Here's the situation.
I have been a Vudu owner since December - wife and I really enjoyed it for first month or so, but eventually had to remove it due to a poor TWC connection (i.e. not Vudu's fault). Busy February with a few trips out of town, and finally getting around to figuring out how to fix the problem.
We have Time Warner Cable for HDTV and RoadRunner Internet. Cable goes to bedroom, guest room, and living room (where Vudu is). Up until last fall had the modem located in the living room along with cable box using a splitter - never any problems. Then TWC "upgraded" our neighborhood (we had those old A/B switches and now have one cable line) - and the modem stopped working with the splitter. No worries, we just moved to guest room and set up modem and router there. Everything worked, easy solution.
When I got the Vudu a few months ago, tried the setup in the living room again with the splitter. Worked fine for about a month, then started seeing some choppy signal degradation on the HDTV - and eventually lost the internet connection. Plugging the cable from the wall directly into either the modem or cable box worked, but using the splitter only the cable box worked (no modem).
So my first thought was to buy a better splitter - but even with the best I could find there was no improvement. My hypothesis is that the signal strength is too weak by the time it gets to our living room.
So here's what I'm considering:
(1) Wireless bridge - PRO: more or less a 'plug and play' solution CON: costs ~$75-100, Vudu works better with wired connection
(2) Signal amplifier - PRO: less expensive (~$40), gives Vudu wired connection, also easy add CON: I'm hesitant to drop the $ given my splitter experience in case it also fails
(3) Run ethernet cable under our house from router (currently in guest room) to living room. PRO: cheap - 25 ft Cat5 cable costs ~$5-10, plus could set up router in living room for future electronic additions (e.g. HTPC) CON: I get a little dirty
Right now I'm leaning towards #3 - there is a pre-existing outlet "box" so I am thinking that I would only need to drill a hole in the guest room floor to drop the cable to crawl space, run it under the house over to the living room, hook it up to Vudu, and find an appropriate outlet cover to replace the old electrical outlet.
Is there any reason that wouldn't work? Would there be any material difference in signal quality between the 3 options?
Thanks for any thoughts or advice on this situation.
I have been a Vudu owner since December - wife and I really enjoyed it for first month or so, but eventually had to remove it due to a poor TWC connection (i.e. not Vudu's fault). Busy February with a few trips out of town, and finally getting around to figuring out how to fix the problem.
We have Time Warner Cable for HDTV and RoadRunner Internet. Cable goes to bedroom, guest room, and living room (where Vudu is). Up until last fall had the modem located in the living room along with cable box using a splitter - never any problems. Then TWC "upgraded" our neighborhood (we had those old A/B switches and now have one cable line) - and the modem stopped working with the splitter. No worries, we just moved to guest room and set up modem and router there. Everything worked, easy solution.
When I got the Vudu a few months ago, tried the setup in the living room again with the splitter. Worked fine for about a month, then started seeing some choppy signal degradation on the HDTV - and eventually lost the internet connection. Plugging the cable from the wall directly into either the modem or cable box worked, but using the splitter only the cable box worked (no modem).
So my first thought was to buy a better splitter - but even with the best I could find there was no improvement. My hypothesis is that the signal strength is too weak by the time it gets to our living room.
So here's what I'm considering:
(1) Wireless bridge - PRO: more or less a 'plug and play' solution CON: costs ~$75-100, Vudu works better with wired connection
(2) Signal amplifier - PRO: less expensive (~$40), gives Vudu wired connection, also easy add CON: I'm hesitant to drop the $ given my splitter experience in case it also fails
(3) Run ethernet cable under our house from router (currently in guest room) to living room. PRO: cheap - 25 ft Cat5 cable costs ~$5-10, plus could set up router in living room for future electronic additions (e.g. HTPC) CON: I get a little dirty
Right now I'm leaning towards #3 - there is a pre-existing outlet "box" so I am thinking that I would only need to drill a hole in the guest room floor to drop the cable to crawl space, run it under the house over to the living room, hook it up to Vudu, and find an appropriate outlet cover to replace the old electrical outlet.
Is there any reason that wouldn't work? Would there be any material difference in signal quality between the 3 options?
Thanks for any thoughts or advice on this situation.
. I had the same issue and I traced it back to the previous owner who had split the cable from the curb line so many times that I was getting 1/8th of the signal in the living room, and I was going to add an extra splitter there!
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