just bought AP express now wanting the Apple TV

[KoG506]

So I just bought the airport express (2012) couple hours ago, I hooked it up and not happy with it. The wireless range is same as my Linksys e2000. I only use "G" on my linksys. I even tried wireless "N" 5Ghz on the AP express and the range is same as my Linksys wireless "G". Am i doing something wrong? both of the routers are in the same location.

also there was a lag in the audio when i stream audio to my surround sound using optical. I played 720P video on my imac(2011) the audio did not sync up with the video. especially if i jump to different parts of the movie/video. Also no 5.1 audio to my surround sound, only 2.0. I was able to get the 5.1 surround hooking up to the imac directly and not lag in audio. I was disappointed with the AP express.

Now I have a couple of questions, I am considering return the AP express for the APTV 3rd gen.

1) if were to get the APTV and i mirror play to my HDTV with HDMI and audio using the OPTICAL to my surround sound, will there be video/audio lag from a large MKV files (~4-6 GB.). I read somewhere that APTV does not support MKV but there is an app called "beamer" that can make it work.

2) will I get 5.1 surround sound from MKV files that have 5.1 audio?

3) are ANY way I can extend my Linksys e2000 wireless range with my Express? Mostly ill keep it if I can extend it.

BTW, don't mistake me hating on Apple products, I love them. but the Express disappoint me. Maybe ill but the newest Extreme when I have more money, hopefully it will be better than express.

 

[apunkrockmonk]

Alright, the answer to number 1 depends heavily on the quality of your network, if both the computer and ATV were using wired 100Mbps Ethernet I don't see why you'd have any issue streaming that.

I do not know the answer to number 2.

The answer to number 3 is yes, absolutely you can use the APE to extend your linksys. You'd just need to determine which of the two you'd like to use as the actual router and which you'd like to use as the extender. In either case you'd need to set the SSIDs, Encryption Schemes and Passwords for the WiFi networks to be identical if you'd like your devices to automatically roam between the two hotspots.

The only other thing left to do is to set the APE to bridged mode (assuming you're going to use the Linksys as the actual router) and connect the Linksys and APE together with an Ethernet cable.

I think you would've found the Airport Extreme to be a much more robust router than the express, it has more antennas and is dual band.

 

[KoG506]

Alright, the answer to number 1 depends heavily on the quality of your network, if both the computer and ATV were using wired 100Mbps Ethernet I don't see why you'd have any issue streaming that.

I do not know the answer to number 2.

The answer to number 3 is yes, absolutely you can use the APE to extend your linksys. You'd just need to determine which of the two you'd like to use as the actual router and which you'd like to use as the extender. In either case you'd need to set the SSIDs, Encryption Schemes and Passwords for the WiFi networks to be identical if you'd like your devices to automatically roam between the two hotspots.

The only other thing left to do is to set the APE to bridged mode (assuming you're going to use the Linksys as the actual router) and connect the Linksys and APE together with an Ethernet cable.

I think you would've found the Airport Extreme to be a much more robust router than the express, it has more antennas and is dual band.

Thank you for the reply!

So I can't extend the wireless router wirelessly? without using the ethernet cable?

 

[98EXL]

Now I have a couple of questions, I am considering return the AP express for the APTV 3rd gen.

1) if were to get the APTV and i mirror play to my HDTV with HDMI and audio using the OPTICAL to my surround sound, will there be video/audio lag from a large MKV files (~4-6 GB.). I read somewhere that APTV does not support MKV but there is an app called "beamer" that can make it work.

2) will I get 5.1 surround sound from MKV files that have 5.1 audio?

3) are ANY way I can extend my Linksys e2000 wireless range with my Express? Mostly ill keep it if I can extend it.

BTW, don't mistake me hating on Apple products, I love them. but the Express disappoint me. Maybe ill but the newest Extreme when I have more money, hopefully it will be better than express.

1. I watched a 5GB file tonight on a ATV3, 5GHz band from AEBS with zero issues. However since we are an Apple household (well mainly) I have encoded everything in m4v, not mkv, just for a wide range of (apple) device support.

2. if you encode your mkv's to m4v's, you will totally get 6 channel audio. In your case, if the beamer app is transcoding on the fly to m4v then you still should be good.

3. You are putting a band-aid on the problem here. Lets say you had a decent router/AP combo, ie, the E4500, and you still had wireless problems, then yes, an extender would be ideal. You never want to use an extender without a wired ethernet connection because you are bogging down your wireless overhead because the two are connected by wireless. What you really should do is take back the Express, and get an Airport Extreme. Use that all by itself (don't use the e2000) and see how things go.

The express is really only meant for small areas and as a range extender/bridge. If you live in an apt, condo, or tiny home < 1000 sq ft, you should be golden. Other than that, the extreme is what you want.

We live in a condo, and we have both setup, and hardwired between. Reason being is I want wifi everywhere I am at home (even in the parking lot) and having extra transmit power from the airports is nice so I dont have as much interference from the other 20+ AP's around our building.

Did that make any sense? I couldn't sleep for crap tonight, so it's possible it read: ajhbdfllaksdfhsadljflaksdhflasf

 

[zhenya]

Yeah, the Airport Express is not really a great full-featured router, so it's no surprise it doesn't improve your range - it has tiny internal antennas!

As noted, you can use it as a range extender, but if you do so wirelessly, you will cut the throughput of devices connected to the AE in half as it has to perform double-duty of receiving and transmitting the same data.

I'm not really clear on how your system is setup. I take it you have an iMac that you'd like to watch videos on while having a separate audio system play the audio. Are you trying to stream the audio over the network to the Airport Express? I'm having a hard time visualizing your setup and why you wouldn't just connect the iMac directly to the audio system. If you are using multi-channel, the iMac pretty much has to be in close proximity to the audio system, so why complicate things?

Maybe I'm misunderstanding and you want to play video from your iMac on a TV? If so, it looks like the Beamer app will help you do that in conjunction with an AppleTV. Whether it will play smoothly or with 5.1 will be a combination of the capabilities of the software, your hardware (it will be encoding and transmitting on the fly - very high CPU load) and the quality of your network. It might work great, but there are lots of places for hiccups.

What we do to watch non-supported file types on our AppleTV is have AirVideo on the iMac, pointing at our video folders. We then use the AirVideo app on an iDevice to choose the video we want to watch, and then use AirPlay to transmit the video to the TV. This is effectively the same thing as Beamer, but with iDevice control, and it works very well for us, but we have a very robust network set up with little interference.

 

[leoparker]

1. I watched a 5GB file tonight on a ATV3, 5GHz band from AEBS with zero issues. However since we are an Apple household (well mainly) I have encoded everything in m4v, not mkv, just for a wide range of (apple) device support.

2. if you encode your mkv's to m4v's, you will totally get 6 channel audio. In your case, if the beamer app is transcoding on the fly to m4v then you still should be good.

3. You are putting a band-aid on the problem here. Lets say you had a decent router/AP combo, ie, the E4500, and you still had wireless problems, then yes, an extender would be ideal. You never want to use an extender without a wired ethernet connection because you are bogging down your wireless overhead because the two are connected by wireless. What you really should do is take back the Express, and get an Airport Extreme. Use that all by itself (don't use the e2000) and see how things go.