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Peeps i need some help with regards to home network with music and TV in other rooms.
A friend is moving house soon and wants to update the new home with a home network,so that he has a central server of some kind and then from there is will pipe out music to different rooms as well as video. eg. He has the idea of storing a DVD on a Hard Drive somewhere, probably under the stairs, and then connection that to something else so no matter where he goes in the house he can watch a DVD on any TV without having to move a physical DVD around, the same with the music.
Can anyone recommend a book i can pick up and read to get an idea of what to tell the guy to buy? I couldn probably set it up for him as i think the only hard part is chasing wires into walls. I know about the cabling side, e.g cat 5e or 6, but i have no idea about the hardware. He has come to me as i know what i'm doing with computers and he has accociated the two, but the TV thing is outside of my scope. Alterativly can anyone recommend a company that deal with this type of thing?
thanks
Dean
Peeps i need some help with regards to home network with music and TV in other rooms.
A friend is moving house soon and wants to update the new home with a home network,so that he has a central server of some kind and then from there is will pipe out music to different rooms as well as video. eg. He has the idea of storing a DVD on a Hard Drive somewhere, probably under the stairs, and then connection that to something else so no matter where he goes in the house he can watch a DVD on any TV without having to move a physical DVD around, the same with the music.
Can anyone recommend a book i can pick up and read to get an idea of what to tell the guy to buy? I couldn probably set it up for him as i think the only hard part is chasing wires into walls. I know about the cabling side, e.g cat 5e or 6, but i have no idea about the hardware. He has come to me as i know what i'm doing with computers and he has accociated the two, but the TV thing is outside of my scope. Alterativly can anyone recommend a company that deal with this type of thing?
thanks
Dean
saw some of his work last weekend, looked very thorough! 
fficialIt's complex stuff, expensive and there's a lot of cabling involved!
This stuff is pretty good so I'm told:
www.crestron.com/features/applications/home/
This stuff is pretty good so I'm told:
www.crestron.com/features/applications/home/
paulie-mafia said:
It's complex stuff, expensive and there's a lot of cabling involved!
This stuff is pretty good so I'm told:
www.crestron.com/features/applications/home/
This stuff is pretty good so I'm told:
www.crestron.com/features/applications/home/
That stuff is very expencive and over rated for all but the top installs (and we are talking £100K for home networking and automation)
How about something that can do all that, and allow the DVD or music to actually follow you from room to room as you move - automatically. It detects the bluetooth ID of your deveices and knows your preferences for music, lighting and even heating as you walk into a room.
There is a system that is just about to be launched here in the UK called Pluto, http://plutohome.com/index.php?
There is a systems developer I am working with here who has added full DVD and Audio ripping and even Hi Def up scaling. Cost - Between £5-£10K
At the other end just wire the whole house with two or three cat5e's to each point and this will get you out of 99% of holes when he comes to want to add something.
Happy to work wtih Plotloss (already do) to develope ideas.
Chris
You rang? 
Sorry, just seen this...
I'll start with a couple of questions if I may:
Your friend's new house, what is the build state?
Is it a new build in progress, a 'back to brick' renovation or will the technology need to be retrofitted?
This is probably the most important thing as retrofitting wire isnt a clean job. Carpets and floorboards up etc and chasing creates a LOT of dust.
What services would he like to automate, is it just media distribution or is he looking for lighting/blinds/security etc in a complete package?
I see Crestron has already been mentioned. Make no mistake Crestron is lovely equipment, enormously capable and is supported by the vast majority of custom installation product vendors out of the box. However, as Chris mentioned it is in no way cheap. Installations utilising Crestron in a whole home setting probably start at around £50K and go up to whatever you want to spend. There was an installation in the States last year using Crestron that was in excess of $3.75 million and it wasnt even the chaps primary residence!
AMX if you hear that mentioned also falls into this MTV/Footballer category.
There are however plenty of more realistically priced control systems.
Happy to answer any queries, mail through profile if you prefer.
Sorry, just seen this...
I'll start with a couple of questions if I may:
Your friend's new house, what is the build state?
Is it a new build in progress, a 'back to brick' renovation or will the technology need to be retrofitted?
This is probably the most important thing as retrofitting wire isnt a clean job. Carpets and floorboards up etc and chasing creates a LOT of dust.
What services would he like to automate, is it just media distribution or is he looking for lighting/blinds/security etc in a complete package?
I see Crestron has already been mentioned. Make no mistake Crestron is lovely equipment, enormously capable and is supported by the vast majority of custom installation product vendors out of the box. However, as Chris mentioned it is in no way cheap. Installations utilising Crestron in a whole home setting probably start at around £50K and go up to whatever you want to spend. There was an installation in the States last year using Crestron that was in excess of $3.75 million and it wasnt even the chaps primary residence!
AMX if you hear that mentioned also falls into this MTV/Footballer category.
There are however plenty of more realistically priced control systems.
Happy to answer any queries, mail through profile if you prefer.
Answers below matey
Plotloss said:
You rang?
Sorry, just seen this...
I'll start with a couple of questions if I may:
Your friend's new house, what is the build state?
not too sure what you mean about this it's a 1970's house with thick breazeblock like walls.
Is it a new build in progress, a 'back to brick' renovation or will the technology need to be retrofitted?
Not a new build, as said about 1970's house, with a new style consumer box (with mini RCB) and everything needs to be retofitted
This is probably the most important thing as retrofitting wire isnt a clean job. Carpets and floorboards up etc and chasing creates a LOT of dust.
ooh bugger, he's not going to be too happy about that as he assumed most of it could be done wireless.
What services would he like to automate, is it just media distribution or is he looking for lighting/blinds/security etc in a complete package?
Just Media for now i think. Just one location for all the gubbings like PC, DVD, SKY etc and then a channel decicated for each item on the TV screen.
I see Crestron has already been mentioned. Make no mistake Crestron is lovely equipment, enormously capable and is supported by the vast majority of custom installation product vendors out of the box. However, as Chris mentioned it is in no way cheap. Installations utilising Crestron in a whole home setting probably start at around £50K and go up to whatever you want to spend. There was an installation in the States last year using Crestron that was in excess of $3.75 million and it wasnt even the chaps primary residence!
AMX if you hear that mentioned also falls into this MTV/Footballer category.
There are however plenty of more realistically priced control systems.
Happy to answer any queries, mail through profile if you prefer.
Sorry, just seen this...
I'll start with a couple of questions if I may:
Your friend's new house, what is the build state?
not too sure what you mean about this it's a 1970's house with thick breazeblock like walls.
Is it a new build in progress, a 'back to brick' renovation or will the technology need to be retrofitted?
Not a new build, as said about 1970's house, with a new style consumer box (with mini RCB) and everything needs to be retofitted
This is probably the most important thing as retrofitting wire isnt a clean job. Carpets and floorboards up etc and chasing creates a LOT of dust.
ooh bugger, he's not going to be too happy about that as he assumed most of it could be done wireless.
What services would he like to automate, is it just media distribution or is he looking for lighting/blinds/security etc in a complete package?
Just Media for now i think. Just one location for all the gubbings like PC, DVD, SKY etc and then a channel decicated for each item on the TV screen.
I see Crestron has already been mentioned. Make no mistake Crestron is lovely equipment, enormously capable and is supported by the vast majority of custom installation product vendors out of the box. However, as Chris mentioned it is in no way cheap. Installations utilising Crestron in a whole home setting probably start at around £50K and go up to whatever you want to spend. There was an installation in the States last year using Crestron that was in excess of $3.75 million and it wasnt even the chaps primary residence!
AMX if you hear that mentioned also falls into this MTV/Footballer category.
There are however plenty of more realistically priced control systems.
Happy to answer any queries, mail through profile if you prefer.
Thats what I was kind of getting at.
Music can be done wirelessly fairly easily, depending on his requirements for what goes in the room then there are many many options.
Wireless video however is nigh on impossible in uncompressed format and patchy in compressed format. Its liveable but you wont get chop free viewing especially if two videos are being watched in seperate rooms. Again it will depend on his requirements for what goes in the rooms etc. HD over wireless is a non starter.
So the choice is to accept the disruption of a rewire which opens up a world of options or accept the compromised but convenient solution of wireless.
Music can be done wirelessly fairly easily, depending on his requirements for what goes in the room then there are many many options.
Wireless video however is nigh on impossible in uncompressed format and patchy in compressed format. Its liveable but you wont get chop free viewing especially if two videos are being watched in seperate rooms. Again it will depend on his requirements for what goes in the rooms etc. HD over wireless is a non starter.
So the choice is to accept the disruption of a rewire which opens up a world of options or accept the compromised but convenient solution of wireless.
Hi Plotless.
Been speaking and coming up with some ideas and this is what he would like.
A sky connection coming into the house (sorted through Sky TV, NB not SKYHD)
A PC with 2 digital signal connections running something like Windows Media Centre (i can sort that one)
The PC will be quite quick as it will compress the signal into MPEG4, mate would like to use the PC for recording live TV etc.
connected to the PC will be a big digital storage device, maybe Network Area Storage with 500+gb of space to hold compresses MPEG4 and MP3 files.
Then everything is going to have to be wireless. He doesn't want any construction work done in the house as his missus suffers from asthma, so no dust.
He wants music in the following places: Bathroom, kitchen and on the decking in the back garden
He wants TV (be it compressed from the PC) in:Bedroom, Lounge and maybe the study.
Well the lounge is sorted for music and video as the PC will be located here, the idea of hiding everything under the stairs is no longer an issue.
With this in mind do you have any idea on what will be needed?
I was thinking about this and all i could come up with is:
A quick wireless router, maybe Belkin Pre-N
and then some slim devices where he wants the music hooked up to a small amp and speakers. Although not too sure on what would be able to recieve a video signal from the computer in the bedroom and study.
What do you think?
Thanks
dean
Been speaking and coming up with some ideas and this is what he would like.
A sky connection coming into the house (sorted through Sky TV, NB not SKYHD)
A PC with 2 digital signal connections running something like Windows Media Centre (i can sort that one)
The PC will be quite quick as it will compress the signal into MPEG4, mate would like to use the PC for recording live TV etc.
connected to the PC will be a big digital storage device, maybe Network Area Storage with 500+gb of space to hold compresses MPEG4 and MP3 files.
Then everything is going to have to be wireless. He doesn't want any construction work done in the house as his missus suffers from asthma, so no dust.
He wants music in the following places: Bathroom, kitchen and on the decking in the back garden
He wants TV (be it compressed from the PC) in:Bedroom, Lounge and maybe the study.
Well the lounge is sorted for music and video as the PC will be located here, the idea of hiding everything under the stairs is no longer an issue.
With this in mind do you have any idea on what will be needed?
I was thinking about this and all i could come up with is:
A quick wireless router, maybe Belkin Pre-N
and then some slim devices where he wants the music hooked up to a small amp and speakers. Although not too sure on what would be able to recieve a video signal from the computer in the bedroom and study.
What do you think?
Thanks
dean
Being honest I think the wireless will struggle with the video signals.
In my experience more than two concurrent video feeds over wireless make all feeds so bitty that they are practically unwatchable.
Also, to run a Sky signal that needs decoding by a Sky box, the output of which he will need a video capture card and transcode on the fly, this is going to require a LOT of beef and HD isnt an option currently as I cant think of one (though there may be one out there somewhere) that has either Component or HDMI in.
The other downside is that if he wants to use the PC as a PVR for Sky then the decoded signal will only output the one channel so he will have to come up with a mechanism to control the Skybox remotely, there are a few mind you.
To get straight media centre content out to a remote device wirelessly I'd look at something like Pinnacle showcentre or an Xbox 360 or other devices of that type.
In my honest opinion I would suggest he ditches the concept of video entirely and concentrates on whole home audio using Squeezeboxes or Roku Soundbridges (which integrate with Windows Media Connect).
802.11n may make the proposition slightly more feasible regards video but we will only know when they start getting released.
In my experience more than two concurrent video feeds over wireless make all feeds so bitty that they are practically unwatchable.
Also, to run a Sky signal that needs decoding by a Sky box, the output of which he will need a video capture card and transcode on the fly, this is going to require a LOT of beef and HD isnt an option currently as I cant think of one (though there may be one out there somewhere) that has either Component or HDMI in.
The other downside is that if he wants to use the PC as a PVR for Sky then the decoded signal will only output the one channel so he will have to come up with a mechanism to control the Skybox remotely, there are a few mind you.
To get straight media centre content out to a remote device wirelessly I'd look at something like Pinnacle showcentre or an Xbox 360 or other devices of that type.
In my honest opinion I would suggest he ditches the concept of video entirely and concentrates on whole home audio using Squeezeboxes or Roku Soundbridges (which integrate with Windows Media Connect).
802.11n may make the proposition slightly more feasible regards video but we will only know when they start getting released.
Edited by Plotloss on Thursday 15th June 13:21
Plotloss said:
802.11n may make the proposition slightly more feasible regards video but we will only know when they start getting released.
And idea when 802.11n hardware is likely to be available? The following may be cods as it is the result of a 20 seconds of googling, but it seems like even a conventional TV signal requires a fair proportion of the bandwidth typically available over 802.11g. To work reliably, the network would ideally need to have specific features for supporting streaming content ... i.e. a certain proportion of the bandwidth would have to be guaranteed available for the video stream. I would guess that means that both the router and the network interface drivers on the PCs would need special stream-supporting features. Does such stuff currently exist? If it doesn't, I can see that the problem could be "solved" by simply having a huge amount of bandwidth available (e.g. 802.11n running at 540Mb), but that isn't a very clean solution.
ATG said:
Plotloss said:
802.11n may make the proposition slightly more feasible regards video but we will only know when they start getting released.
And idea when 802.11n hardware is likely to be available? As far as I'm aware, the pre-n hardware out now should be upgradeable to the full n spec.
Plotloss said:
Later this year, early next at a guess.
Standard ratified recently so shouldnt be too long.
With regards to wireless bandwidth control, possible I suppose, there are QoS aware routers but I dont know of an IP retransmission system that sends out QoS data.
Standard ratified recently so shouldnt be too long.
With regards to wireless bandwidth control, possible I suppose, there are QoS aware routers but I dont know of an IP retransmission system that sends out QoS data.
Further to this, I've just found a company who exhibited a QoS IP Retransmission system at CES a couple of years ago.
At the price they want for it though, it would be substantially cheaper to rent another house and get an installer in to run the cable...
Its actually a very complicated issue thats not down to straight bandwidth, packet loss and its overhead makes a massive difference.
Things will change though, there is a company in the states that reckon that they have cracked wireless short range HDMI, will believe it when I see it though.
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