I could really use some help if anybody is willing. I have to start by saying that I’m not very worldly in the area of A/V, it’s a whole new world for me and I’m doing my best to learn, but it’s not easy starting from almost nothing (most I’ve ever had before it a TV and satellite box in the living room).
I am refurbishing our home, it’s an big old farmhouse and as we’re a large family (five children), I thought, while I’m ripping the plaster off all the walls, I’d put in a multi room A/V system. Trouble is, I have a very limited budget once I’ve bought the TV’s themselves, so I’m trying to figure out what I can achieve still.
Basically, what I want ideally is visual and audio media in eleven locations (six bedrooms, guest room, kitchen, living room, play room and cinema room) and further if possible audio media also in the dining room and in the two bathrooms.
I think I have TV and Satellite mostly figured out, with the exception of the cinema room anyway, my proposal is to use a Labgear TV distribution amplifier (similar to HDU681S but more outputs) with five inputs of two sky+HDboxes, the tv ariel, and FM ariel, a DAB ariel and 12 outputs (so I have one spare). This will only work with Coax, so only standard resolution (no HD), but except for the cinema room that is fine, and will delivery two sky channels, freeview, fm and dab radio to all the rooms, and by adding magic eyes and a global super plus combiner I can even control the sky boxes from each room if I want to. Total cost (excluding cabling) is about £300 plus the tv’s in each room
But that leaves me still with three main problems to solve
1) I also want to be able to deliver recorded media to all of the rooms, independently, so mainly music (back-up cd’s or downloaded music) and back-up dvd’s, would also be nice to watch stored home movies and photos. I’d like to be able to control the delivery of this media, in each room, with some kind of remote controller. I’ve considered
a) Sonos – But for 11 main rooms plus a further 3 zones, it’s going to be very expensive, and still won’t solve visual media, I do like that it gives me access to Napster though, and I don’t know if any of the other solutions can do that, can they?
b) Apple TV – Seems to have some potential, put one in each room, give each family member an ipod touch, but I apart from 11 apple tv’s and 6 ipod touches, I don’t really know what else I need to make it work, presumably some kind of central device with itunes running (can I link 11 apple tv’s to one itunes) and can I put home movies and back-up dvd’s into itunes?
c) Other streaming devices like boxee or xbox360 or ps3 – Again, seems to have some potential, with one in each room, though less clear how to control the devices, although seems like they can handle wider variety of media and can use a standard NAS drive at the hub to store everything, but is it a better or worse solution than apple tv? Any thoughts?
d) A central media server or media PC– Getting out of my league to understand these, so much content on the net, so many conflicting articles about how good or bad they are, and not clear to me what combination of central device and client device I’d need and what costs would be, any support on options here would help, but again, I am looking for a budget solution.
e) I even thought, what about just a laptop in each room, directly connected to the tv, either with it’s own local storage, or also still having a NAS on the network – But naturally more expensive than b) or c) so probably not best budget option.
f) what am I missing, or which of the above would be most stable and easy to use
2) I need to figure out the cinema room – In there I want a projector and screen, and want to be able to watch the sky+HD and the HD recorded media, in HD, and have surround sound, 5.1, so how to integrate this with the rest, but have it in HD? Any ideas?
3) If I can, I’d like to be able to have a pair of corner speakers in each room, so the sound can either come from the TV, but also can come out of speakers instead, but I am lost how to achieve this (have never used speakers before, only tv). What is the difference between active speakers and passive speakers, how do I get the sound to go from my TV, to the speakers, what do I need in the middle and how much does it cost, or can I directly connect speakers to my TV, if so, what kind? I am not an audiophile, they don’t need to be the worlds most amazing speakers, just basic room speakers to deliver a nice stereo sound, better than comes directly out of the TV itself.
Help… Please, anybody that has better knowledge than me, I’d appreciate help on any or all of the above, and I going off in wrong directions, am I missing things that would do the job better… Already the above is the result of nearly two weeks of surfing and trying to learn, going round in circles and feeling very out of my depth…. Am I making a mistake separating the tv from the recorded media, is there a better ‘all in one’ solution, on a budget? Hope someone out there might be able to help me…
I am refurbishing our home, it’s an big old farmhouse and as we’re a large family (five children), I thought, while I’m ripping the plaster off all the walls, I’d put in a multi room A/V system. Trouble is, I have a very limited budget once I’ve bought the TV’s themselves, so I’m trying to figure out what I can achieve still.
Basically, what I want ideally is visual and audio media in eleven locations (six bedrooms, guest room, kitchen, living room, play room and cinema room) and further if possible audio media also in the dining room and in the two bathrooms.
I think I have TV and Satellite mostly figured out, with the exception of the cinema room anyway, my proposal is to use a Labgear TV distribution amplifier (similar to HDU681S but more outputs) with five inputs of two sky+HDboxes, the tv ariel, and FM ariel, a DAB ariel and 12 outputs (so I have one spare). This will only work with Coax, so only standard resolution (no HD), but except for the cinema room that is fine, and will delivery two sky channels, freeview, fm and dab radio to all the rooms, and by adding magic eyes and a global super plus combiner I can even control the sky boxes from each room if I want to. Total cost (excluding cabling) is about £300 plus the tv’s in each room
But that leaves me still with three main problems to solve
1) I also want to be able to deliver recorded media to all of the rooms, independently, so mainly music (back-up cd’s or downloaded music) and back-up dvd’s, would also be nice to watch stored home movies and photos. I’d like to be able to control the delivery of this media, in each room, with some kind of remote controller. I’ve considered
a) Sonos – But for 11 main rooms plus a further 3 zones, it’s going to be very expensive, and still won’t solve visual media, I do like that it gives me access to Napster though, and I don’t know if any of the other solutions can do that, can they?
b) Apple TV – Seems to have some potential, put one in each room, give each family member an ipod touch, but I apart from 11 apple tv’s and 6 ipod touches, I don’t really know what else I need to make it work, presumably some kind of central device with itunes running (can I link 11 apple tv’s to one itunes) and can I put home movies and back-up dvd’s into itunes?
c) Other streaming devices like boxee or xbox360 or ps3 – Again, seems to have some potential, with one in each room, though less clear how to control the devices, although seems like they can handle wider variety of media and can use a standard NAS drive at the hub to store everything, but is it a better or worse solution than apple tv? Any thoughts?
d) A central media server or media PC– Getting out of my league to understand these, so much content on the net, so many conflicting articles about how good or bad they are, and not clear to me what combination of central device and client device I’d need and what costs would be, any support on options here would help, but again, I am looking for a budget solution.
e) I even thought, what about just a laptop in each room, directly connected to the tv, either with it’s own local storage, or also still having a NAS on the network – But naturally more expensive than b) or c) so probably not best budget option.
f) what am I missing, or which of the above would be most stable and easy to use
2) I need to figure out the cinema room – In there I want a projector and screen, and want to be able to watch the sky+HD and the HD recorded media, in HD, and have surround sound, 5.1, so how to integrate this with the rest, but have it in HD? Any ideas?
3) If I can, I’d like to be able to have a pair of corner speakers in each room, so the sound can either come from the TV, but also can come out of speakers instead, but I am lost how to achieve this (have never used speakers before, only tv). What is the difference between active speakers and passive speakers, how do I get the sound to go from my TV, to the speakers, what do I need in the middle and how much does it cost, or can I directly connect speakers to my TV, if so, what kind? I am not an audiophile, they don’t need to be the worlds most amazing speakers, just basic room speakers to deliver a nice stereo sound, better than comes directly out of the TV itself.
Help… Please, anybody that has better knowledge than me, I’d appreciate help on any or all of the above, and I going off in wrong directions, am I missing things that would do the job better… Already the above is the result of nearly two weeks of surfing and trying to learn, going round in circles and feeling very out of my depth…. Am I making a mistake separating the tv from the recorded media, is there a better ‘all in one’ solution, on a budget? Hope someone out there might be able to help me…
