Extender required in another room

Troubleshoot and discuss the XBOX 360, XBOX One, Linksys, and other extenders.
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chad5k1

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Extender required in another room

#1

Post by chad5k1 » Tue May 17, 2016 2:32 pm

Hi All
New to the forum, but been using WMC for years and years.
I have no TV signal in a room in the house that I'd really like to put a TV in. From reading it looks like the best way to extend my existing WMC is an extender of the xbox 360 variety.
I don't have an xbox (only a PS3 that never gets used), so I need to get one from ebay. Do I need to look for one in particular? Can I get anyone, or should I be looking for a xbox 360 slim with a big hard drive?
Any other components needed?
Thanks in advance.
Chad

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spanner

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#2

Post by spanner » Tue May 17, 2016 2:45 pm

I like the newer e model, its smaller and makes less noise than some older models. Can be found at gamestop somtimes for 99 bucks. mine are setup to boot right into WMC. be sure to use Ethernet cable and not the wifi. dont worry about hard drive space thats handled on the main HTPC
http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Xbox-36 ... s=xbox+360
http://www.gamestop.com/xbox-360/consol ... hed/114244

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DrSmith

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#3

Post by DrSmith » Tue May 17, 2016 2:53 pm

I use 3 Xbox 360s mainly as extenders. 2 of them are 4GB memory and no hard drive. 1 is a 250GB HD slim. They all work fine as WMC extenders. WMC does not use the 360 hard drive for anything that I am aware of. The HD is really if you plan to do lots of gaming on the unit, or buy content from MS Live.

I bought all my units from local retailers (2 used, 1 new) so that I could exchange quickly if I had any problems.

spanner is right - definitely use ethernet if at all possible. You can get WiFi to work, but NOT the built-in native wifi on the 360 itself.

chad5k1

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#4

Post by chad5k1 » Tue May 17, 2016 3:00 pm

Nice one, thanks folks - I'll get on it in due course.

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DrSmith

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#5

Post by DrSmith » Tue May 17, 2016 3:13 pm

chad5k1 wrote:Any other components needed?
You did not specify your TV plans, but if an older TV without HDMI, you may want to make sure the 360 comes with its proprietary component cable adapter.

Also, you may want to look into the xbox media remote, if you do not want to use the game controller for navigation. My local Gamestop has a pretty good selection of these items.

chad5k1

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#6

Post by chad5k1 » Tue May 17, 2016 3:24 pm

Not sure on the TV, but it will have HDMI - I suspect another ebay item. I will definitely be looking for a xbox media remote too

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Doctor Feelgood

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#7

Post by Doctor Feelgood » Tue May 17, 2016 5:01 pm

I use 3x Xbox 360 e's, as well. You definitely don't need any storage on the Xbox's, so 4GB are fine. I bought two used through BestBuy's Cowboom (they were around $60 shipped and in great shape - but that site is gone now) and the other from someone on this site.

If you already have a Windows Media Center remote, you can go in to the menus and tell the XBOX to use one of those instead of the XBOX media remote (you'll need to use a game controller or a XBOX remote just this one time really). I have one of the XBOX media remotes, but don't use it in favor of a universal remote... This way all three TVs have the same remote and everyone is happy. If you have one at the main TV that you like, you could most likely get the same one for use with the extender TV.

dkrom

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#8

Post by dkrom » Wed May 18, 2016 2:32 pm

spanner wrote:I like the newer e model, its smaller and makes less noise than some older models. Can be found at gamestop somtimes for 99 bucks. mine are setup to boot right into WMC. be sure to use Ethernet cable and not the wifi. dont worry about hard drive space thats handled on the main HTPC
http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Xbox-36 ... s=xbox+360
http://www.gamestop.com/xbox-360/consol ... hed/114244
I used to always give the advice to use a hard wired connection, but I recently had to switch my wifi over to 5ghz and was surprised to find that my dma2200 extender works great without being hard wired. This freed up another port for my other computer. My extender is only 2 rooms away from the router, the performance is excellent - not as perfect as hard wired, but I don't experience any dropped frames, just a very slight lag when I'm using menus.

chad5k1

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#9

Post by chad5k1 » Mon May 23, 2016 8:48 am

Well I ordered an XBOX 360E with 250gb hard drive, a kinect and a bunch of games - figured the kids would enjoy them.
I presume I need to get a media center remote now too.
My existing Microsoft branded one for the primary media center looks like this:
https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=i&rct=j ... 9461353685

So I guess it makes sense to get the same again for added WAF.

My current WMC has a dual tuner, I have a happen to have a Hauppauge WinTV-USB2 spare that I could plug in too (just need a TV ariel cable splitter). That would give me another tuner - I assume that would allow me to watch and record something different on the main WMC and still watch something different again on the extender?

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spanner

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#10

Post by spanner » Mon May 23, 2016 12:40 pm

chad5k1 wrote:Well I ordered an XBOX 360E with 250gb hard drive, a kinect and a bunch of games - figured the kids would enjoy them.
I presume I need to get a media center remote now too.
My existing Microsoft branded one for the primary media center looks like this:
https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=i&rct=j ... 9461353685

So I guess it makes sense to get the same again for added WAF.

My current WMC has a dual tuner, I have a happen to have a Hauppauge WinTV-USB2 spare that I could plug in too (just need a TV ariel cable splitter). That would give me another tuner - I assume that would allow me to watch and record something different on the main WMC and still watch something different again on the extender?
Yes that is the beauty of extenders. You extend your WMC to another TV and share Tuners and recordings. So it sounds like you would have a total of three tuners. You could be recording 3 shows at the same time, and still watch a fourth as a recording, and that recording could be watched on both tvs at the same time
Last edited by spanner on Mon May 23, 2016 12:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Doctor Feelgood

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#11

Post by Doctor Feelgood » Mon May 23, 2016 12:50 pm

chad5k1 wrote:Well I ordered an XBOX 360E with 250gb hard drive, a kinect and a bunch of games - figured the kids would enjoy them.
I presume I need to get a media center remote now too.
My existing Microsoft branded one for the primary media center looks like this:
https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=i&rct=j ... 9461353685

So I guess it makes sense to get the same again for added WAF.

My current WMC has a dual tuner, I have a happen to have a Hauppauge WinTV-USB2 spare that I could plug in too (just need a TV ariel cable splitter). That would give me another tuner - I assume that would allow me to watch and record something different on the main WMC and still watch something different again on the extender?

Nice! I'm with you on the matching remotes... I have found that the less change there is from room to room, the higher the WAF.

On adding tuners, you would need to add all tuners to the main WMC PC, and then they would be shared between that system and any extenders. So, with your 3 tuners, it would work as described. People could still schedule recordings from the extender, but they actually happen on the WMC PC. We started with 3 tuners, but quickly had to add 3 more.

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