanted over the next n years, and cable already in place can be used for any of these. Some examples include
heating control (room by room monitor & control of temp, and possibly other factors like controlling extraction fans and detecting/learning which rooms are used when)
backup lighting
burglar alarms
intercom
fire alarms and who knows what other apps that might become desirable over the decades ahead.
Given the chance I'd always put a bunch of cat5e in, not just one cable but the whole reel. Theres no need to terminate it or connect it to anything for now, if its there then future uses are all go.
If you dont, you miss the window of opportunity, all those uses are either closed off, or would require a great deal more expense to cable for.
For me cabling is a no brainier for the reasons most people have picked up on.
Wireless has its place but the quoted network speeds for this stuff are laughable. The physical throughput is dramatically lower so much so I'm surprised that no one has taken the manufacturers to court. I have wireless for occasional use, laptops, music steaming in the garden etc.
It still surprises me how many times I see CAT5e sockets next to telephone sockets. CAT5e can carry almost all media types given the right sorts of adaptors, HDMI, Telephones, RS232, Data, Environmental monitoring etc. And because CAT5e has been in the commercial sector for years the adaptors are relatively cheap. Points adequately provisioned will provide a flexible communications infrastructure for years to come.
I would argue that fibre is not the way to go. The cost of installation and correct termination coupled with the cost of the media converters rule it out. It does make a fantastic backbone so it will appear more and more as the main feed into the house. Potentially fibre can support much higher data speeds but due to the costs data cable often catches up shortly after.
If it were a new build then flooding the property with CT100 coax for the RF and CAT5e for data is very cost effective. An alternative is something like this:-
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effectively combines the two cable technologies and provides a range of adaptors to cater for nearly every media source. Also cuts down on the wall acne. Not cheap though. If I were contiplating a new build or referbishment I'd go for it.
And for the chap that was looking at HD media streaming:-
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I have not have any practical experience of the unit however.
On 6 Jan 2007 10:47:15 GMT someone who may be "Bob Eager" wrote this:-
In England and Wales it was a reaction to the winter of 1963, where many two pipe drainage systems froze.
It was a faulty appreciation of the cause, which was largely due to modifying the two pipe system to cope with upstairs bathrooms rather than external pipes as such. Provided the system is properly designed and used water in an external pipe is most unlikely to freeze during the short time it is in the pipe. However, that does not mean external pipes are desirable. Internal ones are easier to work on and don't spoil the external appearance of a building.
Legislation came in resulting from the cold winter of 1962 when lots of external cast iron soil stacks froze and shattered. It was repealled after plastic soil stacks became commonplace, but many architects still put them inside the building as they are not considered very pretty on the outside.
The incompatibility is usually at a more subtle level than at the MAC/LLC level. Andy touched on one of the most irritating examples in his reply, and this is the issue of lame configuration software. Many times you may have kit that talks at the physical level, but you are unable to specify shared security settings to allow them to work, simply because one configuration utility insists on a key being specified in hex, and the other requires a textual key that it will then hash to form a key. Needless to say they don't all use the same hash functions so there is no ready way to convert one to the other.
Driver incompatibility is another problem. I lose count of the number of times I have found WiFi NICs that in theory work over a number of OS platforms only to find said compatibility is illusury when you actually try to install them. With machine lockups or drivers that simply fail to load at startup etc.
"interrupt conflicts", now those were the days ;-)
Handy though I was with jumpers, links and dip switches the advent of real PnP (after the interim 'plug and pray') did away with much of what made many of us 'different' for any other would be PC builder, that and understanding the difference between, conventional, upper, high, extended, expanded memory of course ;-)
"Hmm, now I can't put that Adaptec 1542B on IRQ5 and DMA3 as that will conflict with ... "
Exactly., Using 5 year old technology GENERALLY means there are drivers that work ...I had an issue with a mission critical website not being accessible..their support finally said 'upgrade your router firmware'
I didn't believe it would work, but after rebooting the router, things came back, so I grudgingly did as requested..it fixed it. Apparently the NAT algorithms were faulty and the translation was timing out or somesuch, so that return packets were forever discarded. Nice to know that an 8 year old router could be upgraded to be only 4 years old firmware wise :-)
As an IT professional for many years, I have an absolute aversion to the latest and greatest. Its always bug ridden s**te. Let someone ELSE have the problems of fixing it..how many times have I been out to 'fix'; systems that have just been 'upgraded'..for no other reason than someone thought it would make a perfectly good system somehow 'better' I ONLY upgrade when there is something the new system will do that I really need, and the old system simply won't.
Buying 5 year old technology generally means its cheap, reliable and stable, and probably has about ten years of life left in it. Just about every cabled installation I have been involved with in the last 5 years worked first time and stayed that way. I would say that 50% of the wireless ones have NOT, for a variety of reasons. In time I am sure they will get much much better. But right now I am not interested.
We moved away from 10base5, because it was unreliable..10baseT was wonderful. OK you need a HUB which was expensive., but the cable was cheaper, the connectors were cheaper, and one bloody PC didn't bring a whole office to a halt..
And its still more than good enough for most things.
No modern phone system gives me anything I really need beyond what a
1980 style analogue PABX can do either, in many instances.
So much is innovation for the sake of it. I don't actually WANT to take pictures on my phone, or receive e-mails on it. Or take the phone into the bog so I can chat to some goofy teenager about my sex-life. When I leave this computer its because I don't WANT to get e-mails..how much of all this stuff would people actually trade for a simjple system, with no bells and whistles, that simply and reliably did the very few basic things that they actually needed?
How much time did I spend the other night, vainly trying to get rd of whatever random selection of keystrokes suddenly made every correction to what I was writing come out in red strikethrough? About 30 minutes of WASTED TIME.
Or take my new mouse. All I wanted was one that didn't get clogged up with cat fluff and cigarette ash.I thought 'hey, optical will do that' and so it did..BUT its now got two buttons on the side, plus a trackball that rolls AND clicks and when I grab it too hard editing a web input, it suddenly launches me back to a previous screen..and whenever I highlight text and move too the keyboard to edit a word, it slips and I end up editing three lines. ARGGH! I HATE INNOVATION. HOW CAN I TURN ALL THIS SHITE OFF. I JUST want a mouse that moves a cursor, thats ALL.
They still are. Even now there are cases where some devices will happily share an interrupt with some drivers on some operating systems but others won't.
That assumes that the Friendly Manual describes the functionality correctly or at all.
Especially in the case of entry level Wifi products for the consumer market, the documentation is appalling. I imagine that this is for a few reasons:
- an assumption on the part of the vendor that the customer won't understand the technical detail anyway so why bother
- why bother because the product will have a short lifetime
- nobody likes writing manuals
- not having people with the ability to write anything beyond a cut and paste from the product config screens.
I recently bought a Linksys managed gigabit switch. It is quite well featured, but the documentation is appalling. Specifically in the area of VLAN configuration, the information is quite sparse and requires an email to their tech support for clarification.
Many of the configuration setups for these types of product including wireless and other home routers are web based. Nothing wrong with that except that behaviour is not consistent among different web browsers and versions thereof. I have had cases of products where it is impossible to do the entire set up using one browser and where two different ones have been needed in order to complete the set up. Probably this has to do with java, active X and so on, but this is hopeless for something that is meant to be an out of the box simple set up product.
All of that assumes that you know what you are doing, know where to look for information and when things are broken having a reasonable idea how to go about troubleshooting.
No, and some of the issues such as configuration, drivers and so on can arise with wired equipment also.
Wifi adds additional problems of security settings and RF behaviour into the mix.
Admittedly there are product improvements in some areas, but there is still a lot of crap on the market. Vendors are still not taking enough care over firmware and documentation and are too focussed on selling based on claimed speed rather than what it really is and on product reliability, supportability and ease of use.
Part of the blame for this can be laid at the door of the manufacturers because of their perceived need to bring out something apparently but not really new every few months; while the rest is on the ever decreasing market pricing and margins. Both reduce the ability and interest to produce properly reliable and supported products.
Thought you'd have got that one. IPv4 vs. IPv6 address spaces etc.
I can remember going to a presentation by Jon Postel where he said that he couldn't ever see a reason why more than 32 bit IP addresses would ever be needed.
Well of course, but I would offer the instances are still rare compared with the 'requirement' to actually set resources as we had to in the olden days? ie, I can't remember having any real / hard 'conflicts' within the last ~50 PC's I've built over the last ~7 years (just lucky maybe)? ;-)
Indeed. But what used to be the issue of 'is IRQX free' is now 'can we still get that type of memory' or 'have you tried this weeks driver' .. or 'what on earth is that connector for!?' ;-)
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