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Budget home enternainment solution
kevinhinnells
28-04-2005
A bit selfish for a first post, but I have been searching the internet for some help.

I am about to move into a new home in two weeks and I have been trying to plan how to set up the audio visuals on a low budget.

My main problem is I am married and with all women they hate wires, so I need to do this with as few wires as possible.

To start with I have no Sky, just Freeview. I have a PC, laptop, 28" Wide Sony tv, Tosh HD Recorder and a Teac separates system.

What I would like to have is all three of the bedrooms able to watch TV & DVD's, listen to music and surf the internet. I believe this is leading me to Windows Media Centre, but that seems too complicated. I have also seen Hauppauges goods which may be viable.

I would like to use my existing PC with some upgrades to act a central server, feeding independent sessions to each of the rooms, preferably wirelessly.

Can any of you good guys out there give me some possible solutions or ideas to investigate?

Thanks
-K
Dunedin397
28-04-2005
Have a read of Digital Home magazine, that'll give you plenty of ideas.

What you're trying to do is something I've been slowly trying to set up in my own home. The main issues you've got are displays and how to connect them to a source.

You've also got to think about how you'll distribute TV as you'll ideally need a Freeview box in each room.

One solution is to use laptops or in each room as that'll give you DVD, internet, music, etc all in 1 device and ideally a DVB (Freeview) card.

One big problem though is cost, this sort of thing can only be done on a budget when you can source older kit very cheaply.

Dunedin
kevinhinnells
28-04-2005
Thanks Dunedin,

I think what I want to achive is a remote access to a seperate session on a server.

So for each room you would have for example, a user session within XP where you can open ITunes, Internet Explorer, a TV viewer or Realplayer.

I have seen a similar system in hotels, but I think they have a PC hidden in each room. I would really like to keep it to relying on one PC (server), with which you could wireless connect a laptop if you wanted to. If I could get away with buying 4 sets of LCD TV/monitors and keyboard/mice, it would be fantastic.

-K
Dunedin397
28-04-2005
For each room to connect to a Windows XP server you still need some sort of client access, ie a laptop or PC or a SmartDisplay (which hasn't taken off really).

I use a few laptops around the house but the main PC just stores the shared files and the laptops can either browse the web, play music stored as .mp3 files or internet radio. The problem with video is that you need a network with a lot of bandwith so that means a wired solution as wireless isn't quite there yet at a reasonable price.

We tend to use the laptops for music, photos and browsing the web and perhaps look at video (eg video game reviews) that are copied to the local hard disk.

Going down the Terminal Services route won't work well with streaming content to the local device (although audio can work, video won't work well).

Overall I've found that audio only is fairly straightforward but when you get to video it's a lot trickier.

Dunedin
kevinhinnells
28-04-2005
Just caught a whiff of this:-

Hauppauge Media MVP

Had you considered this at all? If I did put Cat5 throughout, I may be able to a number of the functions.

-K
Dunedin397
28-04-2005
I've actually got that device. It's good with music and photographs but you'd have to rip a DVD as a single .mpg (mpeg 2 files). If your server PC has a TV card then anything you record will be in that format and you should be able to play it back on the MVP.

You won't get internet browsing though but there is new firmware that connects to an internet radio site.

What I have found is that there's no single perfect device, even the best device is missing some sort of feature that another device has. The device with the most features is a Windows XP Media Center PC but you need a non-CRT TV to get the best from it.

Dunedin
kevinhinnells
28-04-2005
If there is a DVD in the drive, can you watch that rather than ripping it?
Dunedin397
28-04-2005
Not with a Hauppage MVP, as that wants video in a single file.

Dunedin
kevinhinnells
29-04-2005
Thanks for all your help. Any chance you could do a brain dump for me of everything you know, so it can save me a few mistakes! Only joking

-K
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