Oct 7 Podcast #499: ZyXEL 500 Mbps Powerline Ethernet Adapter
It seems like every new home theater device wants a network or an Internet connection these days. Your TV wants to be connected, your Blu-ray player, even some receivers want to be online. Not to mention dedicated media players and gaming devices. If you don’t have a hard wired connection to your theater gear, you can usually try WiFi, but even good connections can be unreliable at times. That’s where a good Powerline adapter can make all the difference.
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Today's Show:
Blu-ray Reviews:
News:
- Smart TV prospects double in less than a year
- New Energy Star spec excludes many large TVs
- Xbox 360 Teams Up With Entertainment Leaders to Transform TV
- TV Makers Switching From 3D to 4K?
- $60 home movie? Sure, but it's still in theaters
Other:
- Get really cool plasma stands and mac stuff from Brad and Activate The Space
- New Tivo Premiere Elite coming out soon
- Panasonic lowers MSRPs on plasmas
- Freaky Fridays: Studios are releasing more titles on Friday this year
ZyXEL 500 Mbps Homeplug AV Powerline Ethernet Adapter
It seems like every new home theater device wants a network or an Internet connection these days. Your TV wants to be connected, your Blu-ray player, even some receivers want to be online. Not to mention dedicated media players and gaming devices. If you don’t have a hard wired connection to your theater gear, you can usually try WiFi, but even good connections can be unreliable at times. That’s where a good Powerline adapter can make all the difference.
We had the opportunity to test out a ZyXEL wireless HDMI setup a couple weeks ago on Episode 496. We were so impressed with the quality of the unit, when they offered to let us try out a new 500 Mbps Homeplug adapter, we were excited to give it a go. We got the PLA4205 startup kit that includes 2 adapters and sells online for around $115 (buy now). It supports the latest Homeplug spec that claims up to 500 Mbps data rates, in case you need to stream 15 full HD movies at the same time.
Features
- Plug-and-play for easy installation
- Data transfer rates of up to 500 Mbps* for video streaming and gaming
- Compliant with IEEE 1901 and compatible with HomePlug AV
- Gigabit Ethernet port provides faster wired connection
- QoS enhances media streaming quality
- Power-saving mode reduces energy waste
- Encrypt button for easy security setup
- 128-bit AES encryption for a secured network
- Multi-colored LED identifies powerline network quality
* The theoretical maximum channel data transfer rate is derived from IEEE 1901 specifications. Actual data transfer rate will vary from network environment including: distance, network traffic, noise on electrical wires, quality of electrical installation and other adverse conditions.
Background
The HT guys are no strangers to Powerline networking. We've talked about Powerline networking on the show in the past. In fact we have reviewed a few products over the years. Early devices were rough, they claimed 85 Mbps speeds but barely delivered 10. Then the 200 Mbps spec came out and we found devices that could deliver on the promise of Powerline networking to the Home Theater. We even use 200 Mbps Powerline devices in one of our recording studios. The ZyXEL PLA4205 represents the next generation in the progression, and it actually costs less than the 200 Mbps units did when they came out.
Setup:
as you can imagine, setup is so easy even a Cave Man can do it. You plug one adapter into the wall near your router and connect it to the router with an Ethernet cable. Then you plug the other adapter into an outlet near your home theater equipment and you are ready to go. Easy as that. If you have multiple devices in your home theater that need an Internet connection, you can plug the Ethernet connection from the PLA4205 into a network switch to get more ports. The until needs to be plugged directly into the wall, not into a power strip, so keep that in mind. You’ll lose one of your outlets. Supposedly there are power strips available that support Homeplug, but they’re tough to find.
The package includes a software utility you can run to manage the name of the network created by the two adapters and to see the devices currently running on it. According to the documentation, the utility only runs on Windows XP and Vista 32-bit. We didn’t need it and didn’t use it.
Usage:
We used the 500 Mbps Powerline adapters to stream anything we could find, we used it to watch the Slingbox Pro, played movies and DVDs off a local Video Server, Netflix Watch it Now, and OTA HD via HDHomeRun. All of them worked perfectly, without all the glitches you get used to with WiFi connections. We tried all the same tests between direct hard-wired connections and through the Homeplug adapters and couldn’t find any discernible differences. We even streamed multiple kinds of content to different players (PS3, Google TV, Mac Mini, and Samsung connected Blu-ray player) and had no issues.
One cool benefit of HomePlug AV is that it is backward compatible with older devices. So if you happen to have some 200 Mbps devices already in use, like we do, you can simply add these new 500 Mbps units to the collection and everything will continue to work. You won’t get the faster theoretical speeds out of the older units, they’ll simply throttle down the connection. But odds are you’ll never get anywhere near 200 Mbps in the foreseeable future, so that shouldn’t be an issue.
Along those lines, we knew we’d never get anywhere near 500 Mbps trying to stream audio and video content through our homes, so we decided to see if we could test that theoretical 500 Mbps using pure data transfers to see how fast it would go. We downloaded a simply utility to test the data transfer rate between two computers. Using straight hardwired connections, we got around 300-350 Mbps. Using the ZyXEL we were able to get 44 Mbps and using our existing 200 Mbps powerline adapters we got 36 Mbps. The speed varied greatly depending on what power outlet we used, but in general the ZyXEL was consistent or a bit faster than the 200 Mbps units.
As a side note, we have been asked in the past if devices like these can be used in conjunction with other powerline technologies, such as Insteon. We both have Insteon in use in our homes, so it would be nearly impossible to test these units without running them on the same lines as the Insteon signals. The results we found are while the Insteon devices were active and communicating. So in this case, at least for Insteon, the two can play together quite nicely.
Conclusion:
We don’t want to make one of the infamous quotes about how you’ll never need 500 Mbps transfer speeds in your home, but you certainly won’t need that much anytime soon. However, if you’re looking for a rock solid way to add you home theater gear to your network with a fast, reliable connection, the ZyXEL 4205 will do just that. It will be a better solution than WiFi and certainly costs a lot less than running wires through your walls.
Reader Comments (4)
Braden I could not agree more regarding the relatively few options out there for small smart TVs. I have a Toshiba19" 720p LCD in the kitchen with a built-in DVD player. A couple of years ago we put a Roku on it and since then the built-in DVD player is never used. Plus, the unbalanced weight of the DVD player inside makes the TV want to tilt slightly to the left on the swivel bracket. My wife would like to take the kitchen TV up to 24" 1080p, and move the old Toshiba to a guest bedroom. It occurred to me that a smart TV would be ideal because the Roku could follow the Toshiba and we could clean up the installation in the kitchen with Netlix built into the TV.
I've been looking closely at the 24" Sony NSX-24GT1 with GoogleTV. These go for around $299 which is not too bad when you consider that you don't need a set top bo to go with it. Of course some content providers block GoogleTV, for example I think the OTA networks and Hulu, but if it has Netflix and Amazon Instant Video we'd be all set. I am just hesitant about GoogleTV...will it be annoying and clunky? My wife also thinks that Google will monitor everything we watch...not that we have anything to hide but it just seems overly intrusive for a company to keep a record of your viewing habits.
For Christmas last year, we bought my college-age daughter a Vizio 22" with the VIA internet widgets, but frankly I was not impressed with the PQ on the TV, or with the bulkiness of the housing and bezel design. I think the Sony NSX-24GT1 is more elegant...it kind of reminds me of an iPad.
Hi guys,
Thanx for the informative podcast about the ZyXEL 500 Mbps Homeplug AV Powerline Ethernet Adapter.
Over the past year or two i have looked at these but they always seemed too expensive compared to making friends with the spiders under the house and running in some CAT5 cable. Last year i bough a retirement house which has a concrete floor so this info will be helpful as this I suspect is what i will have to use..
re: ZyXEL 500 Mbps Homeplug AV Powerline Ethernet Adapter
Have quite a bit of experience with powerline control (mainly lighting/small motors) and now using mostly insteon but for those oh so convenient x-10 modules for holiday lighting of which I have plenty. Question, is there a phase issue with this tech as was always an issue with x-10? You mentioned using different plugs for performance but that may be a phase issue??
I can't see myself participating in this simultaneous home and theater release thing at almost any price. Not only is the cost of the movie involved but I'd also end up paying the Uverse traffic charge. That's also why I dropped the almost useless Netflix streaming feature; if the content were more compelling I might be more interested. Anyway, I just can't see paying so much for a movie when I'm already paying the Netflix BD charge and, even more importantly, movies are just not that time sensitive for me. For years now I've worked myself into the groove of just waiting for the disc to come out so the additional wait is no big deal. Also, my home theater long ago reached the point where I'd much rather watch a BD at home, even with the wait. It's all relative and I'm receiving a regular flow of BD movies so the idea of paying just to save some time holds no interest to me.