Netgear 3DHD Wireless Home Theatre Networking Kit
by Cameron Butterfield on February 25, 2011 7:20 PM EST- Posted in
- Networking
- Home Theater
- NetGear
1080p and Blu-ray Content Streaming:
So we have seen that the NETGEAR 3DHD Networking kit is capable of pushing some very consistent throughput numbers. However, NETGEAR has also marketed this device as being capable of streaming high quality content over the air. At the CES show booth NETGEAR was showing multiple video streams being played at the same time.
It was possible to duplicate this during testing: three instances of a 1080p copy of Big Buck Bunny were streamed wirelessly to three separate devices using NETGEAR's 3DHD solution (see image below). The playback had no frame dropout issues on any of the devices, and frankly it was impossible to distinguish that the files were being played over a wireless bridge and not via a standard wired LAN configuration in terms of responsiveness and load time.
Blu-ray Content:
It is one thing to play 1080p content that has been optimized for low file size and easy distribution and quite another to handle full quality Blu-ray content with streams as dense as 54Mbps (max data transfer rate for Blu-ray). Testing was performed playing fully featured Blu-ray content (including menus) via mounting ISOs in virtual clone drive.
At Locations one and two, the NETGEAR 3DHD pair was entirely capable of distributing Blu-ray content. After watching four separate Blu-ray titles over the device, I encountered only one instance during an exceptionally detailed and scene with a lot of movement where the video playback stuttered.
At location three, the worst-case scenario, skipping was more frequent during high detail scenes. However, in general the playback was acceptable, which is actually quite a feat considering that the two devices were at other sides of the house, and the fact that none of the other 5GHz devices could produce performance at that range that would be considered acceptable for any respectable amount of time.
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phuzi0n - Monday, February 28, 2011 - link
WNR3500L's are 2x2 MIMO 2.4GHz wireless routers (that can be used as bridges) whereas these are 4x4 MIMO 5 GHz wireless bridges. The WNR3500L has a 480MHz CPU so it should have better throughput at close range, and higher maximum range because it's on the 2.4GHz band, but worse performance at mid-range than these.The 4x4 MIMO on these should give much better throughput than the tests showed but I believe that these have a slow CPU that is inhibiting them as I explained above.
Shadowmaster625 - Monday, February 28, 2011 - link
Why would anyone pay $220 when a cable costs $3? I guess that's a rhetorical question... the real question is why would you want to pay $220 for yet another carcinogenic box. Just go down to the corner store and buy a pack of smokes. I feel sorry for the children of the yuppies who buy crap like this. To be born and raised in a microwave laden world...Quidam67 - Monday, February 28, 2011 - link
Because logistcs often precludes the use of a cable. but you would already know that if you bothered reading the article. As for microwaves, why don't you just strand yourself on a desert island and eat bananas and talk to coconuts rather than trolling the internet? rhetorical.shamans33 - Monday, February 28, 2011 - link
I've always enjoyed Anandtech for the reason that it has articles on interesting new products or topics (unlike the article about Apple upgrading their MBP line).I have a few comments though:
1) What about distances more than 1 house apart?
2) You need comparative pricing on the other products you mentioned.
3) You need a percentile minimum throughput chart. (ie. the throughput was at least 5.3 mbps 40% of the time).
4) You need to run the interference test on the other products mentioned.
5) Some comments about the difficulty of setup on the other products mentioned would be nice.
Discombobulated28 - Friday, March 4, 2011 - link
For 3 months last year I went through a dozen routers trying to be able to perfectly stream and playback high bitrate blu-ray and mkv files (30GB + files)... I think I'm on my Local Fry's Electronics watch list now due to all the returns...because I have yet been able to sustain 30Mbps + streaming using wireless-N streaming to my media players to playback on my HDTV...valhar2000 - Monday, March 21, 2011 - link
Can these devices be connected in something other than pairs? Could I have three of them, one connected to the ADSL modem and the other two on different floors and all connected to each other, or would I need to buy two pairs and use them in pairs?kcc651 - Thursday, June 23, 2011 - link
The wireless 3DHD seems like an interesting concept. I wonder if it's something I could try out in my home theater system. I wonder if it will interfere with the system I had installed by a <a href="http://www.creativesound.info/audio-video.html&quo... video company phoenix</a>. I don't know the intricacies of the system they put in.