Wireless AC @ 450 Mbits/sec and HTPC with Media Center?

[BonzaiDuck]

Refurbing my old 2600K for my 92-year-old Moms. It had previously done HTPC duty. Never needed an OS re-install, but it had been meticulously maintained and cleaned up.

Moms broke her hip, went through surgery in May and nursing home through June, came back almost as well as she left us, then fell down in the bathroom again. So she's in the hospital with a minor fracture the docs say may not require surgery -- it might heal on its own. But I'm still loyal to the idea of getting her back on her computer. Because of the hazard of going up and down stairs, she now has a bedroom on the first floor. I decided that it would be a pile of trouble to route a twisted pair from this corner of the house to her new room. She sleeps right under the room where we just upgraded to a new Netgear NightHawk R7800 with Wireless-AC.

So I picked up an Archer-TPLink AC-capable NIC. All is fine with that.

But I'm trying to bring back Media Center to give her some more entertainment options. I went through the process of a troublesome update to PlayReady. SillyDust HDHR' tuners were recognized.

Media Center will play the DVR'd films on that system and also those stored on our server. But I get a blank black screen for any channel I pick from the guide. I'm going to twiddle with it some more, but thought someone would have an idea of how to resolve this.

I've had TV from the HDHR's on a Wireless N laptop, only limited because the screen is not HD and not HDCP-compliant.

Surely -- I should be able to set up Media Center for Live TV from the Silly Dusts with a Wireless AC connection . . . . . Shouldn't I??

 

[VirtualLarry]

Surely -- I should be able to set up Media Center for Live TV from the Silly Dusts with a Wireless AC connection . . . . . Shouldn't I??

I don't see why you wouldn't be able to.

 

[Yakk]

As long as you get good signal it should work, 5ghz AC can be pretty picky on signal strength though. Does it work on regular 2.4ghz?

 

[BonzaiDuck]

As long as you get good signal it should work, 5ghz AC can be pretty picky on signal strength though. Does it work on regular 2.4ghz?

That's true, so we chose the 2.4 option for half the possible speed but a stronger signal.

But here's the rub! Once again, I wasn't thorough in my checklist. This was all very simple.

When I had prepped the system for Moms, I had removed "Programs and Features" that she wouldn't use. I removed my Steam games, for instance, and I removed Steam. All of that is fine, because I can always reinstall. And the removals were necessary to assist in cleaning up the Event Log anomalies. All wonderful.

Well -- guess what? I had also uninstalled the SiliconDust HDHR' software!

So it's been reinstalled. I have to sort it out, but nothing more than going through the hoops with any other WMC configuration. The only irritant: the configuration of PC "B" will interfere with ongoing operation of WMC or possibly even HDHR DVR on another system. But -- I've done all this before.

I really should temper my posting with a double-check of a checklist for things to do in preparation -- like -- installing the SD HDHR' drivers/software . . .

AND A FOOTNOTE: All of you HDHR' Silly-Dust addicts -- be reminded. You need to re-scan your channels in the Silly Dust software before setting up Media Center for the HDHR'. And update PlayReady.

Wireless premium channels! Mar-velous!