[ExtractStream] network distance

[Roger Merchberger]

--- ThePith1@a... wrote:
> Guys, 
> Thanks for all of the great advice concerning tivo networking. 
> Another 
> question I had was concerning how far away the tivo unit can be
> from your 
> computer when setting up your network. My office computer is some
> distance 
> from our entertainment center and I don't want to disconnect one or
> the other 
> every time I want to extract a show.

Unless you have one *big* *honkin'* house, or you're spread across
multiple buildings, you shouldn't have a problem. 10Mbit ethernet is
good for "up to" 300 feet - *provided* you use standard Cat5
twisted-pair cabling crimped/wired in the right order.

The correct order (as I've always learned) is starting from pin 1 (on
the left-hand side as looking at the bottom [pin-side] of the
connector):

brown
brown-white
green
orange-white
orange
green-white
blue
blue-white

10Mbit Ethernet only uses pins 1, 2, 3, and 6 (pins 1&2 are paired,
and Pins 3&6 are paired, that's why the green & green-white are split
funny).

Incorrect cabling can certainly "work" but can increase crosstalk on
the lines, decrease the usable distance, or other non-trivial
maladies can occur.

If you want to make the correct cross-over cable, wire one end up as
listed above, and wire the other end like this:

green
green-white
brown
orange-white
orange
brown-white
blue
blue-white

You swap pin 1 with 3, and 2 with 6. The advantage of the above color
arrangement (other than having the right pins on twisted pairs) is
that it's pretty easy to remember - swap brown-lines with green-lines
& leave the rest alone.

Hopefully, Ethernet 101 was helpful... ;-)
Roger "Merch" Merchberger
P.S. I'm more than aware that there's more than one "right" answer to
this, but there's a lot more "wrong" ones out there...

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