I post this in case anyone else has a similar issue.
I have a Netgear Nighthawk router in my office.
I have a Netgear WN2500RP range extender in my living room, connected to the Nighthawk on 5GHz. The Tablo, A Boxeebox, a smart tv, Roku3, receiver, etc. are all hard wired to a gigibit switch connected to that WN2500RP. I have a Chromecast on that smart tv in the living room as well.
The Tablo via the Roku3 in my living room works great.
The Tablo via a Windows 7 pc in my office works great. But casting that Windows 7 PC to the Chromecast doesn’t work that well.
My WN2500RP only allows one band or the other to connect to the wired ports. The Chromecast is 2.4GHz. Therefore casting it requires a round trip from the living room, back to the office, back to the living room WN2500RP, and then out on the 2.4GHz extender network to the Chromecast. Casting from a laptop is just as bad for the same reason.
As the Roku3 works fine in the living room, this was and is low priority for me. Hopefully, I’ll get an firmware update for the WN2500RP that allows the wired ports to connect to both RF bands.
When I get around to it, I may add another Roku3 (*1) in the master bedroom and try connecting it via powerline ethernet. Or add another router off the extender in the living room.
*1 I really don’t like that I needed a credit card to setup the Roku3. I like the price and features of the Chromecast. Casting from my phone to the Chromecast works well. My wife doesn’t use the Chromecast and she does use the Roku.
I have not gotten the chromecast via Android to work stably so I just gave up, and no controls makes it even worse.
My feeling w/ Chromecast is that there is not enough CPU power in that sucker, even though Netflix/HBO/YT have gotten much better. I read that Mozilla is coming out w/ a beefier open source stick. Will see but in the meantime Roku will have to do…
Moving recording quality to 720 or 480 helped (that is the transcode rate), but after some time it just locks up. The entire reason it was bought was for the parents to cut the cord, and they still watch primarily on regular old TV. So maybe if the Roku developer bakes the cake the Tablo will come out of the moth ball. In the meantime no $5 a month and maybe Tablo comps me a few months for having to buy a Roku to work on a TV instead of the chromecast…
@stivae Wish I had some suggestions, but it sounds like a tough set up. During our testing with Chromecast, it became very apparent very quickly how weak the Wi-Fi antenna was. Take that, plus an HD stream, plus distance = no fun.
@Tablosupport. No worries. It’s low priority for me. I know what I’d have to do to make the Chromecast work better; e.g. another Access Point wired off the range extender would do it. The Chromecast does do Youtube well. The Roku and my office computers work fine with the Tablo.
A Raspberry Pi client would be interesting. I’d request a Boxeebox client, but that’s apparently a dead end.