Putting Media At The Core Of Your House

[Suhit Gupta]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.furrygoat.com/archives/000970.html' target='_blank'>http://www.furrygoat.com/archives/000970.html</a><br /><br /></div>I had to put this in the Hardware category because there was no where else it would really fit. If you want to meld digital media and your house, quite literally from the ground up, i.e. integrate your smart media center into the home, then you might need to raze your current setup (your house) to the ground (not that I am telling you to do so ;-)) and start afresh. Think of it, no pesky visible wires, some sort of common interface, central control, access to audio/video/ethernet ubiquitously at home, etc. This is, however, easier if you are having a new house built, if you know something about audio and video hardware and have the option/ability of putting it all in. Anyways, one such gentleman did so while building his new house, and here is a brief abstract -<br /><br />"At the end of March, we finally moved into the new house that we've been building since last summer. One of the best parts of new construction is that you can pretty much have it wired any way you like if you get in early enough. For a geek like me, this meant an opportunity to have gigabit Ethernet to every room, a centralized structured media panel where all the house wires go to, and it even included an extra room we decided to use a 'home theater'. Something that I decided up front was that I would have the builder just do the wires, I would do the speaker installation, build the theater, etc.<br /><br />For the whole house audio system, I had the builder prewire 5 pairs of speakers throughout the house: the kitchen, living room, upstairs bonus room, master bedroom and the back porch. Each room had a wall plate that connects the room's speakers, as well as a line going to the structured panel. Not wanting to spend a fortune on a multi-zone system, I found a great speaker distribution system at Parts Express."<br /><br />He talks about his audio setup in some detail here in this article, and will be writing soon on his Distributed DVD jukebox as well as his Home theater construction. I for one am certainly looking forward to hearing about what he has planned for those.

[Steven Hughes]

Ah Parts Etc and Smarthome, my credit card knows them well... their circulars and catalogs tempt me monthly...

You don't have to rebuild a new house to get all the technical nicities of a "wired home" now that everything is going wireless. Still the snaking of speaker wire can easily be done by a novice with the proper access, tools, and patience. They even have paintable wiretape in case you wish or have a situation(like brick,concrete,stone walls) where you can't get into the wall but can tape various wire configurations via reinforced thin-flat ribbon cable like the ones found in small electronics.

However in building a Home theatre does take some proper planning... and there are many ways to do it right, it just depends on your needs and budget...some just want a clear large picture and surround sound others, want a whole theatre experience with remote control blinds,their own theatre video playing when no movie is on, acoustic paneling, proper light controls, sand filled sound stage, tiered seating, etc...

I got some real great tips on constructing my home theatre from the folks at AVS forums, http://www.avsforum.com/ They cover everything from building a home theater, what you can put it in it and even a special forum on video and audio distribution, worth a read/search if you are in the market for anything or want to do something A/V related or even in the market for a popcorn popper for your home theatre these forums are the place to go...I never knew there was so much about making "perfect popcorn"...

There are several ways to set up video servers, until HD storage becomes more affordable and the ripping of a DVDs VOB files to HDs are sped up I can't see 4-16GB of data per movie(if it is more than a 2 disc set with multilayered contect it can be more) of my 650+ DVDs on a HD I will need around a 10 TB sized hard drive to start...granted I can also reduce the content ripped by taking out the multitude of sound tracks, special features to reduce the size of the movie's overall storage,but the time involved in doing so is alot more than I have. The easiest way I currently do it is via a a few DVD Jukeboxes,CD Jukeboxes, and a video/audio/ir distribution with a switcher over CAT 5 cable with a Cat5Blaster:

http://www.syncblaster.com/Cat5Blaster.html

(There are others like Russound, Xantech, Niles, Elan,if you are looking into doing this)

Currently my Television shows are recorded,shared and archived via DVArchive and 2 networked ReplayTVs. Xbox and Replay TV are beamed wirelessly via RF to my workout room from the master bedroom and are switched via a simple SIMA selector I may go with another Cat5Blaster setup, but we may be converting the room into a bedroom for one of my kids...

I am looking at some cool webbased integration with some systems from AMX or Crestron to work with Lutron Homeworks, but the current price of these systems, makes them cost prohibitive for me...