New house home theatre setup

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dale77

294 posts

Ultimate Geek

#112269 3-Dec-2012 12:54

Hi all,

with the opportunity to build a new house comes questions of how to wire it up for media.

What I'd like to be able to do is:

freeview-HD dvr to lounge/kitchen TV
blu-ray to lounge TV with 5.1/7.1 sound
central library of digital music with output to lounge/kitchen/etc. Other digital sources (e.g. internet) selectable
*all nicely controllable/selectable from the current room*

Currently we use an HTPC for most of this, which works well with the exception of the multiple locations piece. Our media playback is mostly limited to the room with the HTPC.

Any suggestions on how to achieve my desired setup in the new house?

Thanks

Dale

HTPC: Antec Fusion 430, Intel i3, Gigabyte 1050, Corsair 4x1Gb, Hauppauge WinTv, Logitech z-5500, Logitech Harmony 525, Yamaha Rx-v6a, Samsung KS8000 4k, Windows 10, Mediaportal 1.30, BLU-RAY: Panasonic UB820

reven

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#726132 3-Dec-2012 13:19

im in the same situation, my house is being built now (laying the foundations this week, very exciting).

what im doing is

cat6 the entire house (im going over kill with this, never know where you may want a port or how many you will need, ending up with 24 ports in a 4 bedroom house).

im doing ceiling speakers + wall speakers in the lounge

storing everything in the master wardrobe, this will house a server and a NAS. the router and all the networking stuff will end in the garage.

around the house im going to run RaspberryPIs running XBMC (and maybe ouyas when they come out, order 1 ouya already).

the server in the wardrobe is a windows 7 machine running nextpvr for tv viewing with a DVB-S2 quad tuner and card reader so I can get sky channels throughout the house.

the rooms with TVs will have them mounted to the walls and have cat6 behind the tvs, so I can hide a raspberrypi behind the mounted tv and they can all view live tv and my networked media that way without any cabinets and messy cabling in the way.

two rooms will have tvs on a wall in front of part of the warddrobe, so ill put some holes (using covers, not just with a hammer :)) from behind the tv into the warddrobe, so my son can later put a gaming console or whatever in the wardrobe and not have it take up space in the future.

very much wanting to keep as much usable floor space as I can.

all the wiring, wires and speakers etc will cost around $2000, having a electrician friend help do most of the cat6 wiring. but need to do this before walls are up, because it will be a lot harder/more expensive after that.

dale77

294 posts

Ultimate Geek

#726387 3-Dec-2012 19:02

Sounds nice. So your answer to media everywhere is Cat6 :-)

Raspberry Pi for media play...

I guess for me I'm ok with the receiver station as a piece of furniture in the lounge, we normally feed it with blu disks anyway. Surround speaker wire should be in wall I guess. Would be nice to have some speakers in the kitchen into which I can plug a small network aware amp thing. Suggestions? Ditto for bathroom as I like listening to music/radio in the shower.

Probably have a net port, in each bedroom etc, 24 ports sounds like quite a lot.

mattwnz

20108 posts

Uber Geek

#726388 3-Dec-2012 19:06

reven:

Sounds interesting. I'm in a similar situation. How many cat6 outlets are you putting in each room? eg if you have a bedroom, are you putting in at least 2, one for the tv/home media, and one for a computer.

CYaBro

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#726414 3-Dec-2012 19:31

I'm very similar to reven except our house was just recently (mostly) finished.
I've gone a bit overboard too with the CAT6 everywhere. Haven't punched them all down yet as some rooms aren't finished yet but I think there will be around 32 ports for a 4 bedroom plus study house.
I've got my MediaPortal TVserver sitting in the cupboard in the study and that has a quad sat tuner with card reader.
At the moment I'm just using an old Asus EEEbox PC as the client in the lounge as we only have the one TV but when the kids get older and want a TV in their rooms then will look at whatever is available then to be a client.
I've wired up for ceiling speakers in the lounge and also 5.1 surround in the media room (which isn't finished yet) plus a couple of outdoor speakers.
I also put an HDMI cable to the media room and bedrooms, from the study cupboard, so if we want to have a central blu-ray player or whatever then it will be possible to share that around the house. This may have been unnecessary as I'm not actually sure I will ever need them.
Oh and also ran RG6 to each TV location as well if TVs have freeview UHF or if someone does ever want to put a STB there.

Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.

reven

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#726441 3-Dec-2012 20:41

ive got 2 in most bedrooms, 4 in lounge at low level with receiver/consoles etc im planning for a floating cabinet thing. 2 behind the tv in the lounge and 4 in master bedroom wardrobe.

ill probably end up buying a huge role of cat6 cable (think they come in 300m boxes) so if i have some left over (or need to buy a second roll and have left over) ill look into putting 4 in some bedrooms.

wireless is good and all, and will be a lot better in the future, but for the foreseeable future, cat6 is just way more reliable.

im not really worrying about phone jacks (i know you can do that over cat5/6 just havent looked into it) as im just planning on using DECT wireless phones where needed and have the one receiver (which is my fritzbox router).

peng1nz

40 posts

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#726573 4-Dec-2012 05:44

reven, what are you planning for remote control? is that over cat6 also?

reven

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#726587 4-Dec-2012 08:12

for remotes ill use a Motorola NYXboard Hybrid (http://www.pulse-eight.com/store/products/96-motorola-nyxboard-remote-designed-for-xbmc.aspx) and probably in conjunction with standard CEC.

also use my phone for playback of music etc, but i really like the nyxboard remote, nice having a keyboard on the other side of it.

Hatch

Trade NZ and US shares and funds with Hatch (affiliate link).

peng1nz

40 posts

Geek

#727117 4-Dec-2012 22:46

ok. excuse my ignorance but I'm trying to picture how this system works... e.g., you are in the bedroom and you want to watch something from the NAS in the wardrobe. What will you point the remote at and what is the signal path from there?

dale77

294 posts

Ultimate Geek

#727141 5-Dec-2012 00:01

Two possibilities I can think of. One, a wifi remote, e.g. your android or iphone, and two an IR repeater.

reven

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#727191 5-Dec-2012 08:02

the nas is in the wardrobe, the tv is in the bedroom, the tv is connected to the a raspberrypi, the raspberrypi is connected to the network.

the remote just controls the raspberrypi.....

every tv will have a raspberrypi (one will have an ouya) so all connected to the network and running xbmc to playback videos, live tv, recordings, music etc

Blanch

254 posts

Ultimate Geek

#727412 5-Dec-2012 13:43

I’ve run CAT5e around my home for a Gigabit network. I would run a minimum of 4 cables to the back of your main TV(s), everything wants an RJ45 now TV, AV receiver, HTPC, game console(s) Sky will also want 1 for a phone.

as Raven said

Bedroom(s) DECT wireless phones and Raspberry pi (with Motorola NYXboard)

Central location for phone base, printer, server

Not much left from a 300m box of cable.

mattwnz

20108 posts

Uber Geek

#727576 5-Dec-2012 18:47

reven: ive got 2 in most bedrooms, 4 in lounge at low level with receiver/consoles etc im planning for a floating cabinet thing. 2 behind the tv in the lounge and 4 in master bedroom wardrobe.

ill probably end up buying a huge role of cat6 cable (think they come in 300m boxes) so if i have some left over (or need to buy a second roll and have left over) ill look into putting 4 in some bedrooms.

wireless is good and all, and will be a lot better in the future, but for the foreseeable future, cat6 is just way more reliable.

im not really worrying about phone jacks (i know you can do that over cat5/6 just havent looked into it) as im just planning on using DECT wireless phones where needed and have the one receiver (which is my fritzbox router).

Thanks for that info.
I'm going to put telephone wiring in too, just because it is so cheap to install, and if I don't install it, I now I will probably regret it. It is also probably useful for future buyers of the house.
The house I am installing it in has a lot of internal concrete block walls, so wireless won't be too good, so cat 6 will probably be the best option in most rooms.

Jaxson

8018 posts

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#727588 5-Dec-2012 19:12

Typically you'd aim to install Cat 5e/6 around the house and use legs of this for the phone line where necessary. That way you can change it to a data outlet, and vice versa, very easily ~ rather than run a whole separate dedicated phone line network throughout the house.

Reven, from the pi's, how do you schedule a freeview program to record from an EPG? Can your chosen software, be that XBMC etc, provide this option/functionality?

reven

3737 posts

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#727615 5-Dec-2012 20:09

yeah im using nextpvr on a windows 7 server which xbmc can connect to now. xbmc pvr branch was merged into the main xbmc for frodo release (version 12 of xbmc, currently in beta) which raspbmc runs.

however scheduling is limited in xbmc atm, where you can only do a "quick record", meaning only schedule a show to record a single time with no advanced options. for recurring recordings/series link i use a web server to schedule them.

nextpvr also allows you to have multiple users, so around the house i have
- Home, which is a general shared user
- John, my personal one in my bedroom
- Liam, my sons one which i record thomas etc for him
it also has a "Shared" user, where I can record something which every user can access, so if i want to watch something in the lounge and maybe the bedroom, ill record it in a shared folder.