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Hi,

Has anyone figured out how to extend the coverage of LFTV by intergrating it into a wireless network?

I would like to extend coverage of the LFTV base in my home by using one or more wirelss routers as wireless access points. In order to do this, I've connected the base station to my Linksys WRT-54G wireless router, and had planned to access the base station by:

LF-X1 monitor <-- wireless --> router <-- ethernet cable --> LFTV base
The router is also connected to the 'net via ADSL.

However, as soon as I activate the \"At Home - Wireless\" wireless mode, the LocationFree TV monitor appears to connect directly to the base station, without the option for me to specify the SSID, encryption, etc of the router. The only way that I can get the monitor to establish a connection via the router is if I configure the monitor for \"On The Go - Wireless\" while sitting at home. This allows me to specify the SSID I would like the monitor to use. The monitor finds my wireless router, and I have worked my way through all the Dynamic DNS stuff. I am able to reliably establish a connection from the monitor to the base via the wireless router at all rates (1 - 5). However, the picture quality while using \"On The Go - Wireless\" & NetAV is severely compromised even when running at rate 5 compared to the direct monitor <-- 802.11a/b/g --> base station quality.

In order to determine if my router was a bottleneck, I reconfigured as follows:

monitor <-- ethernet cable --> router <-- ethernet cable --> LFTV base

With these connections in place, I was able to operate in either \"At Home - Wired LAN\" mode vs. \"On The GO - Wired LAN\" mode. There was still a significant degradation in picture quality when I switched from the \"At Home\" to the \"On The Go\", even though the router and connections haven't changed.

As a sanity check, I disconnected my ADSL link to the internet once I had established a \"On The Go - Wired LAN\" NETAV connection. As I expected, this did not interrupt the video at the monitor, proving that the degraded picture quality was not due to any bandwidth limitations of the hop to/from the internet.

In short, what I guess I'm looking for is a way to configure \"On The Go - Wireless\" operation so that the video isn't degraded in the process.

Thanks for any insight / suggestions folks can share,
Gerhard

Wow, you have tried some different ways and I am sure your network was going crazy assigning IP addresses.

Unfortunately there is no way of integrating the LF Base into your wireless, because the Base and the Monitor are tied together, so they are two different entities. Have you upgraded the firmware that added the Extended Range function? I see it as the only way to extend your streaming. Also be aware, if you use 802.11a only network it will improve your video feed quality, but it is tends to have a shorter range.

In this mode I suppose you are talking about NetAV, and the only way to get the best live feed through the Internet is to have a fat upload bandwidth (500 Kbs and up, the more - the better your picture will be).
Stan

Hi Stan,

Thanks for the feedback. Yes, I have applied the latest firmware updates, but the Extended Range function appears to sacrifice video quality to obtain extended range.

I've done a little more digging through the docs available from Sony and have determined that \"On the go\" NetAV utilizes MPEG-4 video compression. While operating either wired or wireless \"At Home\", the base station utilizes MPEG-2 video compression, at significantly higher datarates, with visibly better quality. I've come up with two solutions, neither of which is 'clean'.

One approach would be to devise an external 802.11 b/g transceiver, powered from the USB keyboard port, and connected to the wired ethernet LAN port. This transceiver would establish a wireless connection with the wireless router(s) in the house, but present the data to the monitor on the wired LAN port. The monitor wouldn't know the difference from normal \"At Home\" wired LAN operation.

The second approach would eliminate the need for external hardware, but would require digging into the firmware. I've noticed that Sony makes the locationfree TV source code available through its \"Open Source Code Distribution Service\".

http://products.sel.sony.com/opensource/source_lf.shtml

This means that the actual monitor firmware could be tweaked to provide a \"At Home - Wireless via Router\" option. This would allow high quality MPEG-2 operation beyond the wireless range of the base station, utilizing wireless routers/WAPs.

Has anyone out there actually tried re-compiling the code? Any idea what processor (MIPS?) is in the monitor?

Ye, you are right about the Extended Range function, it does degrade the video.
As for the Open Source Code, they made it available to public not long ago, and unfortunately I have no expertise in that area at all. I wish.... I know Sony will also offer LF Development kits as well for other products to support Locationfree.
If anyone here had any success with moding LF units, let us know!
I would love to somehow get the LF OS of my LF-X11 onto my X1. Anyone (Sony?) know how to?