I have a RT-AC66U running the latest Merlin build and have been very happy with it.
I have a dinning room that has been converted into a HomeTheater and has no coax or ethernet ports. I have a TiVo and would like to put a TiVo Mini in the theater but I need a stable wireless connection that is capable of HD Streaming. The AC66U is upstairs and the theater is downstairs (about 25 ft away).
I was considering replacing the AC66U with a newer Asus and use the AC66U as a Media Bridge, but I have read there are limitations with the AC66U in Media Bridge mode.
We have the standard wireless devices in the house, phones, tablets and laptops and we have a lot of neighboring networks.
Can somebody please recommend a router and bridge setup that is stable and can keep a HD stream happy from one TiVo to another?
I am open to purchasing two new devices if needed (router and a bridge).
Thanks,
Dan
Don't use the second RT-AC66U as a "Media Bridge"...use the second AC66U in "Repeater" mode. This is exactly what I do, and I cannot recommend it highly enough. You'll have all the benefits of using the LAN ports on the Repeater (thus getting the functionality of a bridge), and will also be able to extend your wireless network wirelessly by using the repeater's 2.4 and 5ghz radios as well (something you cannot do in "Media Bridge" mode). And as you note, there have been many problems reported with the Media Bridge, whereas the "Repeater" mode works flawlessly. I've been using it for the past 8 or 9 months and it works great.
I have a very similar set up: An AC66U set as a wireless router located in an upstairs study where my home office stuff is located (e.g., HP printer/scanner/fax, desktop running dual boot Win8.1/Win7, and three NAS boxes (two FreeNAS and one Windows Server). Downstairs, in our den where all of our AV equipment is located, I have another AC66U set up as a "repeater".
The repeater is set to pick up the 5ghz from the router; all four LAN ports on the repeater will essentially give GigE connection speeds to whatever devices are connected to it, and given the solid strength of the 5ghz channel from the router, I get great speeds and throughput to anything that is connected via the GigE ports on the repeater.
The repeater also is capable of rebroadcasting and extending the network on its own 2.4 and 5ghz channels (I use different SSID's for the upstairs and downstairs units so I know what my devices are connecting to), and there's very little speed degredation when using the wireless as well.
To the repeater's LAN ports, I've connected an HTPC, a Blu-Ray player, an HD-DVD (yes it's defunct, but so what), and an 8-port GigE switch, to which I have connected a number of other devices.
This set up works flawlessly, and I can stream Blu-ray ISO's from my NAS's connected to the router and watch them in any room of the house, including on the the HTPC connected to the repeater (which runs through a Denon AV receiver for audio and which also reprocesses the HDMI video from the HTPC's GTX750 EVGA graphics card...so I get an impeccable picture when streaming).
Again, the 66U's working in tandem are terrific.
We also have a Slingbox and some other stuff located in a different bedroom downstairs, and since I couldn't justify buying a third 66U just for the Slingbox (which I don't watch but which is used by my two sons, one of whom lives in Toronto but travels all over the U.S.--he's on the coaching staff of an NBA team-- and our other one who is in medical school in Israel...and we're in Los Angeles so that's where the Slingbox is located), I bought a WDMyBridge, which is an AC1300 device...a true "bridge" that communicates with the router exclusively on the 5ghz band using 802.11ac, and which has 4 GigE LAN ports. The WD was very inexpensive, about $50 on Amazon (probably because WD has discontinued it). But it works well and I've had no complaints from my kids regarding accessing the Slingbox