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(More customer reviews)Of all the gadgets purchased in 2010, and I bought a bunch, the Netgear 3DHD WNHDB3004 is the biggest disappointment of the year. Netgear says loud and clear, our product will stream Blu-Rays. Well, I suppose it does but not more than a few minutes without getting dropouts.
I ran tests using a Netgear NeoTV 550. The NeoTV has a network test mode that shows streaming performance. To stream Blu-Ray, you need a constant 56Mbps or faster speed. The NeoTV would report that the 3DHD streams 62Mbps most of the time but occasionally showed dips below 56Mbps, sometimes as low as 38Mbps. That's literally a showstopper when streaming Blu-Ray. It turns a movie into a slideshow. The failed NeoTV network test results are completely consistent with the failed playing of Blu-Rays. The product is a big fail for its principle claim of streaming Blu-Rays.
I ran many other tests. Wired performance from my server worked fine. I flipped back and forth between wired and wireless. Clearly only wireless had an issue. I also tried moving the two devices around. I changed the orientation and distance between them. At no time did network speeds consistently stay at or above 56Mbps. I even fiddled with router settings hoping that disabling encryption or other changes would help. Nothing did. In the process of testing, I did discover a curious issue. If the two units are within inches of each other, communications fails. They have to be not-too-close and not-too-far.
Hard to believe that in 2010 there still are no devices that can wirelessly stream Blu-Rays without issue.
Update 11-Feb-2011: Retested with same result. Unable to sustain Blu-Ray bitrates in every configuration.
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3DHD WIRELESS HOME THEATER NETWORKING Kit
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