ste-rwf

Distinguished
May 13, 2009
2
0
18,510
I got a lg bd300 player for christmas and I want to connect it to netflix.
The problem is, i need to hook it to ethernet. I don't want to see the wire
and I don't want to pay to have the wire hidden. The only option i have seen
is to buy netgear powerline ethernet adapters.

My question is, does anyone have a less expensive solution?
 

sfryman

Distinguished
May 15, 2009
2
0
18,510
I have that bluray player as well. Got it for xmas from work.

I would buy a linksys WRT54GS or similar off ebay or craigslist, flash it w/ dd-wrt and set it up as a wireless bridge. This is of course assuming you have wireless in your home. If not, you'd have to buy 2 wireless routers. The wiki I linked should pretty much spell out how you can do this. dd-wrt in my experience is MUCH more stable than the OEM firmware, and it has a ton of features. It's great stuff, and totally free.

There seems to be literally thousands of the WRT54GS routers floating around looking for a home, so you can probably find one for $20-$30. A lot of people poo-poo the ver 4+ routers because linksys gimped the RAM and flash mem on these later versions, but I have a WRT54GS ver 6.0 w/ dd-wrt micro as my main router and it works fine. You just have to flash the micro version of dd-wrt, which is missing a few features you probably don't need anyway (especially if you just need a wireless bridge).

If you don't have the LG bd300 hooked up to internet yet you may not know that there is a firmware upgrade available now that also lets you watch Youtube. The netflix functionality is pretty slick, we use it all the time. My only complaint is that it only lets you watch things already in your instant queue, you still need a PC to search & add content to your queue. Maybe a future furmware upgrade (cross fingers).

Good luck!

 

ste-rwf

Distinguished
May 13, 2009
2
0
18,510



Thank you very much for your knowledge, it is much appreciated and sounds tons less than buying that powerline adapter kit. I went to best buy lastnight to look for solutions. I saw the newer versions of blu-ray and they all connect wirelessly. I was a month or two too early. Disappointed but i am anxious to try your method out and finally stream netflix. My internet speed is 54Mbps, is that fast enough?
Thanks again for your help
 

lee1

Distinguished
Jan 18, 2010
1
0
18,510
syfryman,

I recently got a LG Bd300. Just yesterday I got WRT54GS. I guess I am quite clueless when it comes to routers. I am hesitant to proceed because there are some unknowns that I can't seem to get a clear answer to. I hope you can bear with me and help.

1) I have a Seimans wireless Gigaset 567 router for my home. I have a desktop computer wired in and I can use my laptop through the house. The account is through Frontier. I am concerned that I cannot/ should not unplug the Gigaset and hook up the Linksys and expect to connect to make the necessary changes. On the other hand I am concerned about trying to do anything with both hooked up. While I suspect I will have other concerns my primary concern right now is how to begin. Everything I am reading, including the dd-wrt tutorial you linked to appear to presume that the soon to be bridge router can be used to connect and I don't know that I can do that with the Linksys will because of my other router's setup. Whatever I do I don't want to blow up my current connection.

Can you help me to get started?
thanks,
Lee
 

amdchuck

Distinguished
Feb 6, 2001
127
0
18,660
First, You may want to start a new thread specifying "Help with DD-WRT", second, I have never used DD-WRT but from what I gather

When you install DD-WRT on the Linksys router it should be able to connect to the Siemens router which will remain where it is....basically you are turning the Linksys router into a wireless card for use with the LG Blu-Ray player as the LG doesn't have wireless, only wired access.......don't fudge with your existing internet connectivity

Personally I would just use the wired ethernet port.....but maybe there is a reason you want to do it this way, like distance from the router or whatever.

What you need to focus on is getting DD-WRT installed on that router and configuring it as a bridge and then configuring it to connect to your existing wireless network and the LG Blu-Ray.

http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Bridging