My TiVO and Playstation 2 are in my entertainment center, a location unconnected by network cable to the rest of my house. I have gotten to where I really, really hate going under the house, so this situation isn't likely to be fixed anytime soon…
Instead, I've been using an old Linksys WRT54G running OpenWRT Linux as a "gaming adapter" to connect the entertainment center to the network. I chose the WRT because it was actually substantially less expensive than a dedicated gaming adapter, and quite a bit more flexible.
Unfortunately, I recently discovered that the WRT bridge wasn't really passing broadcast and multicast packets properly—unfortunate, because I'm running Galleon for my TiVO and it really needs this to work.
It's possible that I could have fixed multicast by upgrading the software and hacking up the configuration. However, upgrading the software causes current configuration to be lost, and the whole process is a bit complex—also, I wasn't eager to dive into the complex diagnosis and repair that would probably be needed to really solve the problem.
Fortunately, I happened to wander into Fry's yesterday and encounter a sale: Airlink APL8511/22 Powerline Ethernet devices at $25 each. Even more fortunately, they still had some in stock by Sunday—a miracle by current Fry's bait-and-switch standards.
I decided to give PE a chance; I doubted it'd work well, but Airlink claimed 85Mbps and looked dead simple, so I figured I could quickly decide whether the devices needed returning. Basically you plug them into a power socket, plug an ethernet cable (included) into the hole on the end, and in principle you have a bridge between the devices.
I am pleased to report that it all just worked. I haven't tested the bandwidth yet, but it seems better than the WRT was giving. I have some security concerns, but there's supposed to be a way to get them to encrypt if you're worried about the neighbors listening in. At any rate, they are in a very non-security-critical place right now.
It would cost a lot more than $50 to get me into the crawlspace, so I deem the project a success. I think I may grab another one of these units before the sale is over, just in case I need it someday. Now I just need to figure out the next deployment for the WRT. (B)