4GX router and bottleneck on upload speed

[Chris Harding]

Hi Guys

I always struggle to get a decent bitrate at weddings and events even though my Nighthawk dual band wifi router tells me I have a 20mbps +++ upload speed ... I had to drop down to a miserable 1.5mbps yesterday at a wedding ceremony and after chatting to a mate over in Poland who does a lot of broadcasts he had one word for me ...cable! Yes, the bottleneck was between the encoder on the camera and the wifi router slowing everything down to a snail's pace!! I did a test today with the same gear at home and had an upload of only 10mbps but by tethering the encoder and router with an ethernet cable and not having a wireless connection I was able to stream comfortably at 5mbps ..something I have never been able to do with a wireless connection. OK it does restrict movement a bit but if you have your router on a stand nearby or even mount it on your tripod/dolly the cable connection is fine. All my broadcasts in future will now have an ethernet cable from the router back to the encoder on the camera! I never realised how restrictive a wireless link between the two devices can be !!

[Miggy Sanchez]

Hi Chris.

Thanks for replies to other posts elsewhere.

Are you plugging a cat 6 data cable straight into your wireless router? Or are using some sort of adapter???

[Chris Harding]

Hi Miggy

Standard CAT5e Blue ethernet cable is all I use. The new Netgear 4G routers have a standard ethernet socket which makes life a lot easier as my 2nd 4GX modem has none. I'm not sure which 4G unit you have but I think the older ones are just wifi hotspots only whereas the ones like the NightHawk M1 is a 4G router.

Although wireless is awesome as far as convenience is concerned it really does cause massive speed issues. It's not really a big deal to mount the router on the tripod with the camer and encoder if you need to be portable.

[Miggy Sanchez]

Thanks Chris.

Seems like a tidy unit.

[Steven Digges]

Chris,

I have always been and will always at this time, remain cable only! Wireless no matter how you do it, is not stable enough for the gigs I do. Thery must work.....or else.......failure is not an option.

My shows must work a promised. I know your weddings are no different. Quality costs money. And its killing me! I have prospective (not existing) clients say "just do it like Face Book does it". Face Book does not do it! We do it!!!

Steve

[Chris Harding]

Hi Steve

Thanks! I learnt the hard way! Tested the 4G router with plenty of time in hand and I had 22mbps ...I was only planning to stream at 2.6mbps 720P HD so plenty of bandwidth there. My encoder gave me warning after warning that the speed was low during the reception yet the router was still giving me +20mbps ...it was the darn wifi and I was about 20' away from the router too and it was high up on a stand ... a room full of people and wifi goes crazy!! Luckily I had a gap once the bride had come in to drop the bitrate to manage some sort of stability .... On the next gig it was cable all the way and not even a hiccup even at 5mbps ..

If I have to move around I use the tripod and dolly and have a router stand on the dolly so it can come with me, firmly tethered to the encoder on the camera with a short Cat5e cable!

[Steven Digges]

Next step if your going to hard wire Cat5:

Do not buy cheap cable. This is NOT a place to save money. I have said many times, Cat 5 is not an AV cable. It is for fixed install. Buy good quality cable or buy yourself a 1000 ft reel and learn to crimp your own. You will never be sorry. I consider it throwaway cable.

And yes, I once worked a real estate auction gig. I was hired as a freelance camera operator. This was almost ten years ago and the producer had us running around a four story condo complex. Four camera operators, and he would call out unit numbers he wanted a camera in. We each had a grip to manage the wire, otherwise it would have been impossible.

The producer had "spools" of cat 5 on standby! Smart move.

Kind Regards,

Steve

[Chris Harding]

Thanks Steve

For my wedding shoots where we have a good signal the encoder sits on top of the camera and the 4G router is mounted on the tripod on an expandable mini stand so it's about 2' above so I can be fully portable so my cable is a couple of feet long only!

At receptions I see your point and buy the best if you are running anything longer from the camera back to the computer. There are plenty of sub standard cables around and I even buy my HDMI cables from a specialist cable company near us and not from the local computer supplier.

[Miggy Sanchez]

Originally Posted by Chris Harding

The new Netgear 4G routers have a standard ethernet socket which makes life a lot easier as my 2nd 4GX modem has none. I'm not sure which 4G unit you have but I think the older ones are just wifi hotspots only whereas the ones like the NightHawk M1 is a 4G router.

Hi Chris

Was the upgrade from 4G to 4GX with Telstra costly?

[Chris Harding]

Hi Miggy

Both my units were 4GX actually. The only difference was the Advanced II from Telstra was a prepaid so I bought the modem for $129.00 and they gave me 3GB data with it and they were running a special so I also got a free 10" tablet

The prepaid data is a little pricey at $10 per GB but the main reason I changed was the Advanced II didn't have an ethernet socket so it was only a wifi hotspot

I got the Nighthawk Router which can be cable connected and that is on a plan for $45.00 a month ...You get the Router for free and also data cost drops down to $4.50 per GB BUT if you don't use up your 10GB in the 28 day period you lose it!! Still works out better value as long as you are actually using the data.... Some months I just use it up for downloads I need so I don't lose the data. The new one also has 5G when it arrives over here