Media sharing with 2 routers and 1 modem.

[emmybeans1]

I just set up a second router as I didn't have a good wifi connection and also wanted a wired connection in my bedroom. I ran an ethernet cable from a lan port on the main router to my bedroom and into the Internet port on the second router. All of the lan ports on the second router are now being used and I'm also using multiple devices on its wifi network.
With devices that are connected to the second router I am wanting to access videos on the media server of a device that is connected to the main router.
I've been reading other forums on this website but I am not the brightest person and not exactly sure how to do what I read. One option said to change the IP address to be in the same range as the first router. To disable the DHCP and to plug the ethernet cable into a lan port instead of the Internet port. My issue with this is I don't have enough money for another ethernet switch to free up another port and I don't know if the wifi would would on the second router by doing this because that basically turns it into a switch. I also want to keep the current name and password that I set for the second router and I'm unsure if it would change to being the same as the first router if I chose this route.
The second router is a Dlink DIR-819. While looking on the advanced settings I came across "virtual servers list". So I am wondering if I can access the media server of the device connected on the main router by altering something in those setting.

Please be very detailed in your answers as I'm not very tech savvy.
Thank you in advance.

 

[bill001g]

Your router might have the ability to be set as a AP or bridge mode. This in effect converts the WAN port into a LAN port. I think you still must manually set the ip in the lan to match the main router.

You may not have to go to all the trouble...it depends a lot on the video server you are trying to access. Lets say your main router and the server are on 192.168.1.x ip and your second router and machines are using 192.168.2.x. You should be able to access any device on the 192.168.1.x network using the direct IP address from either network. Many of the network discovery things will not see devices on another network but you can always use the ip.

The part that causes issues is if your server was on the second router. In that case all the 192.168.2.x ip addresses are hidden behind the single wan ip of the second router. This is harder to solve because of the NAT between the networks.

Directly using the IP address of the video server should work....but some devices are designed to not work. Tivo is one example, their remote viewing that connect to the DVR will only work on the same lan. If the application you want to use to view video allow you to enter a IP address it should work with no changes in your setup.

 

[emmybeans1]

Thank you so much. Changing the IP address and bridging it worked. It still let me keep my own network name and password which is what I wanted.