[GarBadger]

Hi All

Apologies in advance for any stupid questions in this post!

I want to stream digital photos from my NAS (Terastation Live) to my PS3, located in different parts of the house.
I can access my photos OK from the PS3, but it is incredibly slow - painful in fact, evem without there being any obvious and heavy network traffic. At this stage photos are all I want to stream as the Sonos handles music perfectly.

I am running a wireless network (54 mbps) and also have a Sonos wireless music system running. I cannot connect the PS3 directly to either my rounter of NAS, and the NAS is connected via ethernet to one of the Sonos boxes. The router is elsewhere and is connected to another of the Sonos boxes.

I read about using Powerline adaptors for better networking speeds and am wondering if this is an option for me to speed up photo streaming, but not sure of how I would connect things up and whether this can coexist alongside the wireless network.

I had considered just copying all my photos to a portable HD and conencting that to the PS3, but it hardly seems a very efficient way of doing things!

Any suggestions gratefully received and thanks in advance

[Uridium]

Going Wired will speed everything up hugely. Especially if you have multiple devices.

Why is the Sonos connected directly to the Ethernet port on the NAS? Connected the Sonos into a switch or router and connect the NAS into that as well. This way all devices will be able to utilise the NAS using a faster wired connection.

[GarBadger]

Thanks Uridium. The router is in another part of the house from the NAS drive - combination of aesthetics (wife won't have NAS sitting in our hallway) and crap internal phone wiring which has my wireless router in the hallway where the BT Master Socket is. My broadband speeds were appalling and connecting direct to the Master Socket was the only option. If that makes any sense!

If I did the Powerline route, then I would be connecting:

• One to PS3
• One to NAS
• One to the router?

Thanks again

[Uridium]

Personally I'd buy just pair of powerline adaptors and a network switch.

So are the NAS, PS3 and SONOS together but all three just some distance from the router yes?

If so.... use one Powerline adaptor plugged in to the router, another to the switch and then just connect the PS3, NAS and Sonos straight into the switch. All devices will see each other via the switch and the connection from the switch to the router will give the PS3 (and any other device connected to the switch) access to the Web.

My kit is pretty much spread across the house but i use a combination of switches and external Cat5 cabling to get it most of it connected together at Gigabit. Still got a couple of PS3's on wi-fi but will shortly drop a couple more external Cat5 cables in for these.

Pic of my complicated looking (but simpler than it looks) network below.

[GarBadger]

Uridium - good pic - did you have that one ready to go?!

The NAS and PS3 are in different places. I have a Sonos ZoneBridge connected to the NAS (upstairs) and another ZoneBridge connected to the router (downstairs) which gets both onto the wireless network and connects the overall Sonos system to the web. PS3 just connects wirelessly from another room. There are 4 other Sonos ZonePlayer boxes, but they connect using a Sonos wireless network in the house. The ZoneBridge acts as a swtich with 2 ethernet ports: the one connected to the NAS also has a PC connecte to the other port to allow internet access.

I guess I could put a switch in with the ZoneBridge, PC and NAS, and connect the switch with the Powerline, and then another Powerline to the PS3 downstairs.

The wireless connection for internet should then be handled via the wireless connection between the 2 Sonos ZoneBridges? Naive question: network traffic between the NAS and the PS3 would automatically be channeled by the Powerline?

Sorry for the painful questions!

[Uridium]

Originally Posted by GarBadger

I guess I could put a switch in with the ZoneBridge, PC and NAS, and connect the switch with the Powerline, and then another Powerline to the PS3 downstairs.

That should work fine and sounds the best option.... as long as both floors in the house are on the same ring main (some houses have different rings for up/downstairs sockets).

Naive question: network traffic between the NAS and the PS3 would automatically be channeled by the Powerline?

One powerline connected to the PS3, other one connected to the Switch. As the NAS will also be connected to the switch the switch will handle traffic between the PS3 and the NAS. the powerline is just extending the connectivity down to the PS3, the switch is doing any 'clever' stuff

The Powerline/homeplug adaptors are dumb devices; in pairs all they do is essentially replace a long Cat5 cable with your ring main electricity cable.

answers above....

I'd leave as much as the sonos system wi-fi as you can. It's only handling low bandwidth music so wi-fi will be fine for that. Before the days of the Ps3 I used to stream music around the house to Netgear MP101's and Roku Soundbridges over 802.11b (11mbps) stutter free.

[GarBadger]

Thanks and sounding hopeful! One more dumb question, if I may: how can I tell if they are on the same or different rings?

Many thanks again

[Uridium]

Originally Posted by GarBadger

Thanks and sounding hopeful! One more dumb question, if I may: how can I tell if they are on the same or different rings?

Many thanks again

Look at your mains fuse box and see if you have different RCD's in there for up/downstairs sockets.

Failing any obvious labelling in the fuse box switch on something upstairs and something downstairs and flick the switches in the fuse box until one or both switch off.

If they both go off on the same switch they are on the same ring main

[GarBadger]

Ha ha! Glad I prefaced my last question with "Dumb"! Why didn't I think of that..... duh!

many thanks

[client n9ne]

I was able to speed up photo viewing from a media server considerably by using ps3mediaserver instead of windows media player. My ps3 is connected to the network via wireless g and viewing hundreds (maybe even thousands) of folders is now tolerable. They just need to implement a grid list and better sorting (I'd like to display the most recent photos first). Although, this didn't affect the speed at which you can skip forward or back while viewing photos, that depends on the resolution of the photo.