Looking for a wireless router to stream to multiple Xbox 360s at the same time

[leglez]

I am looking to purchase a wireless router for a project at work. We have 4 separate rooms in a square building each with an Xbox 360 similar to this picture

Rooms 2, 3, and 4 have the xbox's mounted on the inside wall closest to rooms 2, 3, & 4. Room 1 the xbox is mounted in the top left corner of the room in the picture. The Xbox's cannot be moved as they are built into kiosks on the wall along with the TV & soundbars. The location of the router is at the exit of room 4 which is at the bottom of the picture. The total distance from the xbox in room 1 and the router is maybe 100 feet.

We already have an established wireless network in the building, but the xbox's cannot be on the network with access to the internet. So we need another wireless router that we can connect all of the xboxs to but not connect it to the internet. I am looking for a wireless router that we could connect an external hard drive to so that we could stream media to each xbox. We have a library of around 250 movies that I plan to rip to store on the drive. We also have a music library with around 1,500 songs. There will be times that each Xbox would be playing a separate movie at the same time as the others. Would this cause the movies to skip if multiple video files were streaming at the same time?

Is there a router out there that is capable of this for under $100? The lower cost the better, but if it isn't possible for under $100 what are my options? Thanks!

 

[aarodav1]

First off, is running wired connections to each xbox a possibility? The reason I ask is wirelessly streaming movies/music on 4 xboxs at the same time could create problems.

As far as the hard drive idea, I'd assume you could get some kind of external drive or NAS device that you could connect to the router and would show up as a drive on the network. I'm not 100% sure how xbox network file sharing works though so there might be something special you have to set up.

Also, instead of buying a new router to create a new network, your current router may have some time of parental controls or mac address filtering which you could set up to not allow the 4 xboxes access to the internet. Just an idea.

I'm not an expert of xbox file sharing but I just wanted to point out the potential issue with streaming all four at once over wireless.

 

[ch33zw1z]

You won't be able to stream simultaneously to 4 xbox's at once over wireless.

You option is wired. Or to use flash drives to play the movies off of.

Supported video formats: http://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-360/settings-and-initial-setup/watch-dvds-movies

You want to rip the movies to .m4v's with the h.264 codec

You will need a PC to broadcast the movies, a wireless router won't have the horsepower to stream to 4 devices simultaneously.

Use UPnP software such as Tversity, PS3 media server, and I believe even FreeNAS has a built in UPnP server.

So basically, wired with a good switch, Gbit is preferable but not required (I don't recall if the 360 has Gbit...) and a PC to store the files+broadcast.

 

[leglez]

No wired isn't an option unfortunately, and using the current router isn't an option either. Using a PC to stream isn't an option either unfortunately. Thanks anyways, but doesn't sound like this will work.

 

[Fardringle]

Streaming music to all four is no problem on a wireless connection. Streaming movies to one is no problem, and two at a time should be OK as well with a good wireless setup, but you really need a wired connection if you want to stream movies to all four at the same time.

 

[smitbret]

Streaming music to all four is no problem on a wireless connection. Streaming movies to one is no problem, and two at a time should be OK as well with a good wireless setup, but you really need a wired connection if you want to stream movies to all four at the same time.

Depends on what type of movie. SD movie or 2 should be no problen with a good wireless connection. 1 HD movie will be OK, but forget 2 HD movies. Probably will choke. The bandwidth just won't be there.

Look into powerline adapters or a MoCA connection.

 

[Cabletek]

If you intend to use xbox live [which I assume you would] this is not going to work out well for you unless only one person is using the xbox at a time. To my knowledge there are only a few ways to run multiple xboxes on one connection. And the only one I understand is listed below.

Assuming your ISP can work this way, get multiple IP's [generally static but DHCP would work as long as the ISP assigns it and not a private network router] for the xbox's and this way each set of ports is unique to that IP from the ISP. IE 4 xboxes + router = 5 IP's total. I have heard the IP can be fed from the router, if you exclude them form the DHCP client list my personal opinion is its easier just to by an 8 port switch connect it to the modem first then the router off one of those ports. And switches are rather cheap these days so you will not have to remember how you did it when the router goes kaput instead you can just stick a new router on and go.

As to streaming to all 4, they have you covered in the posts above, though you could theoretically purchase 2 AP's [wireless access points]and set them up on separate channels, then have two xboxs connect to each AP.

The next wireless standard, down the road, [but no telling when it will be available exactly] may cover 4 off one router but you will still need the multiple IP's for gaming
unless microsoft changes the way live works.

 

[leglez]

The movies would all be standard definition movies. The xboxs would not be used for xbox live whatsoever.

Would it be possible for 2 xboxs to stream movies from 1 router? What if I were to get 2 cheaper routers and connect 2 xboxs and each router.