I know Apple TV supports wireless N, but does Apple TV operate on the 5 GHZ band, or just the 2.4 GHZ?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Does Apple TV Support Dual Band Wireless N?
- Thread starter BoulderBum
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
how can you tell wich one you are using? i had movies stored on time capsule and when i itried to stream them(especialy the hd ones) i was imposible to watch almost like it was not using n at all
If you have any g devices on your network it will drop the default speed of the entire network to g (except for the new dual-band AirPort Extreme Base Station), so that be be causing it. Also, by streaming from a NAS your network is taking a double hit. For HD content at a high bit-rate, that might well cause problems.
i have the new one but i see what you are saying about it doing it twice i didnt think about that
Not true, having G devices will affect overall network speed, but 802.11n devices should still be able to communicate faster than 802.11g speeds.
Try this - use the Airport Utility, select the time capsule, Manual setup, then click the "Clients" tag and it will open a window that will list which wireless clients are connected to the access point, which protocol they are using, and most importantly what rate they are running at.
I find that one of my ATVs is in a bad spot wirelessly, it can't run 5Ghz at all, and at 2.4Ghz will regularly drop the rate down to 1Mpbs - which is useless - even though it is set to 802.11n only.
Cheers, Ed.
I've found that my TV is listed as b/g/n, everything else is on b/g, except for the only Intel Mac in the house which is on a 802.11a type connection.
This is using the latest AirPort Extreme with simultaneous dual-band.
Does anyone know if firstly, the TV would be running faster (on the network) if the AirPort were devoting one channel totally to 802.11n rather than giving the TV 802.11 b/g/n
and secondly, is this happening becuase the AirPort is having to devote one channel to the 802.11a and therefore the other has to be b/g/n ??
This is using the latest AirPort Extreme with simultaneous dual-band.
Does anyone know if firstly, the TV would be running faster (on the network) if the AirPort were devoting one channel totally to 802.11n rather than giving the TV 802.11 b/g/n
and secondly, is this happening becuase the AirPort is having to devote one channel to the 802.11a and therefore the other has to be b/g/n ??
Indeed - I run my Extreme on 2.4Ghz only, and have an N device at 110Mbps, as well as G devices at between 20Mbps and 54Mbps.
Make sure you don't use WDS though - that can really hurt the performance of your network.
Personally I'm giving up on wireless to one of my ATVs, and putting in some ethernet instead. I've tried lots of combinations including WDS via an airport express to no avail.
Cheers, Ed.
Does "extending" your 802.11n network hurt your performance also? I noticed it's a choice on the new AirPort Express devices (802.11n). I use it instead of WDS.
AFAIK it is the same as WDS.
The way I understand that it works is that only one device can transmit at a time, so because you are going via a relay you are halving the number of timeslots to send in, since when the relay is transmitting your data, you can't send the next block of data until it has completed.
This is compounded if running in a compatibility mode where all 802.11N devices must use the legacy RTS pre-amble to prevent being stomped on by 802.11a/g devices.
So if running 802.11n relays personally I'd want to ensure that you select 802.11n only, and ensure it doesn't overlap channels with a neighbours 802.11b/g network since that will clobber your frames.
Do a throughput test and find out.. test with the relay on and then off. make sure using Airport Admin that you are connected to the correct access point.
Cheers, Ed.
Okay, time to clarify the question to make sure I asked it clearly enough.
I'm only taking about wireless N.
"Dual band" doesn't mean "G and N" at the same time. Pretty much any wireless N router can do that when running in mixed mode, even if not a dual band rotuer (like my current DIR-655).
What makes a "dual band" router special is that it can run in 2.4 GHZ wireless N and 5 GHZ wireless N (which is faster, with less interferance).
So to ask another way: does the Apple TV support the 5 GHZ band when connecting via wireless N?
I'm only taking about wireless N.
"Dual band" doesn't mean "G and N" at the same time. Pretty much any wireless N router can do that when running in mixed mode, even if not a dual band rotuer (like my current DIR-655).
What makes a "dual band" router special is that it can run in 2.4 GHZ wireless N and 5 GHZ wireless N (which is faster, with less interferance).
So to ask another way: does the Apple TV support the 5 GHZ band when connecting via wireless N?
The mixed mode stuff was an aside. But to answer your question, yes, the ATV does do 802.11Ghz in the 5Ghz band as well as 2.4Ghz.
Cheers, Ed.
As eddyg said, yes the AppleTV will work on both 802.11n bands. There were reported problems with earlier firmware and 5GHz, but this is how I have had mine configured (I find HD streams better using 802.11n than 10/100 ethernet in my network configuration) and have not had any problems.
I know it's not exactly on topic, (but it is kinda because it's regarding the n performance of my Apple TV): does anyone know how the presence of an 802.11 a node affects things, which is what I was getting at earlier...