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Best Options for a Home Entertainment Network?
Posted by
Cliff
on Thu May 08, 2003 05:03 AM
from the specing-it-out dept.
from the specing-it-out dept.
Vultan asks: "Now that I'm finally a proud homeowner, I'm looking to integrate my video, audio, and computer hardware. Specifically, I'd like to be able to listen to Internet radio throughout the house (or at least through my main stereo unit), and transmit video from my computer to my home theater in a separate room. I've done my share of googling, and I'm drowning in options. Wired vs. wireless, RG6 vs. CAT5e, digital vs. analog, line level vs. speaker level (for audio), etc. What kinds of technology do Slashdot readers use or recommend?"
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Wired vs Wireless (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Wired vs Wireless (Score:4, Interesting)
Yup, that's the way I'd go. But it's good to have some wireless readiness built into the system too. Put a WLAN-card to your desktop and another one to your laptop and you can share your ADSL/whatever connection with your laptop. Also handy if you want to play your videos (that you've copied to your laptop at work from your workmates) from your laptop.
And you can surf while you crap!
Parent
Re:Wired vs Wireless (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Wired vs Wireless (Score:3, Interesting)
Still, you are mostly right (I think). Wired solves more problems than it creates, in the long run, but some degree of DIY skill is involved to get a subtly neat installation.
I recommend distributing some processing, so that your output systems are not too far from the outputs, e.g. don't run 10 metre cables to your main TV or stereo, instead have a small box hidden away nearby, with a cordless keyboard/mouse, using the TV as a display. This has the advantage of only ne
Re:Wired vs Wireless (Score:5, Informative)
This mostly depends on the size of the installation and the type of cable used. Also in most countries you have to adhere to certain regulations regarding in-house wiring.
In germany for example (where I live) it is not allowed to use unshielded cable for in-house-wiring (you may use unshielded cable for connecting your computer to the RJ45 jack but for everything which runs in the wall or covers distances > 10m you'll have to use shielded cable) and since shielded twisted pair is not trivial to install. (Atr least if you have to adhere to emv guidelines) I personally consider using broadband wireless connections.
I'd certainly prefer wired connections but don't underestimate the complexity involved in in-house-wiring if you have to adhere to emv guidelines and building codes. You also will have to consider the guidelines for deploying shielded cable. (You may only bend shielded cable to a certain degree, you have to pay attention to the transition between in-wall wiring and the wall jacks etc.)
Regards Jeff (been there done that)
Parent
Wired vs Wireless = both (Score:4, Interesting)
I discovered that I had to unplug my Apple Airport Base Station AND my 802.11 printer adapter ANY time I wanted to use my wireless speakers because they interfered with each other (both on the 2.4Ghz channel) = there was a pop in the audio with 802.11 on
Also nearby wireless cameras make a difference as do nearby phones. Plan for hardwired phones to be near basestations OR get a different spectrum phone like a 5 Ghz phone
I have also discovered that Bluetooth interferes with my Logitech mouse working - so it's good to do some small testing just so everything will work everywhere.
Also, make sure the general area of your "brains and bulk" to your computer is located opposite from your kitchen as it is the area in MOST houses that draws the most amount of electricity and the microwave can cause interference too.
For internet, I have been personally recommending to my newest customers that they not have a landline phone period and just use a cell as a home phone (there are adapters availible that allow you to use all the phones in a house with a cell phone) - or potentially use a VoIP phone - use eFax for faxes. Get broadband.
Parent
Will this damn FUD ever go away? (Score:5, Informative)
Microwaves have only ONE path to bodily damage - Heating via RF absorption at the molecular level. For microwaves to do damage, the power level has to be high. (Microwave ovens are usually 500 watts and above, most modern ones are around a kilowatt.)
Most WLAN cards are 25 mW. Higher-end ones (Ciscos, for example) are 100. There are a very small number of 200 mW cards.
Needless to say, these power levels are NOT enough to cause any significant heating, even if you're exposed to it 24/7. You're more likely to burn yourself via heat conduction from a laptop computer than you are to have any heat-related injuries from a WLAN card or cell phone. MAYBE if you touch the circuit traces of the PCB antenna directly with your fingers you MIGHT get a mild RF burn on the surface of your skin (This would require opening up the card), but thanks to the inverse square law, that's the worst thing that can happen.
I'll reiterate this again - I work for a company that develops transmitters for cell towers. On a regular basis, we're exposed to RF levels higher than even a habitual cellphone user. (Amps with covers off tend to leak a lot - Never measured the exact amount, but it's enough to register on other equipment in the same room while a transmitting cell phone will not.) Some of my coworkers have been in the industry for two decades and not a single person anyone knows has ever had any RF-related health problems except for the occasional RF burn from accidentally touching a live trace carrying 45 watts of power. A cup of coffee can hurt you more.
Parent
Simple solution (Score:3, Insightful)
Another solution for (Score:5, Informative)
Here a Tom's Hardware Guide to Music Across Your Home Network [tomshardware.com]
. Here are some reviews of the AudioTron Phataudio [phataudio.org], DesignTechnica [designtechnica.com], Cnet [cnet.com] and Whiningdog [whiningdog.net]DesignTechnica gives it a 9/10.
Congrats on you new home.Parent
Audio: SliMP3 (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Audio: SliMP3 (Score:4, Informative)
The major issue I have with the device is that it will only play standard MP3 files. Files of any other format (FLAC, Ogg, WAV etc) have to be converted to RAW and then into MP3 on the fly before being streamed to the device. MP3Pro of course is the biggest looser since it contains a very low quality MP3 track which the device plays . This produces VERY low quality output.
Is there a device anywhere that allows native playing of other formats? i.e. a device that you can upload different codecs to depending on your music library?
A for the cabling, I'm currently installing Cat6 cables around my new house and will have a wireless network for laptops so I can browse in the garden (I'll have an RJ45 in the toilet for best access whilst I'm crapping - as someone earlier mentioned!)
Dunk
Parent
Keep it simple (Score:5, Interesting)
To listen to internet radio or MP3s in my kitchen I open a couple of doors and turn up the volume. Wireless technology at its best.
Re:Keep it simple (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Wiring a house for media.. (Score:5, Interesting)
This is what I find simplest, since as I have the house networked, adding nodes - or controlling them - is childs play. I can happily even sit on the sofa and remote control the computer via the TV, which will happily play videos off my desktop which have recently been downloaded, for instance. I would guess that Wirelessly networking this would be more convenient, and specifically wiring each device would be a little higher class (ie. sending gold signal wiring to amplifiers &c), but in general I've found the networking approach to be the most flexible (and I've done a fair amount of work as a sound engineer, so I speak from a little experience).
As far as internet radio in every room goes, you might be simpler wiring up lots of speakers - I would guess it depends on your house size. I'd just plug my one of my laptops into the room in question and solve the problem that way, but that's just me.
Cat5e is a wonderful thing.
Re:Wiring a house for media..(offtopic) (Score:4, Funny)
Hope this helps!
Parent
What are your preferences? (Score:5, Insightful)
The main issue with wireless is speed... it's not terribly good, but enough to stream DivX (disclaimer, haven't tested, only done the math.) If you're planning to move several gigabytes from machine to machine in a hurry you might want wires instead.
Security is also a weak link with wireless, but that depends on your location as well. Encryption is always extra overhead, which is a bummer.
But personally I'd rather have a slow flexible system than a fast system I can't change because I've installed the RC45 jacks in the wrong places.
Re:What are your preferences? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:What are your preferences? (Score:5, Informative)
My experience reflects this too. While theoretically and actually practically (when doing large file transfers) the speed is enough, you get dropped frames as the data does not flow as a steady flow. Even a modest 1.5MBit/s divx is far from perfect when watching it being transfered from a (fast) file server to a (fast) computer. It's ok for short clips, but watching a movie is out of question. I prefer to copy the movie to disk and then watch it. Yet, I can move about 600kByte/s data on the 11MBit/s wireless LAN.
Parent
Cat5 (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Cat5 (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, this all only takes care of your networking needs in the home. Check out avsforum.com to get help with everything from running cable, to selecting the right equipment for you.
Parent
Re:Cat5 (Score:5, Informative)
Not to mention adhering to cabling standards and building codes...
"Plenum" cable is just that, cable designed for installation in the building "plenum" - the space between the ceiling and floor. It's teflon coated so when your pad goes up in flames, it doesn't produce poisonous gas and kill you before you can get out. It's mandated by cabling standards and by law in many places.
Derek
Parent
Re:Cat5 (Score:4, Informative)
To the parent poster, you must have wired differently than me. I wired my 2000 square foot house and put in just under 1 mile of cable with 2 outlets of 2xRG6 and 2xCat5 in each bedroom, three in the family room, and one in the kitchen and one in the dining room. There was another thousand feet of audio cable in the ceilings.
Parent
chimneys flues (Score:4, Funny)
My home is an old-style brick house with chimneys, since it's modernised with gas powered heating, i dont use the flues. Since there is a unused fire place in the middle of every room in the house and the flues make great cable ducts, fairly short, wide and easy to use.
My switch is in a cuboard in the loft with easy access to the converged flues.
Also opened out the fireplaces make great recess for equipment.
Parent
poor Santa (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Cat5 (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Something else to think about... (Score:5, Informative)
use davedina project (Score:4, Informative)
besides that I've seen a demo on FOSDEM in Belgium and it is all you want : tv, dvd, mp3, mpeg/avi/..., photo gallery,
it is modular and you can choose form programs you want to play your mediums with.
The dvd player has fully support for the remote control (what it also supports
it also has server thingies. You can connect clients to it to setup in several other rooms.
When my house is more ready I'll use it!
http://davedina.apestaart.org/content/
is tha site!
Don't understand the point of IT based HE system (Score:5, Interesting)
Likewise with internet radio, fine for voice, but when it comes to music I would rather listen to an FM radio station with decent sound quality.
Likewise using Cat 5 cables or, even worse, WiFi, for linking parts of the sound system seems pointless. Most speaker, cable and amp manufacturers spend a fortune on R&D to develop their products to produce the best quality sound by reducing interference etc. Using cheap (compared to HiFi) R5 cabling or WiFi would negate any of these benefits.
Re:Don't understand the point of IT based HE syste (Score:5, Informative)
With a few exceptions - notably headphones - this isn't the case. There are certain lines of sennheiser headphones, for instance, which sound dreadful when fed a 64kbps mp3 of classical music; however, even on a 160kbps mp3 feed, my pair of Sennheiser HD500s sound positively wonderful, especially when the music has as few channels as possible. This difference in headphones is mostly due to the fact that headphones aren't designed to playback recordings made for speakers - which your body naturally perceives accoustically due to the multiple, far-distanced soundsources and diffuse reflections off environment and shoulders. Even the most expensive headphones still find it extremely hard to compensate for this; the best solution is to use a binaural recording, made generally by a set of microphones embedded in a plastic or polystyrene fake head, such that playback sounds as realistic as possible.
In short, hardware DOES make a difference - even to a 128kbit mp3 feed. But what would sound bad on good hardware at that bitrate would sound bad on any set of speakers - and if you're really after audiophile sound quality, you won't be feeding a set of expensive speakers with a low-rate mp3 file.
Remember also that most recordings are now made digitally - it's extremely easy to get hold of even mp3 recordings of extremely high quality (256kbit mp3 files are practically indistinguishable from cds to the lay person's ear; with ogg vorbis, the compression artefacts drop vastly in occurance and this applies to an even greater degree)....
Parent
My system (Score:5, Informative)
Audio/Video:
- Kenwood THX Receiver ($400)
- Infinity 5.1 Surround Speakers (no they aren't dipole)
- Toshiba 3109 DVD player (older)
- Toshiba 50H81 16:9 HDTV-ready
- Digital cable with 5.1 dolby
- Mistubishi SVHS VCR with SVideo in/out
Conversion Computer (upstairs):
- Athlon 2000+, 512MB Ram, 4x80GB drives (manually mirrored with rsync weekly)
- ATI Wonder TV
- 100baseT network
- Mitsubishi SVHS VCR for Playback/Recording
- RH9.0 Linux
- MEncoder, vobcopy, mplayer, Freevo and custom scripts for conversion from analog and DVD to DivX 5.0x
Here's where to get the software: http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/design6/news.htm
http://www.divx.com/
http://lpn.rnbhq.org/
ht
- mod_mp3 for streaming audio files
- Apache web server for Streaming video inside the house
Playback Computer (near TV):
- Compaq Armada E500 (900MHz, 256MB Ram, composite video out, stereo audio out)
- DLink 802.11a PCMCIA adapter (in turbo mode I see 72Mbps)
- VLC is used to stream the video from the server upstairs
Plug the laptop into the AUX input for the Receiver and use the Toshiba's aspect ratio and zoom controls to fill the screen completely.
Works best with DVD conversions. I've converted some favorite VCR tapes too and lots of home videos from 20-30 years ago. There's nothing like being able to have family over and laugh at them as kids going down a slide and landing on their butts at the bottom or seeing Mom in kat-eye glasses.
Also works great with WinAMP for MP3 and other audio format playback. If WinAMP's video would stream, I wouldn't need VLC
It isn't a perfect setup. It needs a remote control, a cleaner look downstairs, but for watching a full length movie, it is great - no more switching DVDs or hunting for the DVD . They are all safely away in a closet.
There are lots of other choices for the Linux software, but for one reason or another, they wouldn't work on my system. Mostly due to dependencies. RPM sucks!
Could I be first?
Sacrafice some quality, but gain flexibility.. (Score:3, Interesting)
1) A computer with an infrared/RF input device.
2) An A/V tuner + amp + display device in each location as required
3) Loadsa co-ax cable.
4) a bank of modulators/demodulators.
Now, get each input device, (computer, sat box, cd player etc) to modulate itself onto a different channel of a single co-ax that does a loop around the house (or star network, depending on layout). They can do this from any point on the wire and broadcast it back onto it without problems.
Connect up each of the A/V decoders/demodulators/displays etc, complete with a "magic eye" that can modulate the remote signal back down the same wire, back to each device that has a decoder/re-diffuser.
The advantage is that you've got a single bit of wire going everywhere that has everything on it.
The disadvantage is that the quality can be lacking, but that's ALL down to the modulator/demodulator pairs you use.
You can then even talk to your computer via IR/RF now, which means that this can be extended into an X10 system to control lights (or anything else really).
Another advantage is that you can watch anything in any room similtaniously.
how legal do you wish to be? (Score:5, Interesting)
What I do is quite simple.
The internet come into the office room (my wife and I share 7 different PCs + one for the children.) Apart from a KVM for my cluster each PC has VNC installed so that I can, for example, switch off the childs PC remotely - which saves a screaming match at bathtime. There is a WIFI access point which means we can use laptops throughout the house and part of the garden (this does include the hammock).
My designated "media" PC has a 2.4Gig AV transmitter which are fairly common is consumer electronic places now. I have multiple recievers around the house - 1 for bedroom TV/Stereo, one for dining room stereo, one for TV room TV/stereo etc. The only place I miss this is the shower.
The TV room system also has a transmitter (on a different channel) so the cable can be watched on any of the other TVs in the house (all watch the same thing at the same time). To switch from watching cable to listening to the stuff from the computer is a simple matter of flicking a switch on the reciever.
The only thing to watch is that you set up the channels on the wifi and tv transmitters so that you don't get interference from each other.
It could be better but it works a treat here. And importantly my wife can still work out how to switch things on and off ("1 TV, 1 cable box, 1 VCR, 1 DVD player, 1 Stereo - just to watch TV! You have got to be kidding."). The trick is to leave everything on and just switch screens off.
AVSForum (Score:5, Informative)
Do your research in their FAQs and then post any questions you have to the board. The site is ass-ugly, but it's great information!
Ground Loops (Score:5, Insightful)
Connecting a computer and a home stereo receiver is probably the most common cause of this effect.
Fortunately, you can get ground loop isolators pretty cheap for line-level, and cable tv applications... of course, if you choose wireless this is a moot point.
Re:Ground Loops (Score:4, Informative)
Simply connecting things together wil not necessarily cause a ground loop problem, but connecting devices on different power loops probably will. Houses will generally have different loops for different floors (each with its own fuse), and quite possibly different loops for different rooms on the same floor.
If you do any PA work outside, you'll realise how easy it is to get a ground loop - it can literally be quite shocking! Although we had a generator, we would wire earth to a foot long copper spike, which was hammered into the ground behind the stage.
Another thing I've found: check your power cables, especially the connections inside the plugs, as these can come loose with time.
-- Steve
Parent
How about a low-power FM transmitter? (Score:3, Informative)
Forgot one thing... (Score:5, Funny)
simple solution... (Score:3, Interesting)
#2 buy a turtle beach audiotron. in fact get 2 they are the ONLY choice that is worth a damn.
#3, wire the house for room speakers, and get a whole house audio distribution/amp system. FAST is a really good brand and expensive, otherweise buy good quality 2 way ceiling speakers and a volume control for each room for the low end/low cost.
you can spend from $1500.00 to $95,000.00 on this "project" it depends on what you want and how much bleeding from your wallet you can handle.
Conduit (Score:5, Interesting)
No visible wiring, no CRT (Score:4, Interesting)
Projectors are now at a sensible price, starting at about 900gbp for an Epson EMP-30. I use one of these and it's fine. My girlfriend and I love the way the TV and everything disappear when not in use, meaning the house centres naturally around the fireplace as if it were 1940 again!
Projectors also work really well with a KVM switch. Put the monitor output into the 'Computer' input and the sound into a hi-fi, add a wireless keyboard and you are laughing, whether you have ten PCs or two.
If you are expecting lots of different audio channels: PC, TV(etc), CD, not to mention the old favourites like radio, then get a separate pre-amp with
Justin.
Hehe. I know Im gonna get bashed for this.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Now for the fun part, actually USING that bandwidth. I hate M$ to, but the best way to play whatever you need at any location is with a modded Xbox and Xbox Media Player Website [xboxmediaplayer.de]. This spliffy piece of software can play just about any media format you can think of, from VOB, DivX, Mp3, Ogg, and many many more obscure formats. It can play them from the harddrive, dvd drive, or over the network with SMB (Windows) shares, Shoutcast for your internet radio, and tons of other options. Divx plays just fine over a 10mbit connection, so switched 100mbit aught to be a dream. Here [techtv.com] is a review of XBMP on TechTV with videos of it in action. Picture slideshows, playlists, this piece of software just keeps getting better and better. Fully controllable with a standard controller or the DVD remote you can purchase separately. (I recommend the Logitech RF wireless controller if you can justify the extra money. Solid contruction, flawless performance.) Its all about the wireless, baby.
Even better, no expensive modchip or chip installation required. Some people [slashdot.org] figured out how to run code without a chip, and some others figured out how to flash a BIOS on the Xbox with this technique. No chips, just shorting two easy points on the motherboard. Check on the #xbins channel of Efnet for information; look for the 007 agent under fire package with raincoat. You'll need a friend with a modded Xbox to get the savegame on a memory card, but once done, Xbox is a cinch to crack.
As a perk, you could even get a few room-to-room Halo/Unreal/RTCW/Doom 3 games going on.
Audiotron is my choice (Score:4, Informative)
I've had it probably for a month and it's been great. The unit is stable and the wireless network is great. I don't notice any performance problems with the wireless, despite what others are saying about it.
Originally, I wanted to hardware the unit thinking that it would be a problem, but running cable is such a hassle in my house and I figured I would just try out the wireless option. Since it works, I'm happy. Music never skips or pauses or whatever.
I've saved a huge amount of space in the living room where all the CDs used to be and have also really reduced the visual clutter.
I also looked at the slimp3 player that someone else mentioned, but decided I wanted something "appliance-like" that wouldn't have me digging through perl server code in the middle of a party when I want to be listening to music. The other reason is that the Audiotron supports streaming Windows Media which I use to listen to a radio station in France and this was a must-have for me.
Fyi, if you go with the Audiotron, you should check out my Whirlycott Audiotron TOC Generator [whirlycott.com] which builds table of contents files for the Audiotron to read. This makes scanning your MP3 collection a task that takes just a few seconds (I have around 5000 files) versus 10 minutes.
I went thru this a few years ago (Score:4, Informative)
www.dalco.com
www.adventaudio.c
Looked for some way to get cable signal to my computer without putting a hole in the wall. And how to get computer signals downstairs to the TV.
Not gonna be able to move the cable TV signal wirelessly. The line level signals are possible though.
Run CAT5 or CAT5e, either will do fine. Forget wireless for the computers. I have that network too, and its bandwidth is certainly more than enough to watch streaming programs, but it sucks when you want to move around said files in whole. Plus lots of things can degrade the signal. Suffice it to say wireless does not like to go vertical, it does, but it looses a lot of power.
Now that you have run the proper flavor of CAT5 (www.dalco.com), you are going to need a computer right next to your stereo. As for running audio video signals this is the preferred order of formats
1. digital
2. high voltage
3. lower voltage
This means that running speaker wire is your last resort, run line level if u can, and of course digital is WAAAAY better. The higher the voltage, the less your signal will degrade on long runs, this is why the voltage the power companies send out is SO high for the long runs, but stepped down when it comes into your house.
I ended up giving up the computer audio thru the stereo because of my house setup, maybe next time though. Currently I use Advent's wireless speakers. They work on 800MHz and dont interfere with my 802.11 network. Plus I have headphones for them as well. But they do pick up quite a bit of the occasional statis. Works best for stationary speakers, the headphones I have when I cut the grass do not work nearly as well. But they work. Also check out the products of www.amphony.com. Note though that this is the same frequency as 802.11 wireless network and the 2.4 GHz phones as well. You wont really *hear* any interference I don't think because they are digital I believe, but you will just get smaller bandwidth when the phone / speakers are running. In my Advent's 800MHz speaks, I occasionally hear the neighbors on the telephone because they are not digital. Thisis basically a wireless way of sending a line level signal thru the house. I also have a receiver I can put on my stereo if I want to send signals to the stereo from the computer. Though anyone in their right minds would prefer the SPDIF, and it will not go across the wireless I assume, havent tried.
Consider Mini-ITX And A Media Node Model (Score:4, Interesting)
What I'd recommend from an system infrastructure standpoint is to consider the Mini-ITX form factor for building "media nodes". The nice thing is that for less than $500US you can build a complete mini-itx system with 120GB+ of storage capable of 5.1 audio (via optical out) and s-video out. For a bare audio server with no optical drive you can even get that price closer to $300US. The core idea here being that you can start small and expand your system just by adding new nodes with specific functions.
e.g. Make a single audio server node first, once you're done with that you can inexpensively add another box to the system that supports video file serving and sits under your TV and can play directly onto such. Etc, etc for adding digital player nodes elsewhere... I'm pricing a mini-itx system for about $250 with an old 6gb HD and 128mb of RAM that can serve as a streaming video/audio node for the TV in my bedroom. The idea is to also make some nice simple, large-text rendering web interfaces for managing all of this from a central machine anywhere in the house.
For more info on mini-itx: http://www.mini-itx.com
ATI's Remote Wonder wireless remote control is pretty nice too. X-10 makes a similar model that can also be integrated to control their digital-home power/audio/video transmitters and switchs.
All and all, have fun with it and think more task-oriented about how you want to use the technology that's so readily available.
cheers,
Levendis47
My own HE concept (Score:4, Informative)
For watching all kind of video (yet except
To record moves or shows from TV, put a DVB card in a PC for having the best quality.
Wired vs. Wireless? (Score:5, Informative)
I have wifi in my apt and I use it, but there's no way in hell I would ever think about making my AV setup wireless using current technology.
Do you have any idea how the reliability of a wire compares to that of a WLAN? There's a reason every PC doesn't ship with a wireless keyboard, and it's not cost...
It's reliability. My keyboard sits in the same place all day and so does my computer. If I never move them or unplug them, I could basically expect that connection to outlast the keyboard. No batteries to mess with, no interference (unless you have some seriously illegal RF equipment), complete immunity from casual snoping.
Guess what? My TV sits in the same place all day too. Besides, show me one piece of wireless eqipment that transmits video as well as a set of 75ohm component video cables.
Go with wires. For everything. Use wifi for your laptop.
The real decision is what wires to run.
As far as:
RG6 vs. CAT5e, digital vs. analog, line level vs. speaker level (for audio)
Run all of them. You need coax for video, cat5e for networking, digital (AES/EBU whatever) for long distance audio transmission, and speaker cable for your speakers. Run extra. Especially cat5. Consider running fiber too. You can get 1 cable that has everything I just mentioned inside it and run that.
I think the best suggestion I can make is to buy pro-audio gear. It's designed to work well with long distance interconnects (everything is typically balanced).
For video, get decent coax (well shielded) and possibly a decent amplifier as well.
Wife Doesn't like Wires??? (Score:4, Insightful)
It'll cost more, but all-in-one cable is great (Score:5, Interesting)
Wiring for your Home (Score:5, Informative)
What I would do, since wire is cheap relatively speaking, is pull everything that you think that you might need. I would pull a coaxial, two cat5e, and a phone line (cat2) into all of the places in question and then leave what you are not going to use in the walls for later. Perhaps even a piece of fiber (single mode) There are some companies that have wire bundles where all of the above mentioned wire is in a single bundle so that you only need to pull one wire (albeit a large one). I would also pull a few pieces of heavy nylon cord for use later. These help when you need an additional run. Simply tape the new wire (fiber?) to the nylon and pull the nylon cord out, thereby pulling the new wire into place. You may want to pull a replacement piece of nylon cord with it for the next time.
Remember that you must be as gentle as possible with the wire so as not to pull the twists out of copper wire or shatter the glass in a piece of fiber as you run it through the walls. The last thing that I would strongly suggest doing is testing the cable after you have pulled it. I'm not talking about one of those $45 boxes with lights that your nearest Fried Electronics (Fry's Electronics - I used to work there and most of the sales people don't know shit about this stuff) will try to sell you. I'm talking about a $5-8k tester from Fluke, Wavelan, etc. that can tell you what the wire is actually transmitting. You should be able to find someplace to rent one for the day or perhaps your lucky enough to have a friend in the business. Or you could pull one of the tricks that Fry's customers do all of the time: buy yourself the tester and then return it within the 30 day return policy that they offer.
Once you have run all of the wires that you may need for the next 10-20 years then you will be free to hook whatever you want to the ends of it. There was a slashdot discussion on the merits of a Linux multi-media server that you may want to search for as well. First get the infrastructure (wires) installed and then your options are wide open.
Good luck. Tres
I say the opposite, wire the sucker. (Score:5, Interesting)
I run a 240gb raid 0 file server for all the music and movies(126gb MP3's & 40gb movies). I also use it as a game server. The raid array keeps things humming along, but I'll cry if one of the drives dies, since I haven't got enough spare room to back everything up yet. Individual things like tunes and movies are played off of machines in the living room or the various bedrooms. A DSL router provides internet access.
A friend of mine has a similar set up, but went an interesting route for his massive DVD collection. Get yourself a good DVD ripper or just go buy one of the big Sony DVD jukeboxes. They hold something like 100-500 DVD's. This guy has one of the larger models which he controls through a PDA. He just puts them in when he buys them and doesn't usually remove them. He has the title listing on his LAN and found some software that turns his PDA into a programable universal remote. His MP3 collect which for some reason is identical to mine, he controls through a webbrowser. I'm not sure if he just wrote the code(html)or had a piece of software, but reguardless he can control that as well from any machine in the house or his PDA.
Parent