Best Options for a Home Entertainment Network? 425
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?"
Audio: SliMP3 (Score:5, Interesting)
Divide and conquer (Score:2, Interesting)
Its also cheaper as I don't have to fork out for "new" technology. If I was you I'd be saving my money for the coming recession....;-)
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.
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:Wired vs Wireless (Score:2, Interesting)
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!
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.
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.
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.
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 needing one ethernet cable into the area.
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 $95,000.00 on this "project" it depends on what you want and how much bleeding from your wallet you can handle.
Wired is the way to go. (Score:2, Interesting)
My favorite thing is to slideshow pictures when we have friends over. I have a Gforce 4 MX card and it does the job since 640X480 is the best resolution for my 32" JVC. Also streaming mp3's with the visual plugins works well.
I tried 802.11b and the streaming was less than perfect, I say bite the bullet and pull some wires!
Conduit (Score:5, Interesting)
KISS (Score:2, Interesting)
Internet Radio(with the same music in each room): put a stereo amplifier in each room, and interconnect them via the "tape" i/o. No need to stream anything and you can choose the volume for each room individually.
Video: Put a thin client (x-terminal) in your Home Theatre, 2 reasons: Low Noise and Low Noise
No visible wiring, no CRT (Score:4, Interesting)
Projectors are now at a sensible price, starting at about 900gbp for an Epson EMP-30. I use one of these and it's fine. My girlfriend and I love the way the TV and everything disappear when not in use, meaning the house centres naturally around the fireplace as if it were 1940 again!
Projectors also work really well with a KVM switch. Put the monitor output into the 'Computer' input and the sound into a hi-fi, add a wireless keyboard and you are laughing, whether you have ten PCs or two.
If you are expecting lots of different audio channels: PC, TV(etc), CD, not to mention the old favourites like radio, then get a separate pre-amp with
Justin.
Hehe. I know Im gonna get bashed for this.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Now for the fun part, actually USING that bandwidth. I hate M$ 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.
I don't need no steenkin' computers... (Score:2, Interesting)
The home entertainment system consists of:
Sony TV
Pioneer 5.1 Digital Reciever
Cambridge Soundworks speakers (MC300's, Surround IV's, etc)
Toshiba DVD player
Sony CD Player
ReplayTV
TurtleBeach AudioTron (MP3/Internet Radio)
Nintendo GameCube
The last three items are wired to the Router/Gateway/Wireless Access Point/Cable Modem. Upstairs are all the computers (3, not including free roaming laptop) hooked up to a 10/100 switch and a wireless bridge to communicate with the downstairs. The server is upstairs and serves the MP3's to the AudioTron.
Works for me.
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
Re:Wiring a house for media.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Cat5 (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course if you run the signal in digital format the problem of signal balancing goes away, but the problem of a decent a/d converter does crop up. Most of todays sub $150 are OK, but not up to the standards of a decent home hi-fi (>$1000).
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.
Re:Wired vs Wireless (Score:3, Interesting)
By accessing this using the wap browser on my mobile phone I can browse and control my entire music collection from the comfort of the sofa.
I ended up using RealPlayer for the playback side of things because it is has a nice simple API which is quite well documented.
Non techi friends reactions range from total amazement to "why?".
You need to make the pages as small as possible though because GPRS costs money (0.23p per Kb on my current tarrif)
It'll cost more, but all-in-one cable is great (Score:5, Interesting)
My set-up (Score:1, Interesting)
Video: 33" Sony flat screen TV connected to ATI All-in-wonder Radeon 64 via Svideo cables: $1000
sound: 6.1 surround Jafa X-speaker system powered by JVC amp and Stereo. SoundBlaster Audigy Gamer connected via thick, shielded RCA cables: $1700
Shaking the neighbors' pictures off the wall while playing UT from my couch: priceless
Audio solution (Score:2, Interesting)
For mp3 jukebox and internet audio I like the Slim Devices [slimdevices.com] audio player. It's cat5 only, but it still is pretty sweet.
Now I'm thinking about getting one of the Via Epia based mini-pcs for fileserver/jukebox usage
Re:Wired vs Wireless (Score:3, Interesting)
I've seen lots of plans out there for multiple braids, but, this simple run where I stripped off the outside part at each end, and then stripped each twisted pair...sorted them into 'solid' and 'striped' sets (for pos and neg). worked just great!
Many claim this sounds much better than some of the speaker cables out there costing thousands of dollars...
QCast Tuner (Score:3, Interesting)
For those who didn't catch the little article, QCast supports MP3, OGG Vorbis, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 and the various flavors of DiVX (3.11, 4, and 5), as well a JPEG and PNG photos for slideshow playback.
I had been looking into building an HT Computer (I really just wanted streaming playback of the above list, not something for on-the-fly HD scaling or anything like that). For something that wasn't going to overpower my audio with fan noise, would playback any of those formats without any assistance (sorry Via Epia), and would fit in a case exactly 17" wide so that width would match the rest of the equipment, I was looking at something significantly more expensive than $230. It connects to a file server with a 4x80GB drive setup (drives ran me a sweet $50 each).
I use a ReplayTV for PVR functionality. It connects via ethernet, and there are third party programs available that allow you to connect and "download" one of the shows from it (although it only use 10BaseT). It would be somewhat trivial to have a cron job set to run the program, pipe the file to a DiVX encoder of your choice, and save it on a centralized box.
Oh, yeah, use CAT5. RG6 for the actual video source, but if you're trying to move PVR-ed video around, CAT5. I'd make sure to run all CAT5e or CAT6 so that I could make the jump to gigabit ethernet when the switches stop costing more than some of my computers.
Re:Conduit (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Wireless Access point vs. peer to peer (Score:3, Interesting)
I would suggest that you go with a wireless broadband router instead. Most of those that I've seen also include regular wired ports. Plug your wired system into those and use the wireless for mobile devices. That way, you don't need to have your desktop on to use your laptop's connection. Also, it saves all the peer to peer manual connection setup.
I would also recommend using encryption for privacy reasons but YMMV.
Re:Wired vs Wireless (Score:3, Interesting)
So far, I've put Gentoo on it...and have basic things and X working. I found for $99 each on sale, an Audigy2 card....and even a WinTV pvr 250...which apparently Mythtv is now supporting with CVS version...I got a decent GForce card with tv out...so, going to start putting it together. The WinTV card has a remote...so, that will be good for changing channels, and hopefully, navigation Myth menus too...
I know this will be a slow machine to do much more than audio with...with a little TV stuff...but, eventually, this will just be my 'client' box....and will build a hefty 'server' box on the back end for the actual TV funtionality...and just feed it to this one.
Right now, HD's are cheap too...last week or so, at CC with rebates, 100G HD for $69, this week, 120G for $79....so, drive space is no big deal...
Anyway, this is what I'm shooting for. Eventually, I'd like to have massive RAID5 arrays on a server for all my media...feeding to smaller boxes in living room, bedroom, office...etc.
Re:Wired vs Wireless (Score:2, Interesting)
This would make an EXCELLENT substitution to running three separate wires from an analog 5.1 source to an analog input 5.1 (or 7.1) speaker set. Just wire the end pairs into standard speaker stereo mini jacks.
Though, I'm sure as digital encoders/decoders get cheaper this will no longer be a problem.