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[mgales]

I'm getting ready to purchase a DIR-825 and can pick up one with either the A1 or B1 hardware. The main reason I'm upgrading from a DIR-655 is because using wireless laptops and print server causes dropouts when watching HD movies on a N-wireless media receiver.

My main concern is having a steady data stream @ 5GHz while watching HD video. (I'll also be using the USB port to connect to a hard drive, but the HD video will be coming from a NAS with gigabit LAN).

Would it be best to pick up one with A1 hardware (and leave firmware at 1.01) or get the newer B1 hardware and upgrade to 2.02NA? My initial thought was to go with the newest B1 hardware, but after reading through many of the posts here, I'm not so sure. If someone has had good results streaming HD video @5GHz with either the A1 or B1 hardware versions, I'd appreciate knowing that.

[SBMongoos]

Great question.  I'm looking to do some of the same things with my router.  I'm right in the process for swapping it out from Rev A to Rev B.  I'm under the impression that Rev B is the way to go.  At some point Rev B will likely have 3rd party f/w which I would think allow you to tweak the router for better performance.

[claykin]

The key issues are those of reliability.

You think Linksys products are so perfect?  Go ahead and buy one.  Then revisit this forum to tell us your dissatisfaction with their Wireless.

[mgales]

I ended up trying out both versions. The winner by a long shot was the B1 Hardware, using the original 2.00NA F/W.

My test is a 30GB .m2ts (blu-ray) file (2 hr movie). It's streamed from a D-Link DNS-323 NAS to a Netgear EVA9150 Digital Entertainer Elite.

My previous router was the D-Link DIR-655, which worked flawlessly for everything but streaming HD video files. While streaming HD, the video would pause about every 2 minutes or so while the Netgear EVA9150 would buffer enough data so it could resume playback.

All the routers were configured with the same settings. The DIR-825's were set to stream video in the 5 GHz band.

Rev A1 hardware performed slightly worse than the DIR-655, it paused/buffered at least once a minute, sometimes more frequently. It's Signal (quality) was around 45%, but the Rate was only about 55M (on Wireless screen of the Status tab). It was returned.

The B1 hardware with 2.00NA and 2.02NA F/W streamed video flawlessly. I'm able to watch the entire 2hr movie without a single glitch. I must say, that I'm impressed. While it's Signal (quality) was only around 30%, the Rate was about 140M. I'm keeping this one...

[SBMongoos]

Great info mgales.  I'm looking to do similar down the road and this will help.

By the way.  Apparently both f/w's worked for you with B1.  Which did you prefer between the two?

[d1gw33d]

I've been streaming HD content to my PS3 with no problem - other than a semi-painful setup. After determining the best physical setup possible for the DIR-825 and my 1522 bridge - I went from 30% signal strength to 53-57% by disabling all traffic shaping on the DIR-825.