Differences of Wired vs. Wireless Media Extender

[bdavis_colorado]

Do the wireless and wired versions of the Media Extender support all the same formats?
The specs on the wireless version stated Divx XVid, VOB, WMV, and MP2, but the wired version did not.
For the wireless version, does it also support wired?
Is the wired version 100 MBit or Gigabit ?
What resolution will they go up to?

Any help would be greatly appreciated, as I'm thinking about ordering one, but I haven't found enough info on these yet since they are so new.

Thanks!

[mayamaniac]

I think they are identical except for the obvious that one is wired and the other is both wired and wireless.

Technically, neither supports any other formats except for MPEG2. Its the SageTV software or the Hauppauge software that is doing the conversion from what ever format into MPEG2 first before it sends to the MVP. You need a speedy computer to be able to playback other other video formats, its a very CPU intensive task. On my Intel P4 3.2, it used up to 70%.

They are both 100Mbit wired, and the wireless one uses 54Mbit 802.11G. And I believe it outputs standard resolution, which is 720x480 for NTSC.

MM

[bdavis_colorado]

Thanks MM

I guess I'm mostly concerned with Divx. Since I have a AMD Mobile Barton running at 2GHz (2600+), would you think it would be capable of serving up Divx videos to one Media Extender? Also, any idea on the bandwith needed for the MPEG 2 + sound via wireless? (ie: does it run fine over 802.11b?)

[mayamaniac]

Your AMD 2600+ should be fine for one extender for sure. And 802.11b is too slow for the MVP. Even with 802.11G, unless you place the MVP close to your wireless router, I suggest you get the wired version and just run the network cable, you'll be much happier with the performance.

[bdavis_colorado]

I was thinking about the wireless, since I don't have ethernet in the bedroom yet, but I guess it's a good excuse to wire it now. I'm guessing the wirless would be at most 2x 802.11b speed due to the distance to the WAP. If someone could come out with a Media Extender that had support for DivX decoding for higher resolutions, that would be awesome. It still seems to be a good solution though for what I need. MM - thanks for the feedback