Powerline Ethernet adapters - great way to hard wire Tablo to your router

These work great - it’s a very stable and fast way to hard wire your Tablo to your router if the router and Tablo are not in the same room. More reliable that WiFi.

Some light reading for those unfamiliar with what these adapters do:

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Power line networking rocks. I use it to connect the source components in my family room system and a computer in my daughter’s room to my network. I also use it to extend my WiFi network via a power line module with a built-in N300 access point. I use SSID cloning and extends my network seamlessly.

As an alternative to the Power line adaptors, there are adaptors that can be used to take advantage of coaxial cable that may run through the house from the “old days” when some of us were connected to cable or satellite tv. I have used these inexpensive adaptors to hard wire rokus and my Tablo through pre-existing coax I think the retail for under $15. I have had success with the following which sell on Amazon:

DIRECTV Broadband DECA Ethernet to Coax Adapter (DCA2SR0 ) Generation II by DIRECTV

These should work on any coax - not just coax that Directv might have installed


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@jdoe

I have used those DECA adapters as well. They are just as reliable and fast enough for Tablo to router connection.

However, if you’ve got the coax run between the Tablo and router, why not just run the OTA antenna coax cable to the router and place the Tablo physically beside the router? There is no need to have the OTA antenna and Tablo close to each other. This way you use a short Ethernet cable to hard wire the Tablo.

My setup is that the OTA antenna is upstairs (along with the Tablo) where the receiption is best while the modem/router is downstairs where the signal comes into the house. I guess I could move things around, but I guess I’ll let sleeping dogs lie as my current setup works great - without any of the buffering, rebooting, weak signal problems that some others have experienced.

I guess the advantage of the coax adapters over Powerline (if the coax is available where you need it) is price. I think the coax adapters are under $15 while the Powerline adopters may run around $50 (? too lazy to check). Like the powerline adapters, the coax adapters simply plug in and they work - no setup required. But then again the coax cable may not be there for many people. And it sounds like people have had great success with the Powerline alternative. I don’t get a commission for one over the other - just wanted new Tablo users or existing users having wireless problems to be aware of wiring alternatives.

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Agreed, especially if you have an antenna with an amp. My setup is antenna, preamp, old DirecTV distribution amp, one coax run to room with tablo next to router, other runs straight to TVs in case I want to bypass tablo and use TV tuner instead. Seems to work okay. I do use power line adapters to hardware two of my streaming devices in more remote parts of the house. I also have one putting out wifi in the furthest corner of the house from the router, to help fill in the gaps.

Coax adapters are not cheaper and they may or may not work depending on how your house is wired. If you are in an older house with in-line splitters all over the place, it might now work at all. If you have a distribution amplifier, it needs to be bi-directional and it needs to support 2Ghz (as do any splitters). Basically, unless your house is newer, it probably won’t work.

I am using a coax adaptor that sells on Amazon for under $12. Can you find a powerline for less?

Forgot to add that my house was built in 1951.

True MOCA adapters are quite expensive. The DECA ones by DirecTV are quite cheap.

And the inexpensiive DirecTV one has worked just fine for me. But again I don’t receive a commission when MOCA or DECA adapters are sold. I just want to point out that for some users (and I know I’m not the only one) these coax adapters are an alternative to the powerline adapters. I have no doubt they are not a solution for everyone.

I switched from using Powerline adapters to using MOCA adapters and become much happier. I tried at least 4 different pairs of Powerline adapters two of which are AV2 with Gig-E port rated to 600Mbps. The Powerline adapters worked well enough for the (relatively) low bandwidth requirements of watching Tablo since these Powerline adapters (in my environment) consistently yield at least 25% packet loss. With 25% packet loss these Powerline adapters cannot support streaming a very high quality 1080p concert from my NAS without hiccup. The MOCA adapters are a litter more expensive than the AV2 Powerline adapters but they give me 0% packet loss with 100 Mbps speed that support my other video streaming requirements without any issue.

So I will say that if Powerline doesn’t give you the performance you need, then MOCA is the way to go. I also carry OTA signal on the same cable without any problem. I can network up to 16 MOCA together not that I needed more than 2 to service the area where Powerline adapter fails.

And consider yourself lucky if Powerline works for you but check to see if you have any packet loss. The simplest way to check for packet loss is to ping the device IP address behind the Powerline adapter continuously for about 4-5 hours and see what (if any) packet loss you have.

The house I live in was built in 2008, so the electrical system is new. I use a collection of AV2 powerline devices from a couple different manufacturers across the house and they work great for what I use them for. I have not checked to see how much packet loss I have, because I haven’t had problems. This may be because I do not stream uncompressed Blu-Ray rips across my network. Most of my traffic is either Tablo, streaming services (Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Vudu, etc.) or H264 content from my NAS.

I did not use MOCA for a couple reasons. First, I don’t have a cable outlet every place I need network access. Second, I am already using a MOCA bridge to connect my router to the Verizon ONT and that complicates things.

Good deal of the day on Powerline Ethernet adapters:

More fuel for the fire, another reason to stick with HomePlug AV2 rather than the older AV standard.

Amazing deal on TRENDnet AV2 powerline Ethernet adapter - today only! $49.99 and free shipping.

Does DECA allow Ethernet and OTA to run over the same coax? Will DECA get the same speeds as power line?

I am thinking of trying a set of power line adapters. What are the going recommendations to use? I was looking at TP-Link because of the ratings on amazon. the AV2 1200 seem to be the latest in terms of speed/throughput. Does it matter which ones I try?

I use the slower 500 nanos and they work fine… but if your budget allows get the 1200’s … and stick with the same manufacturer and same speed rating… dont mix n match or you could degrade the speed/performance (i.e. mixing slow adaptors with fast ones slows the entire powerline speed to match the slowest one etc…)

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