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Best Options for a Home Entertainment Network?
Vultan asks: "Now that I'm finally a proud homeowner, I'm looking to integrate my video, audio, and computer hardware. Specifically, I'd like to be able to listen to Internet radio throughout the house (or at least through my main stereo unit), and transmit video from my computer to my home theater in a separate room. I've done my share of googling, and I'm drowning in options. Wired vs. wireless, RG6 vs. CAT5e, digital vs. analog, line level vs. speaker level (for audio), etc. What kinds of technology do Slashdot readers use or recommend?"
If you can, go wired. It has the bandwidth you need for video and with a switch you can handle several servers and clients simultaneously each with it's own 100Mbit connection where with wireless you share bandwidth.
"Computer Scientists can count to 1024 on their fingers" (non-mutant, non-mutilatated, human computer scientists)
Well one would think you could run just a standard TV out to get the video, and run your soundcard through your stereo amp to get the audio. Most likely your best bet would be to keep it all wired since speed would be limited via wireless. Those are just a few of my thoughts, but what do I know, I'm just a silly college student. Good luck.
I bought a SliMP3 myself when I bought my own home, and I really like it. It's basically a dumb terminal powered by a perl daemon running on my file server. It has great sound quality and a good display. I'm not quite finished building everything yet ( my plans include remotely switchable lighting and video to my tv ), but one big advantage of the SliMP3 is that I can hack the daemon code myself -- so I can use the remote of the SliMP3 to control other applications, e.g. a video stream from my computer and the lighting.
---
"The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
My Thomson VS530C works great for transmitting video and audio from my computer to my TV set via WLAN.
I have gone for a different approach. Instead of one, single point of failure, I have several separate devices around the house. The downside is that I cannot listen to internet radio throught my home, but should my computer die my television will work and my wife can listen to whatever she likes on the stereo.
Its also cheaper as I don't have to fork out for "new" technology. If I was you I'd be saving my money for the coming recession....;-)
Hack Apple's Airport Extreme and make it your wireless transmitter. Use that to transmit your video & audio throught the house! Do NOT use wires at any cost.
Iam already drowning in wires with my home music-VCD-VCR-computer system.
-------- Cluster bombing from B-52s is very, very accurate -- the bombs always hit the ground.
I have an old laptop 1GHz PIII running on my stack of Amp / CD / VCR etc... feeding into both the amp direct and the VCR. It works just fine.
To listen to internet radio or MP3s in my kitchen I open a couple of doors and turn up the volume. Wireless technology at its best.
For a very long time, I debated a similar issue, and what I've found easiest to do is simply to stick a machine next to each 'media outlet' which exists in my house. My television has a displayless (asides from the tv) machine with an svideo output card, and my hifi has an old toshiba laptop plugged into it (120MHz machine). For times when I want really excellent sound, I have a second hifi which tends to get plugged into a soundblaster live - but for the majority of the time, soundblaster sound from the laptop suffices.
;)
:)
This is what I find simplest, since as I have the house networked, adding nodes - or controlling them - is childs play. I can happily even sit on the sofa and remote control the computer via the TV, which will happily play videos off my desktop which have recently been downloaded, for instance. I would guess that Wirelessly networking this would be more convenient, and specifically wiring each device would be a little higher class (ie. sending gold signal wiring to amplifiers &c), but in general I've found the networking approach to be the most flexible (and I've done a fair amount of work as a sound engineer, so I speak from a little experience).
As far as internet radio in every room goes, you might be simpler wiring up lots of speakers - I would guess it depends on your house size. I'd just plug my one of my laptops into the room in question and solve the problem that way, but that's just me.
Cat5e is a wonderful thing.
I am a viral sig. Please copy me and help me spread. Thank you
The main issue with wireless is speed... it's not terribly good, but enough to stream DivX (disclaimer, haven't tested, only done the math.) If you're planning to move several gigabytes from machine to machine in a hurry you might want wires instead.
Security is also a weak link with wireless, but that depends on your location as well. Encryption is always extra overhead, which is a bummer.
But personally I'd rather have a slow flexible system than a fast system I can't change because I've installed the RC45 jacks in the wrong places.
.: Max Romantschuk
Run CAT5 all over the place... in addition to Ethernet, CAT5 has an impedance of ~ 100 ohms which makes it perfect for both balanced analog audio signals and digital AES/EBU if you want to do that. You want to go balanced if you're doing long cable runs otherwise you could pick up hum.
I use a 2.4gz tv sender hooked up between my pc's sound/video cards and the tv in the kitchen. To let me watch videos from the computer in the kitchen and to play mp3's with visualisations. Works pretty well except for when the microwave goes on, but then it is only a few metres. However i've had the thing work well at 100.
My approach was that I used a fanless Via MB from Mini-ITX which has Tv-OUT. Using that + NFS + Wireless gave me a nice player. However I will admit I haven't got round to installing a remote control..
It make a nice talking point though
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
If you are concerned about security, you might consider that even if you have WEP enabled with wireless, CAT5 will always be more resilient to eavsdropping on your network streams; simply because it hard to hack into CAT5 physically. Also, as another poster postulated, you have a dedicated 100mb throughput for each device or computer hooked into the LAN. With wireless, it's shared. CAT5 rocks for bandwidth! I can stream straight .VOB (DVD) files from my host computer to the living room computer and it plays just as if it were from a set-top, stand-alone DVD player; no skips or nothing. So you could have video playing over the LAN for one device in one room, and have plenty of bandwidth to spare for a couple of other devices in other rooms. Ultimately I guess it's how you plan to use it that determines the best implementation to use.
>>>>>> Chewie, take the professor in the back and plug him into the hyperdrive.
I Propose to use startdates.
- No time zones.
- 64 seconds per minute (6bits)
- 64 minutes per hour (6bits)
- 32 hours a day (5bits)
- 32 days a month (5bits)
- 16 months a year (4bits)
- 64 years a century (6bits)
I can't stress enough how i h@te the name of their program. I never can remember it when most needed and I always have to search irc logs for it.
... the works. Even server capacities, XML tv program retreivel, ...
:-)) VERY nice.
besides that I've seen a demo on FOSDEM in Belgium and it is all you want : tv, dvd, mp3, mpeg/avi/..., photo gallery,
it is modular and you can choose form programs you want to play your mediums with.
The dvd player has fully support for the remote control (what it also supports
it also has server thingies. You can connect clients to it to setup in several other rooms.
When my house is more ready I'll use it!
http://davedina.apestaart.org/content/
is tha site!
i use an av amp, my computer feeds into that (video out, with the audio in and out fed through the amp tape loop) and everything else connects into the amp also, so i can watch divx's on TV through the surround setup, record them to video, whatever... with a video in, you could also record from any source digitally with great ease, just using the vcr video in/out.
I'm always a bit sceptical about these ideas and maybe I'm a luddite in this respect. I've always gone for speakers, amps etc. that will give the best sound quality, why I would then want to use an source, such as MP3, that would sound the same on a £50 stereo is beyond me.
Likewise with internet radio, fine for voice, but when it comes to music I would rather listen to an FM radio station with decent sound quality.
Likewise using Cat 5 cables or, even worse, WiFi, for linking parts of the sound system seems pointless. Most speaker, cable and amp manufacturers spend a fortune on R&D to develop their products to produce the best quality sound by reducing interference etc. Using cheap (compared to HiFi) R5 cabling or WiFi would negate any of these benefits.
It isn't perfect, but here's a quick list:
l t p://freevo.sourceforge.net/
Audio/Video:
- Kenwood THX Receiver ($400)
- Infinity 5.1 Surround Speakers (no they aren't dipole)
- Toshiba 3109 DVD player (older)
- Toshiba 50H81 16:9 HDTV-ready
- Digital cable with 5.1 dolby
- Mistubishi SVHS VCR with SVideo in/out
Conversion Computer (upstairs):
- Athlon 2000+, 512MB Ram, 4x80GB drives (manually mirrored with rsync weekly)
- ATI Wonder TV
- 100baseT network
- Mitsubishi SVHS VCR for Playback/Recording
- RH9.0 Linux
- MEncoder, vobcopy, mplayer, Freevo and custom scripts for conversion from analog and DVD to DivX 5.0x
Here's where to get the software: http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/design6/news.htm
http://www.divx.com/
http://lpn.rnbhq.org/
ht
- mod_mp3 for streaming audio files
- Apache web server for Streaming video inside the house
Playback Computer (near TV):
- Compaq Armada E500 (900MHz, 256MB Ram, composite video out, stereo audio out)
- DLink 802.11a PCMCIA adapter (in turbo mode I see 72Mbps)
- VLC is used to stream the video from the server upstairs
Plug the laptop into the AUX input for the Receiver and use the Toshiba's aspect ratio and zoom controls to fill the screen completely.
Works best with DVD conversions. I've converted some favorite VCR tapes too and lots of home videos from 20-30 years ago. There's nothing like being able to have family over and laugh at them as kids going down a slide and landing on their butts at the bottom or seeing Mom in kat-eye glasses.
Also works great with WinAMP for MP3 and other audio format playback. If WinAMP's video would stream, I wouldn't need VLC
It isn't a perfect setup. It needs a remote control, a cleaner look downstairs, but for watching a full length movie, it is great - no more switching DVDs or hunting for the DVD . They are all safely away in a closet.
There are lots of other choices for the Linux software, but for one reason or another, they wouldn't work on my system. Mostly due to dependencies. RPM sucks!
Could I be first?
The core parts of this are:
1) A computer with an infrared/RF input device.
2) An A/V tuner + amp + display device in each location as required
3) Loadsa co-ax cable.
4) a bank of modulators/demodulators.
Now, get each input device, (computer, sat box, cd player etc) to modulate itself onto a different channel of a single co-ax that does a loop around the house (or star network, depending on layout). They can do this from any point on the wire and broadcast it back onto it without problems.
Connect up each of the A/V decoders/demodulators/displays etc, complete with a "magic eye" that can modulate the remote signal back down the same wire, back to each device that has a decoder/re-diffuser.
The advantage is that you've got a single bit of wire going everywhere that has everything on it.
The disadvantage is that the quality can be lacking, but that's ALL down to the modulator/demodulator pairs you use.
You can then even talk to your computer via IR/RF now, which means that this can be extended into an X10 system to control lights (or anything else really).
Another advantage is that you can watch anything in any room similtaniously.
I had the same dilema.
What I do is quite simple.
The internet come into the office room (my wife and I share 7 different PCs + one for the children.) Apart from a KVM for my cluster each PC has VNC installed so that I can, for example, switch off the childs PC remotely - which saves a screaming match at bathtime. There is a WIFI access point which means we can use laptops throughout the house and part of the garden (this does include the hammock).
My designated "media" PC has a 2.4Gig AV transmitter which are fairly common is consumer electronic places now. I have multiple recievers around the house - 1 for bedroom TV/Stereo, one for dining room stereo, one for TV room TV/stereo etc. The only place I miss this is the shower.
The TV room system also has a transmitter (on a different channel) so the cable can be watched on any of the other TVs in the house (all watch the same thing at the same time). To switch from watching cable to listening to the stuff from the computer is a simple matter of flicking a switch on the reciever.
The only thing to watch is that you set up the channels on the wifi and tv transmitters so that you don't get interference from each other.
It could be better but it works a treat here. And importantly my wife can still work out how to switch things on and off ("1 TV, 1 cable box, 1 VCR, 1 DVD player, 1 Stereo - just to watch TV! You have got to be kidding."). The trick is to leave everything on and just switch screens off.
How you wire it really has to do with how much you like tearing up walls. If you can stomach the rewire then your best bed is Cat5 everywhere you migh ever want a device. Video, Speakers (audio), Control, LCD screens, HVAC, LAN, all of it can be run over cat5 now with baluns or converters. All the major home automation systems use Cat5 (Panja/AMX, Stargate, etc). I would also recommend running some coax to save the trouble of balancing a load of cat5 for video, but thats just me. I recently did a system with 8 cat5's per jack, one to two jacks per room, plus stereo built in speakers and electronic volume controls in each room. That was new construction though, so much easier. (I put this stuff in for a living) Also of course cat5 can be used for phone (up to 4 lines per cable). Ideal solution, run cat 5 to a jack plate in each room, assume 1 ethernet, 1 svideo, 1 composite video, 1 stereo sound (or optical Toslink using a toslink to cat5 balun) Run Cat5 to each wall plate that you might wish to control (i wouldnt worry about light switches, X10 when properly installed works well for those and uses powerlines for control) I would run at least 1 mabey 2 to anyplace you want a touchpanel in the future, and one to each volume control location (Or multipad location). This stuff can get really complex but at least the wire is cheap. Remember that cat5 can do gigE now and if you instal 350mhz cat5e/6 you can probably do 10ge in the future. This is more then enough to stream even HDTV.
An IT based HE system would be pretty handy for me. Problem is, local UK BBC radio station (line of site to my house, way too much power, dire content) completely knocks out anything of any interest on the radio (specifically BBC Radio 4, which is pretty much all I listen to on the radio). So, to listen to Radio 4 in the house with any degree of quality I need to be in the same room as my PC. Also, there are a number of other BBC radio stations (Radio 7 for example) which are now only available on satalite, DAB or Internet, so it would be pretty useful to be able to listen to those anywhere in the house (without just turning the volume up really loud and annoying everyone)
Some of the radio stations I listen to off the net are unique in their programming. I can never find what I want to listen to on the FM dial. Either there are too many crappy commercials or just top 40 wank.
I run a 240gb raid 0 file server for all the music and movies(126gb MP3's & 40gb movies). I also use it as a game server. The raid array keeps things humming along, but I'll cry if one of the drives dies, since I haven't got enough spare room to back everything up yet. Individual things like tunes and movies are played off of machines in the living room or the various bedrooms. A DSL router provides internet access.
A friend of mine has a similar set up, but went an interesting route for his massive DVD collection. Get yourself a good DVD ripper or just go buy one of the big Sony DVD jukeboxes. They hold something like 100-500 DVD's. This guy has one of the larger models which he controls through a PDA. He just puts them in when he buys them and doesn't usually remove them. He has the title listing on his LAN and found some software that turns his PDA into a programable universal remote. His MP3 collect which for some reason is identical to mine, he controls through a webbrowser. I'm not sure if he just wrote the code(html)or had a piece of software, but reguardless he can control that as well from any machine in the house or his PDA.
One of the best sites around for this sort of information is http://www.avsforum.com/
Do your research in their FAQs and then post any questions you have to the board. The site is ass-ugly, but it's great information!
SL33ZE - Artificial Intelligence is No Match For Natural Stupidity -
One thing I can't stress enough is to be wary of ground loops when connecting any number of audio/video components together. If there's more than one path to ground throughout your entire connection of equipment it's extremely likely you will hear a 60Hz (50Hz in europe) hum in the background of all your music. I just managed to track down and stop mine the other day.
Connecting a computer and a home stereo receiver is probably the most common cause of this effect.
Fortunately, you can get ground loop isolators pretty cheap for line-level, and cable tv applications... of course, if you choose wireless this is a moot point.
University - a box of academia nuts.
Whether or not MP3 reduces the sound quality of any given source (which obviously it does), you can tell the difference between a production quality set of technics speakers and the 5watt multimedia speakers that shipped with an mmx-era tiny: in just the same way that a decent car will still handle well on a poor quality road, decent hardware will make the most of whatever sound you feed it.
With a few exceptions - notably headphones - this isn't the case. There are certain lines of sennheiser headphones, for instance, which sound dreadful when fed a 64kbps mp3 of classical music; however, even on a 160kbps mp3 feed, my pair of Sennheiser HD500s sound positively wonderful, especially when the music has as few channels as possible. This difference in headphones is mostly due to the fact that headphones aren't designed to playback recordings made for speakers - which your body naturally perceives accoustically due to the multiple, far-distanced soundsources and diffuse reflections off environment and shoulders. Even the most expensive headphones still find it extremely hard to compensate for this; the best solution is to use a binaural recording, made generally by a set of microphones embedded in a plastic or polystyrene fake head, such that playback sounds as realistic as possible.
In short, hardware DOES make a difference - even to a 128kbit mp3 feed. But what would sound bad on good hardware at that bitrate would sound bad on any set of speakers - and if you're really after audiophile sound quality, you won't be feeding a set of expensive speakers with a low-rate mp3 file.
Remember also that most recordings are now made digitally - it's extremely easy to get hold of even mp3 recordings of extremely high quality (256kbit mp3 files are practically indistinguishable from cds to the lay person's ear; with ogg vorbis, the compression artefacts drop vastly in occurance and this applies to an even greater degree)....
I am a viral sig. Please copy me and help me spread. Thank you
Likewise using Cat 5 cables or, even worse, WiFi, for linking parts of the sound system seems pointless. Most speaker, cable and amp manufacturers spend a fortune on R&D to develop their products to produce the best quality sound by reducing interference etc
hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Oh I'll bet you $500.00 you cant hear the difference between cat 5 wiring and $60.00 a foot no-oxygen monster cable.
only the uneducated rich believe any of the crap that the manufacturers and audiophile magazines spew forth.
if I cannot detect it on an ossiciliscope, something that is 1000 times more sensitive and accurate than your ears... you certianly cant.
I agree - a poor quality source will always sound better on a set of B&W Nautilus speakers than on PC speakers.
However, why waste a lot of money on decent speakers to play poor quality source through them? I think MP3 players are great (I've got a iPod that I use all the time) but I still play CDs through the CD player at home where portability is not an issue and sound quality is - I only have to carry a CD across the lounge...
Interesting to hear about the quality of 256kbit mp3 files, however until ARCAM or NAD or any of the decent HiFi manufacturers make an audiophile's mp3 player I still don't think it will match CD.
There's only one thing to do. Buy a M$ Xbox and a modchip Run Xbox Media Player Cost? Around $200 I bought two.. Microsoft will not earn money on me. Dan
In my day we called these things .... ... laptops.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Just in case anyone reading is in this situation:
I bought a new build house, and the first time I saw it, they hadn't yet fixed the stud plasterboard to the interior walls.
I should have taken that opportunity to flood the place with Cat 5, but I didn't.
Next time, eh...
If you decide to go wired, run conduit instead of wires everywhere, that way, if you decide to change your solution in later years you don't have to rip the walls up and replaster, just run new/more wires or fiber-optic cable down the conduit. {I'd like to take the credit for this idea, but I saw it in a previous Slashdot article as I was Etherneting my house)
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Is say Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS).
;) Only problem: sound also gets to the other rooms(interconnected amplifiers) so you might want to use a separate soundcard with videoplayback.(for true 5.1 sound you might want to do that anyway)
Internet Radio(with the same music in each room): put a stereo amplifier in each room, and interconnect them via the "tape" i/o. No need to stream anything and you can choose the volume for each room individually.
Video: Put a thin client (x-terminal) in your Home Theatre, 2 reasons: Low Noise and Low Noise
Beware of Programmers who carry screwdrivers. -- Leonard Brandwein
This is the way I did it a couple years back....still working fine.
I don't think that bandwidth sharing should be take into account. How may movies are you able to watch at the same time?
Instead i would watch a movie or browse the web while I'm cooking in my kitchen, or having a bath.
Apple iProduct. Non importa cosa sia, lo comprerete!
Your spouse will hate wires if you have one. Work out where your cable runs should be and make sure they are invisible. Or go wireless.
/lots/ of channels and a good amp. I didn't do this and I now find myself swapping cables, which is irritating. I will be buying a good pre-amp soon!
Projectors are now at a sensible price, starting at about 900gbp for an Epson EMP-30. I use one of these and it's fine. My girlfriend and I love the way the TV and everything disappear when not in use, meaning the house centres naturally around the fireplace as if it were 1940 again!
Projectors also work really well with a KVM switch. Put the monitor output into the 'Computer' input and the sound into a hi-fi, add a wireless keyboard and you are laughing, whether you have ten PCs or two.
If you are expecting lots of different audio channels: PC, TV(etc), CD, not to mention the old favourites like radio, then get a separate pre-amp with
Justin.
You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.
Amen!
...and he grinned, like a fox eating shit out of a wire brush.
Here a Tom's Hardware Guide to Music Across Your Home Network
. Here are some reviews of the AudioTron Phataudio, DesignTechnica, Cnet and WhiningdogDesignTechnica gives it a 9/10.
Congrats on you new home.Now for the fun part, actually USING that bandwidth. I hate M$ to, but the best way to play whatever you need at any location is with a modded Xbox and Xbox Media Player Website. This spliffy piece of software can play just about any media format you can think of, from VOB, DivX, Mp3, Ogg, and many many more obscure formats. It can play them from the harddrive, dvd drive, or over the network with SMB (Windows) shares, Shoutcast for your internet radio, and tons of other options. Divx plays just fine over a 10mbit connection, so switched 100mbit aught to be a dream. Here is a review of XBMP on TechTV with videos of it in action. Picture slideshows, playlists, this piece of software just keeps getting better and better. Fully controllable with a standard controller or the DVD remote you can purchase separately. (I recommend the Logitech RF wireless controller if you can justify the extra money. Solid contruction, flawless performance.) Its all about the wireless, baby.
Even better, no expensive modchip or chip installation required. Some people figured out how to run code without a chip, and some others figured out how to flash a BIOS on the Xbox with this technique. No chips, just shorting two easy points on the motherboard. Check on the #xbins channel of Efnet for information; look for the 007 agent under fire package with raincoat. You'll need a friend with a modded Xbox to get the savegame on a memory card, but once done, Xbox is a cinch to crack.
As a perk, you could even get a few room-to-room Halo/Unreal/RTCW/Doom 3 games going on.
Toodles D. Clown
I bought an Audiotron recently and hooked it up via a Linksys wireless bridge to my network. All of my mp3 files reside on my linux server and are accessed via samba. I use iTunes on my Powerbook to rip my CD collection and manage the mp3 files.
I've had it probably for a month and it's been great. The unit is stable and the wireless network is great. I don't notice any performance problems with the wireless, despite what others are saying about it.
Originally, I wanted to hardware the unit thinking that it would be a problem, but running cable is such a hassle in my house and I figured I would just try out the wireless option. Since it works, I'm happy. Music never skips or pauses or whatever.
I've saved a huge amount of space in the living room where all the CDs used to be and have also really reduced the visual clutter.
I also looked at the slimp3 player that someone else mentioned, but decided I wanted something "appliance-like" that wouldn't have me digging through perl server code in the middle of a party when I want to be listening to music. The other reason is that the Audiotron supports streaming Windows Media which I use to listen to a radio station in France and this was a must-have for me.
Fyi, if you go with the Audiotron, you should check out my Whirlycott Audiotron TOC Generator which builds table of contents files for the Audiotron to read. This makes scanning your MP3 collection a task that takes just a few seconds (I have around 5000 files) versus 10 minutes.
My home is an old-style brick house with chimneys, since it's modernised with gas powered heating, i dont use the flues. Since there is a unused fire place in the middle of every room in the house and the flues make great cable ducts, fairly short, wide and easy to use.
My switch is in a cuboard in the loft with easy access to the converged flues.
Also opened out the fireplaces make great recess for equipment.
In my home entertainment system, at least...
The home entertainment system consists of:
Sony TV
Pioneer 5.1 Digital Reciever
Cambridge Soundworks speakers (MC300's, Surround IV's, etc)
Toshiba DVD player
Sony CD Player
ReplayTV
TurtleBeach AudioTron (MP3/Internet Radio)
Nintendo GameCube
The last three items are wired to the Router/Gateway/Wireless Access Point/Cable Modem. Upstairs are all the computers (3, not including free roaming laptop) hooked up to a 10/100 switch and a wireless bridge to communicate with the downstairs. The server is upstairs and serves the MP3's to the AudioTron.
Works for me.
I have Cat5 running all over the house. Great for having a central DivX and MP3 server that you can watch from anywhere in the house. I have been struggling with a PC and TV out for a few years, but Windows is not ready for the longe room just yet. Since I put a modded Xbox under my TV, I have never looked back. Xbox Media Player is the best lounge room machine for playing DVD, MP3, net streaming radio without spending alot of money. Of course you can play games on it as well.
www.amphony.como m
www.dalco.com
www.adventaudio.c
Looked for some way to get cable signal to my computer without putting a hole in the wall. And how to get computer signals downstairs to the TV.
Not gonna be able to move the cable TV signal wirelessly. The line level signals are possible though.
Run CAT5 or CAT5e, either will do fine. Forget wireless for the computers. I have that network too, and its bandwidth is certainly more than enough to watch streaming programs, but it sucks when you want to move around said files in whole. Plus lots of things can degrade the signal. Suffice it to say wireless does not like to go vertical, it does, but it looses a lot of power.
Now that you have run the proper flavor of CAT5 (www.dalco.com), you are going to need a computer right next to your stereo. As for running audio video signals this is the preferred order of formats
1. digital
2. high voltage
3. lower voltage
This means that running speaker wire is your last resort, run line level if u can, and of course digital is WAAAAY better. The higher the voltage, the less your signal will degrade on long runs, this is why the voltage the power companies send out is SO high for the long runs, but stepped down when it comes into your house.
I ended up giving up the computer audio thru the stereo because of my house setup, maybe next time though. Currently I use Advent's wireless speakers. They work on 800MHz and dont interfere with my 802.11 network. Plus I have headphones for them as well. But they do pick up quite a bit of the occasional statis. Works best for stationary speakers, the headphones I have when I cut the grass do not work nearly as well. But they work. Also check out the products of www.amphony.com. Note though that this is the same frequency as 802.11 wireless network and the 2.4 GHz phones as well. You wont really *hear* any interference I don't think because they are digital I believe, but you will just get smaller bandwidth when the phone / speakers are running. In my Advent's 800MHz speaks, I occasionally hear the neighbors on the telephone because they are not digital. Thisis basically a wireless way of sending a line level signal thru the house. I also have a receiver I can put on my stereo if I want to send signals to the stereo from the computer. Though anyone in their right minds would prefer the SPDIF, and it will not go across the wireless I assume, havent tried.
... who should have cared about one thing:
LARGE diameter ductwork
Wire your house or get a decent wireless system. The cost will be about the same in the end, and there's enough bandwidth to support a family in both. Put an ITX-based computer in every room. Or at least in every room where you want any kind of media. You're all set. //J
As a project for a friend of mine, about a year ago, I wired a very nice, large, expensive home with loads of cat5e cable (probably about 12,000 feet of it, if that gives you any idea of the size of the house), and put network connections in every single room of the house, for convenience.
:)
...
... obviously these individuals are probably snooty audiophiles that are grousing about mp3's as if everyone in the world strictly uses 128kpbs as the standard bitrate or that the low-bitrate, badly-encoded examples of shit mp3's that are easily obtainable from people who are KaZaA users and don't know how to encode an mp3 properly are the regular norm.
also, I wired up network connections at every place an entertainment center would be located, which was about 5 rooms or so.
I then ran heaps of really good, expensive, (and, most importantly) shielded speaker wire in the house and ran the wire from entertainment centers to points in the ceiling where in-ceiling speakers would be installed. I did this in 4 areas -- a recreation room, the kitchen, a bedroom and the master bedroom shower stall.
While this may sound strange to some, well, don't knock it 'til you've tried it -- there's nothing better than taking a scorchingly hot shower with your favourite music cranked up to 11. It takes singing in the shower to a whole new level, as you then have something to sing along to!
(and yes, we did use the proper type of speakers for the shower stall so that the speakers wouldn't get damaged)
After doing all that and waiting for the drywall to be complete, I had the owner of the house purchase a bunch of SonicBlue RIO Receivers and parts to build a server to support the RIO Receivers.
I then proceeded build the server and to rip and encode his entire cd collection (which was a very large number of discs) and organize it as well as go through the motions of tagging the files with the proper info so that each song had proper date information... it was a lot of work as there was a monumental amount of cd's there, but it was well worth the effort.
and then
after the drywall was done, i installed the speakers and purchased amps for each of the individual rooms that were to have music. The larger rooms got 8 speaker setups (the kitchen and the rec room), and the bedroom got a 6-speaker layout -- 2 in the shower stall of the master bedroom's bath suite, and 4 in the main part of the master bedroom.
fantastic.
you can listen to mp3's anywhere in the house. and they sound amazingly good. my ears are sensitive and are easily burned by low-bitrate mp3's, so I understand why some people are quick to comment that "well, mp3's sound like shit, so why should I bother with them? the quality sucks!"
if you have low-bitrate mp3's or poorly encoded mp3's using inferior codec's (a'la going and grabbing stuff off KaZaA), yeah, they're going to sound like shit, no matter what you listen to them on -- and to some people, like myself, cause you misery -- if i listen to 128kpbs mp3's for any length of time, i suffer a feeling very much similar to how 'ear fatigue' feels.
However, if you bothered to encode your mp3's at a high bitrate (like 320kpbs), you'd find that the fidelity, even at loud volume levels, is quite adequate and it's well-worth the extra disk space to do so. Every system in the house sounds absolutely amazing and since the mp3's did not come from dodgy and dubious sources, they all sound excellent.
the only bummer is that SonicBlue did the chap-11 thing recently, so these boxes will probably get snapped up quickly. but they're well worth it. They're similar to the SliMP3 boxes, except they have a smaller display. The smaller LCD display on the sonicblue rio receivers do display more data tho -- much more data, but they're difficult to read at a distance.
So if the SonicBlue boxes aren't an option (or you're not keen to run winders), the SliMP3 or the Turtle Beach AudioTron is for you.
I'll let all the other trolls duke it out over wired vs. wireless. My only comment there being that if you can afford 54Mbit wireless for the data and 900mhz/2.4Ghz "rabbit-ear" relays for the audio, it'll save you a lot of headache w/r/t running wiring, breakout boxes and having a central cabling hub. If you do go wireless, remember that 2.4GHZ cordless phones and certain microwave ovens will toast your band width when in use. I'm using a 5.4Ghz cordless system in a 54Mbit 2.4GHz wireless field and have seen little to no cross-over interference.
What I'd recommend from an system infrastructure standpoint is to consider the Mini-ITX form factor for building "media nodes". The nice thing is that for less than $500US you can build a complete mini-itx system with 120GB+ of storage capable of 5.1 audio (via optical out) and s-video out. For a bare audio server with no optical drive you can even get that price closer to $300US. The core idea here being that you can start small and expand your system just by adding new nodes with specific functions.
e.g. Make a single audio server node first, once you're done with that you can inexpensively add another box to the system that supports video file serving and sits under your TV and can play directly onto such. Etc, etc for adding digital player nodes elsewhere... I'm pricing a mini-itx system for about $250 with an old 6gb HD and 128mb of RAM that can serve as a streaming video/audio node for the TV in my bedroom. The idea is to also make some nice simple, large-text rendering web interfaces for managing all of this from a central machine anywhere in the house.
For more info on mini-itx: http://www.mini-itx.com
ATI's Remote Wonder wireless remote control is pretty nice too. X-10 makes a similar model that can also be integrated to control their digital-home power/audio/video transmitters and switchs.
All and all, have fun with it and think more task-oriented about how you want to use the technology that's so readily available.
cheers,
Levendis47
--==[ AOL YIM ICQ : Levendis47 : levendis47@yahoo.com ]==--
In my opinion, the XBox with XBox Media Player is the ultimate universal media player.
Key abilities:
1) Play virtual every type of media file
2) Play media off of any networked computer running Samba/MS Networking
3) Play media locally off of CDs and DVDs or the local hard disk.
4) Play streaming media from the internet
5) Has a real remote control
Nice pluses:
1) Great game system
2) No blaring fans that a PC would have
3) Hurts Micro$oft*
The cost: Less than $300 including Xbox, mod chip, and a 120GB hard drive.
There is some manual work required setting it up, but you will find nothing else that offers close to this feature set for that price and with that footprint.
If you have, let me know.
Check it out
*The xBoxes are sold at a loss and are supposed to make it up on license revenue from games sales. If you don't buy/play games, MS has a net loss.
you insensitive clod!
I'm smarter than the average bear.
Our household LAN has various components, like a file server, an Xbox for DivX and mp3 playback through the 5.1 surround sound system, and a half-dozen PCs (shared house). We needed both wired (for speed; e.g., file server to LAN or Xbox to file server) and wireless (for laptop flexibility) so we installed both. I can use my iBook with a little micro hifi in the kitchen to stream mp3 wirelessly, as the layout of the house made wiring the kitchen a pricey prospect; meanwhile, I still get to shove gigabytes of data on and off the file server pretty quickly from any of the wired desktop machines.
I think the best answer depends on the layout of your house, but with wired being so cheap, I would suggest using wires were you need them and they can be easily run, and wireless wherever wires cannot reach.
As for getting music to each room, I'm leaning towards the view many other posters have suggested: round up some classic Pentium desktops and use them as streaming nodes. It's not fantastically elegant but at least it's cheap and flexibile.
You win again, gravity!
Obviously, using expensive speakers entirely for that purpose would be pointless, but most computers nowadays ship with pci soundcards which outdo extremely expensive hifis for sound quality; it's the file that's being played which is the problem, something which a lot of geeks are woefully ignorant about. *grins*
Interestingly, a lot of audiophiles have built their own extremely high-quality CD players out of commercially available IDE cd drives (mostly creative drives) - the potential which computer hardware has is quite underrated, which is why almost without question I'd play mp3 files through a well-equipped computer - you're right, until a good hifi manufacturer makes a proper mp3 player it won't even vaguely match the quality of CDs - although not because of the mp3 decoding; the sound hardware which is in practically all portable players is woefully inadequate for amplification; only minidisk players have been equipped with decent quality interfaces, as yet - and an extremely high proportion of sound engineers (particularly theatrical engineers or those who don't do fixed-studio work) use these.
I am a viral sig. Please copy me and help me spread. Thank you
"until ARCAM or NAD or any of the decent HiFi manufacturers make an audiophile's mp3 player I still don't think it will match CD."
Some hifi manufacturers sell cd players which support MP3 but you can't polish a turd. MP3s will always suck next to CDs (even CDs are pretty poor next to the next gen sound sources).
"The trick is to leave everything on and just switch screens off." This must be a US thing... No wonder we are all choking on your shit. 20% of the worlds CO2 emmissions for 5% of population, and all that.
A computer can not make good Audio, and that is a well known fact. You got a few options, for Audio I use a Turlte Beach AudioTron, it has an Optical Digital connection to the Amp, and a PNA or Ethernet connection to your network, both are great. Plus it can play a lot of Streaming Audio formats. For Video use a PS2, with Ethernet Adapter, Monster Cable and the software called QCast Tuner which pulls any kind of Video off of your network. This won't allow you yet to get your PC Desktop on your PC but it probably gets everything you really wanted.
For video, I think the hands-down solution is an extra stripped-down windows/mac box, hardwired preferably via ethernet to your big HDDs.
However for audio, a less obvious but elegant solution can be to get a soundcard (or motherboard, such as some of the Soyo's) that has optical SPDIF audio out. Then get a USD$100 used "dolby digital stand-alone decoder" (I have one made by Marantz, and it works great) to hook up the optical out to. This has the advantage of both avoiding practically _all_ grounding/humm issues, and letting you do 5.1channel AC3 out from your computer if you want (from a DVD or otherwise).
We just recently upgraded our sound system with the purchase of a FM transmiter. Now we can tune into our mp3 playlist as we get close to home on the drive back from work! This means:
Crisp, stereo sound for us and our neighbors,
No puching holes in walls,
No long cables dangling around.
You dont have to do anything else because most audio units come with a decent fm tuner - even alarm clocks...aaaahhhhhh techno in the morning.
We bought a cheap one off hobbytron.net ( the UK-222), and it does a nice job.
To be completely wireless you'd have to wait at least for the 100 MBit WLANs, and then you'd still have to share them between all nodes. So better put Cat5e (to be ready for Gigabit) in your house, connect them to a 100 Mbit switch, optionally add a wireless AP (for notebooks or else).
.rm and .mov :-) on my TV and listening to MP3s in the living room I bought a modded Xbox and stream the audio and video files from my server (with RelaX). This way I can add "radio appliances" everywhere there's access to the network.
For watching all kind of video (yet except
To record moves or shows from TV, put a DVB card in a PC for having the best quality.
What interference? I don't think a digital signal can suffer from interference like analog signals do.
giel.y contains 2 shift/reduce conflicts
Come on, guys! The wireless-is-problematic non-sense is over the top. I'm effortlessly ssh-tunnelling divx (1000kbps) from a firewall'ed Apache server on a 802.11b network and MPEG2 (DVDs, etc) equally effortlessly over 802.11a. No problems with bandwidth, even when there are simultaneously running clients. As for security, ssh guarantees that nice, warm feeling, no?
...
However, I also have great affinity for FireWire. I've seen various attempts to use FireWire for home entertainment systems but I'm not certain of the current state of affairs. If it wasn't for the fact that I don't own tech gear other than computers (and my trusted old NAD amp with TDL speakers), that would presumably be the route I would take. With FireWire 800 (and higher) coming out, that should ensure perverse amounts of bandwidth (for simulatenous DVD, satellite, terrestial TV playback/recording), not to mention the usual suspects: P2P capability, isosynchronous connectivity, IP-over-FireWire, and all of them at once, at that.
Just my well-spent money worth
Come on that's like a joke.
I have wifi in my apt and I use it, but there's no way in hell I would ever think about making my AV setup wireless using current technology.
Do you have any idea how the reliability of a wire compares to that of a WLAN? There's a reason every PC doesn't ship with a wireless keyboard, and it's not cost...
It's reliability. My keyboard sits in the same place all day and so does my computer. If I never move them or unplug them, I could basically expect that connection to outlast the keyboard. No batteries to mess with, no interference (unless you have some seriously illegal RF equipment), complete immunity from casual snoping.
Guess what? My TV sits in the same place all day too. Besides, show me one piece of wireless eqipment that transmits video as well as a set of 75ohm component video cables.
Go with wires. For everything. Use wifi for your laptop.
The real decision is what wires to run.
As far as:
RG6 vs. CAT5e, digital vs. analog, line level vs. speaker level (for audio)
Run all of them. You need coax for video, cat5e for networking, digital (AES/EBU whatever) for long distance audio transmission, and speaker cable for your speakers. Run extra. Especially cat5. Consider running fiber too. You can get 1 cable that has everything I just mentioned inside it and run that.
I think the best suggestion I can make is to buy pro-audio gear. It's designed to work well with long distance interconnects (everything is typically balanced).
For video, get decent coax (well shielded) and possibly a decent amplifier as well.
Life is too short to proofread.
Maybe there's something you could do with a directional aerial to help with the R4 situation... Or there's freeview as well as the options you listed (and with BBC going free-to-air on satellite at the end of May, you'll be able to use a straght MPEG decoder rather than needing to cope with videoguard, so that option becomes quite a lot cheaper).
What audiophiles realize is that equipment makes a huge difference in sound quality. What they don't realize is that people's audible memory (memory for the quality of the sound) is about as bad as our memory can be. If you go to an audio shop, they usually 'switches' that let you listen to different gear, instantly. You're listening to one receiver, then 'switch, you're music is coming through a different one, in about one second. Then you can hear the differences. However, if you drive 5 minutes to someone's house and listen to their rig, you're not going to be able to tell which sounded 'better'.
That said, stereo and home theater rigs are going to sound better than computer rigs, if for no other reason than better speakers. Computer speakers can't use large magnets, where sterio speakers can.
If you switch back and forth between CD source, and MP3 source for the same track, you'll be able to tell a difference (unless you encoded to 256 kbit). However, if you used a decent encoder, and a decent bit rate (128+) it will sound acceptable.
To give a final answer to the question above, the reason you listen to MP3's over your stereo is convienience. No changing CD's, no waiting on the 200 disk changer to rotate 180 degrees to find the disk you want, better UI for selecting disks/tracks, better randomizer functions, custom playlists, etc. It's fantastic for background noise in a party, and great when you're puttering around doing things.
If you're just relaxing, and focusing on the music, then you'll probably want the CD.
Zapman
How about one of these?
I went with CAT5 in every room in my house. Two ports in every room which enables me to do both ethernet and phone easily through a patch panel.
It's really hard work unless you are taking down walls anyway or just have easy access and/or the right tools to do the job but it's worth it.
-- http://z80.org - all opinions, all the time --
You don't have to use Cat5 / whatever for the wiring. I've done a simple job (nforce2 mainboard -> length of co-ax -> receiver / hi-fi / DVD player setup) but it allows me to stick on a huge playlist of mp3s for parties, listen to mp3s which I don't have burned to CD (legal ones!), listen to internet radio, play games in 5.1 using decent speakers . . . and when I want to, I've got an audiophile quality system for listening to my CDs or watching DVDs
What interference?
I think he's talking about wifi interference (which would cause skips and/or drop the feed altogether). Cheap cables are less immune to radio interference, and remember that when they're connecting your speakers to your amp, or your tv to your video source, the signal is analog by then.
Have EVDO, will travel.
I turn the TV off and go outside. Life is much more entertaining. Also buy a motorcycle, better than any home entertainment system. But really, a mix of wireless and hardwired is the best bet. Use it where you need it.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
What interference? I don't think a digital signal can suffer from interference like analog signals do.
Yes it can, it just takes more interference for it to actually happen. A "digital" connection is still really analog. It's not like there are ones and zeros traveling do the cable, what's being communicated are voltages. These voltages are treated as ones or zeros depending on where they fall in realation to certain cutoffs..
Life is too short to proofread.
I discovered that I had to unplug my Apple Airport Base Station AND my 802.11 printer adapter ANY time I wanted to use my wireless speakers because they interfered with each other (both on the 2.4Ghz channel) = there was a pop in the audio with 802.11 on
Also nearby wireless cameras make a difference as do nearby phones. Plan for hardwired phones to be near basestations OR get a different spectrum phone like a 5 Ghz phone
I have also discovered that Bluetooth interferes with my Logitech mouse working - so it's good to do some small testing just so everything will work everywhere.
Also, make sure the general area of your "brains and bulk" to your computer is located opposite from your kitchen as it is the area in MOST houses that draws the most amount of electricity and the microwave can cause interference too.
For internet, I have been personally recommending to my newest customers that they not have a landline phone period and just use a cell as a home phone (there are adapters availible that allow you to use all the phones in a house with a cell phone) - or potentially use a VoIP phone - use eFax for faxes. Get broadband.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
Wow, what city do you live in that has decent sounding FM radio? Where I live, they compress the SNOT out of it. (Also, where I live specifically happens to be at the bottom of a big steep hill, so I don't get the greatest reception.)
Having said that, WiFi and Cat5 themselves aren't going to have any negative impact on the signal quality if it's still digital at that point. If the original source is an MP3, then yes, it will sound like squeaky crap, but there are lossless codecs out there (like flac), in fact I myself am planning to flac my CD collection and put it onto a big old hard drive just for convenience of playback. If I can afford it, I'll get a nice, pro-quality outboard D-to-A convertor and play through that.
By the way, to the original poster: if you are concerned about sound quality, don't run long cables from your amplifier outputs to your speakers. Aside from losing power due to losses in the cable, it actually reduces your sound quality as well by worsening your damping factor. The short explanation of damping factor is that your speaker cone tends to want to move after your amplifier has got it in the right place. This is partly due to its momentum and partly due to other mechanical factors (parts of the driver act like a spring that pulls the cone back to its "home" position). An amplifier can offset this electrically, but if the speaker cables have a high impedence, then the amplifier isn't connected to the speakers as well and can't do as good a job. It can't "reach" the speakers electrically because the wire partially electrically isolating it from the speakers by providing resistance. (An amplifier, especially a good one, has a pretty low internal impedence, so even a little excess resistance in a speaker wire can have a significant effect.)
We're about to build a house, and I'm planning on running inside-the-wall Ethernet / coax myself before the drywall goes on. Is there a guide / book / FM I can R out there that concentrates on this, particularly w/r/t what the NEC (the U.S. Nat'l Electrical Code) rules are, written so that a non-electrician can understand them? I realize the NEC is susceptible to modification by local ordinance, IANAL, etc., but having a clear explanation of what the base code is would be extremely helpful.
.sig: be the majority of voters.
Remainder of my
Save Maine's economy: write stuff down. All comments are exclusively my own, not my employer.
When thinking about the wired vs. wireless, don't forget the health issues: the correlations between cell phone usage (that is, microwave frequency radio near the ear) and inner-ear nerve cancer, and the correlations between ozone exposure and leukemia. Although your direct exposure is bound to be less intense for internet than for a cell phone, you have to consider that 24-hour exposure is going to make that more significant.
Because of this, I'd suggest wired, LCD monitors, and with good ventilation for the power supplies.
But then there comes another issue: when standards upgrade and you want to upgrade as well, how easy or difficult will it be to change your system? For this reason, I would suggest running the wires behind screw-in molding, or a self-latching molding if you can get it. I'd make the molding large enough to hold at least four cables, maybe larger. Where you have such things as a false cieling [kitchens] or false floor, make use of those. Finally, color-code and tag everything, at both ends and whereever it can be accessed, and make up a master plan of the house cabling. Put that master plan in an envelope that is taped into the router's enclosure, and another copy of the master plan on the inside of the house's circuit-breaker box. Make sure that the master plan references everything by color, so that future owners can easily track things.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
modified stereo and video, added ports to switch it on/off and receive status mp3 are played from PC, winamp plus couple of useful plugins to do crossfading and volume normalization i do watch tv through video recorder, video goes directly to beamer, audio through pc, pc is doing volume normalization (i don't know why by all ads in TV are much louder then the rest of the broadcasting) one simple VB app which is controlling the devices, and starting playback as required - e.g. when i switch on video recorder, it stops mp3 playback and starts line-in playback, when i swicht video rec off, it starts mp3 playback again, when i press a magic key, it stops everything and does suspend-to-ram, etc ...
i'm using mem-PIO device which has 24 ttl i/o ports to do external control/status checks
Use the network adapter and this $50 piece of software...
PS2 Divx/MP3 Player
Very cool, just run the media from it's existing location, no need to replicate.
Get an xbox for each room (they're dirt cheap now)
Chip them.
Install XBox Media Player.
Wire it to a central PC that's on the net.
Stream anything you like (mp3s, video files, streamcast broadcasts.
Bonus is you can play games, you can amp it to DD 5.1 as appropriate, it's built to be in front rooms, you get a DVD player at every station as well.. and on and on...
You can view your digital photos in any room etc, all over simple cat5, with LOADS of developers out there improving things every day.
I am doing the exact same thing at our 2 story home with am unfinished basement.
... for now. I am sure I will add it in a couple of years when tablets are under $250.
I am running drops to each downstairs room by coming up from the basement to each room. These cables all run to a patch panel in the wiring closet I have built out under the stairs. I am running a piece of conduit from under the stairs all the way up to the attic.
From the attic, I am coming down into the closet of the home office on the second floor. This is the upstairs computer closet which will house another patch panel and 10/100 switch. I am going to connect the upstairs 10/100 switch with the basement 10/100 switch using Gigabit.
My wife's PC and my work PC sit in the home office. The kid's PC is on the first floor in the home school room. I am modding an xBox to hook up to the a/v receiver in the den on the first floor. When the basement is finished, it will have a Home Theater room with a HTPC and my MAME cabinet.
DVDs and CDs have been ripped to the file server. They are played on the xBox using Media Player. Video Extraction off the DirecTiVo can also add content to the file server.
Note that there is no wireless anywhere in my plan. I have *A LOT* of 2.4 interference in my area, so that combined with security concerns have completely turned me away from 802.11
My wife also wanted audio and, if possible, video feeds to be able to listen in / look in on the baby when she is sleeping. I looked at X.10 devices, priced things out, gave it thought. Here is what I came up with - a $50 set of 900 Mhz audio monitors. They sound better then our old 2.4 Mhz monitors (that interference again) and where a lot cheaper than a full household intercom system ($800 for a kit to do it myself).
I am still considering a single web camera with ethernet out to look in our the little peanut during nap-time while my wife is homeschooling the older two.
"Now that I'm finally a proud homeowner, I'm looking to integrate my video, audio, and computer hardware. Specifically, I'd like to be able to listen to Internet radio throughout the house (or at least through my main stereo unit), and transmit video from my computer to my home theater in a separate room.
I've been visiting http://www.audiokarma.org/ primarly because there is a person there who knows vintage sansui gear. Nots of great people there.
Now in "theory" alot of vid cards support video output... BUT all the ones I have are crap. I bought a hollywood plus card by Sigma designs on a crappy special, came free with a crappy drive that doesn't play disks from Hollywood video. The nice thing about the newer card atleast is the fact that it offers dolby 5.1 digital output, and comes with a remote control. I know ATI has a vid card with svideo output and wireless remote control, but you'd have to get info form someone who has one, i'm happy with my g-force and dvd decoder combo.
I did something similar my self, though not the best setup.
I have a computer knook upstairs, which has 4 cat5 runs to the TV and entertainment system, and currently have Svideo and audio running on the same line though the creative use of splicing. While this is HARDLY ideal for the video, it seems most adquate for audio. I just have to make a secondary run for the video. I know sigma has a newer card that in theory supports mpeg 4, but i've not tested it, but is rumored to do divx-4 as well as xvid. For speakers, I just have a pair for the TV and a pair for the kitchen. As far as a remote control switch, I realy entirely on the telivision who's output is sent to my amp, which isn't ideal, but hey, it's there it does the job, I don't have enough ports on my amp nor switches.
But needless to say, computer video is on aux-1, digital cable on aux-2. As I have NO remote for the amp, I rely entirely on the telivision's volume control, which shockingly works adquatly.
-----
Regardless of wether you are dealing with analog or digital, a good pre-amp is your friend, gives you nice switches to switch between your diffrent gear. You can get away without having one if your amp has enough ports on it.
For sound, you might consider some vintage gear. While it's not going to support digital nor is it going to support things like remote control, you'd be shocked how good some of the better equipment from the 70's sounds. While my amp isn't anything to really write home about it's OK, my speakers are adquate.. one pair of sansui sp-1500's, one pair of au-300's [3 ways], one unknown advent 2 way, and a cheepo pair of sony uu-s500's. All were pretty much sub $40 solutions in the goodwill / friend forsale type market. While all (except the sony) are about 30+ years old, with the exception of changing out the wooders have required no maintance and sounds pretty damn spiffy.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
Do you have any exp using the m-audio audiophile usb or m-audio Sonica using the optial out with a dac such as Link DAC III 24/96
if you have i would like to know about the following:
-linux support
- can i control the volume though the spdif device - and then attach the DAC directly to a power amp
-best
-greg
Here is an idea that worked for me. Put in moldings. Crown molding that goes around the room close to the cieling, and baseboard molding that goes around the base of a room. You can get it in literally 100's of styles to fit your home/budjet, and used correctly adds really well to the asthetics of a home. You can then run wires along the top of the Crown molding, and pick some that leaves a gap along the foot of the wall, and you can run wires behind it. I let my wife pick out the styles she liked best within the price, and phisical contraints, and she was thrilled. hope this helps those of you who want the CAT 5, but also have wives.
You shift more boxes, you make more money. The 'loss' is because of development costs, not hardware. You got two choices:
a) Don't buy it - they made a box which is sitting on a shelf until someone else buys it.
b) Buy it - they get money.
You are going to run
out of bandwith!
Don't go wireless!
Gigabit ethernet cards are already out there and
you want them moving your traffic around the house.
To feed this giga cards a file server with a PIII chip is good enough to feed a stereo and 2 other PC's.Get 2 or 3 40 gig HD's, they are cheapo and they tie you up for your music needs. For movies I don't think is cost effective yet to stores them in HD's, put them in R/W DVD's.
My advise again, keep your "back bone traffic" in copper and branchout a wireless subnet for convenience.
- these are not the droids you are looking for -
Other than that I'd say CAT5 and SPDIF digital everywhere. Wireless is fine for stuff that moves, but you ain't going to move your home theater setup around the house, are you?
I have used a Turtle Beach Audiotron for about one year. It supports streaming radio through three or four formats, and can play all of your WMA and MP3 files organized various ways from any directory to which it can authenticate on a windoz network. It has fiber input and analog for your receiver/amp and has a screen you can read across a room. I am very happy with it!
Congratulations on your new home purchase, and good luck outfitting it with a state-of-the-art digital network. When you lose your job and have to sell the house, that infrastructure will make it much more attractive to prospective buyers.
Interference over a digital link can be detected by the decoder at the other end and:
a) The missing bits are recreated using some funky error encoding/correction scheme, or
b) The data is asked for again.
So while the digital link can detect and work around interference, it lowers the ammount of information that is being sent (bandwidth).
Now that Dennon & Merantz has purchased ReplayTV and Escient (Fireball?) do they have thingz u can use?
why I would then want to use an source, such as MP3, that would sound the same on a £50 stereo
While MP3 does contain less information than the CD it was encoded from, I very much doubt you will hear any difference between a well-encoded high-bitrate (256-320 kb/s) MP3 and a CD, even on a £5000 stereo. I can't, and neither can my friends, even on their £5000 stereos.
Although most downloaded MP3s (or worse, internet radio stations) are crappy, quality rips of your own CD collection can sound just as good (and be far more easy to sort through) than the stack of CDs they came from.
Likewise using Cat 5 cables or, even worse, WiFi, for linking parts of the sound system seems pointless.
Well, if the signal is digital, a Cat5 or even wireless connection will do just fine. I do know a guy who uses a balanced AES/EBU cable, but even he admits it's total overkill. You can get identical results running an S/PDIF signal through much crappier wire - that's the whole point of a digital signal.
And as other people have said, Cat5 is actually very well suited for analog speaker wire. Audio enthusiasts have been making very high quality cables out of braided Cat5 for years, with results comparable to name-brand cables costing $100s/m. You don't have to spend a fortune, though of course the name brands don't want you to know that. Google on Cat5 speaker cable and you'll see what I mean.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Here's the setup I've got, it works well for me:
Road Runner internet connection coming into the home office. There is a wireless firewall/router to share the Internet connection and files across the home network.
I've got two computers plugged directly into the router in the home office and the one in the living room is SUPPOSED to connect via wireless but the signal is too weak all the way across the house. Also wireless has limited bandwidth, so if at all possible you want to have everything wired. It's a pain in the ass to have your shoutcast signal drop out on you due to poor network signals.
The nice thing about owning your own home is that you may be able to get up in the attic and drop a cat5 cable into your living room. At least that is what I plan to do soon. Home Depot and Lowes will sell you a big huge roll of cable, along with the crimper, etc. and wall plates. That way you can plug right into the wall behind your stereo, and it looks nice.
I have a home-built HTPC in the living room connected to the TV and speakers and it works GREAT for DVD, VCD, divx, xvid or whatever. I download movies and TV shows, and then watch them in the living room. It's awesome. Also having commercial free radio via internet is sooooooo much better than the crap they play on the local Clear Channel stations.
If you're going to make one of these HTPC things I woulc recommend getting a little mini-ITX motherboard with one of the cases that you can get at www.mini-itx.com. Or get one of the new fanless hush PCs.
Just my 2 cents.
a lot of audiophiles have built their own extremely high-quality CD players out of commercially available IDE cd drives (mostly creative drives)
sorry but you clearly don't have much of an idea of what you're talking about... first of all creative doesn't make cd drives, they buy from a wide variety of sources (often Matsushita), so if you want a predictable quality you wouldn't be buying a creative drive.
As far as quality goes though PC CD drives are about as bad as you can get, the jitter on the SP/DIF output is terrible and the analog out is even worse. The only advantage they have is that they tend to cope quite well with scratches on the media but of course you won't be able to play any "copy-protected" media so it's hardly very futureproof...
"I'm a proud homeowner" == "The bank owns my house and my car, the VISA company owns some of my furniture, and my employer owns me because I need the money very dearly" :-)
My weblog in spanish
The most sane idea expressed so far has been the idea of using conduits to ensure that you can change the wires in the future without tearing your walls apart again.
For those that want to go digital: Run Cat 5e. You will hate yourself if you use wireless.
For those that want to go analog: Use RG-6 or RG-59, in multiple runs. The RG-59 will suffice for line-level audio, and composite video, S-Video or component video (using 1, 2 or 3 runs respectively). Use RG-6 for any RF (antenna, cable, satellite) runs.
If you go analog, I highly recommend that you (a) use isolating transformers on both ends of the audio links (prevents ground loops) and (b) run enough for component video, because that is the direction in which analog is headed.
One last piece of advice. Analog does not suck by nature. Please remember that. It is very useful to have a system in place that sounds really good and doesn't need you to fix it every five minutes like a lot of digital setups require, especially those that involve a general-purpose computer.
So what am I doing? Both. I just bought a house. I will be running multiple runs of both RG-6 and Cat 5e along with some RG-8 (for ham radio) all over the house, in conduit (we're remodelling and insulating, so the walls will be open anyway). I won't be shipping around any video at first, but this may change later. Two satellite receivers are being wired for, and all line-level video runs will be short-haul. Only audio and ethernet will be all through the house at first.
At least, that's the theory....
www.wavefront-av.com
When we ran the LAN/Video/Audio/Voice through the house, we ran it all on a single cable that contained two CAT 5e cables, two coax cables, and a fibre strand for anything that might come up in the future. With this setup, the wiring closet for the network, also became the distribution point for the satelitte, distributed video, PBX. And for internet/streaming audio/video I built small BSD boxes that connect the network with the TV's around the house.
But also keep in mind that WLAN is necessary as well, the video cameras in the house transmit over WLAN thereby elimating any cables to them, and we use it for our portable devices around the house as well (Laptops/Pocket PC's)
Ain't technology grand???
I ran a 6-in-one cable in my house which is two cat5e, two coax, and two fiber optic bundled into one cable. The super fat stiff cable is also really eash to push up through wall cavities, but it could be difficult to fish through tight corners though. I highly recommend this stuff as it makes it really easy to get connectivity anywhere, and lots of it. A 500ft role did my 2800sqft house to a central wiring closet in the basement just fine. The jacks are a 6 in one faceplate that you snap the different connectors into.
I cant understand why so may people still encode in plain old 128k. Sure, it sounds ok, but thats about it. So much of it also sounds totally crap!! Whereas variable bitrate encoding set to decent quality gives a great compromise between file size and sound quality. Yet a hell of alot of people just dont do it!? I have some decent home studio equipment and I have encoded my entire CD collection. I cant tell between CD and MP3 at High quality vari-bit and the space on my drives is perfectly ok. Some of my old crappy CD's that used to skip and glitch now sound excellent!! The biggest thing people miss? Great quality stereo gear + crappy sound card = crappy sound. Do yourself a favour and buy a really good quality sound card. Perferably muso quality (ie NOT sound blaster) Bingo, everything sounds great. Oh, and the terms "quality" and "FM radio" dont mix. FM is concvenience and the net makes that very cocvenient. Anyway, back to doing sod all at work....
is that you have to listen to the crap they play on the radio and watch the rubbish they put on TV :-D
I say Vive la difference - choose web radio!
A little planning goes a long way...
What I would do, since wire is cheap relatively speaking, is pull everything that you think that you might need. I would pull a coaxial, two cat5e, and a phone line (cat2) into all of the places in question and then leave what you are not going to use in the walls for later. Perhaps even a piece of fiber (single mode) There are some companies that have wire bundles where all of the above mentioned wire is in a single bundle so that you only need to pull one wire (albeit a large one). I would also pull a few pieces of heavy nylon cord for use later. These help when you need an additional run. Simply tape the new wire (fiber?) to the nylon and pull the nylon cord out, thereby pulling the new wire into place. You may want to pull a replacement piece of nylon cord with it for the next time.
Remember that you must be as gentle as possible with the wire so as not to pull the twists out of copper wire or shatter the glass in a piece of fiber as you run it through the walls. The last thing that I would strongly suggest doing is testing the cable after you have pulled it. I'm not talking about one of those $45 boxes with lights that your nearest Fried Electronics (Fry's Electronics - I used to work there and most of the sales people don't know shit about this stuff) will try to sell you. I'm talking about a $5-8k tester from Fluke, Wavelan, etc. that can tell you what the wire is actually transmitting. You should be able to find someplace to rent one for the day or perhaps your lucky enough to have a friend in the business. Or you could pull one of the tricks that Fry's customers do all of the time: buy yourself the tester and then return it within the 30 day return policy that they offer.
Once you have run all of the wires that you may need for the next 10-20 years then you will be free to hook whatever you want to the ends of it. There was a slashdot discussion on the merits of a Linux multi-media server that you may want to search for as well. First get the infrastructure (wires) installed and then your options are wide open.
Good luck. Tres
Restore America: Dr. Ron Paul for President!
Begone base bowel excretion!!!
If you want something advanced and innovative "this decade" then you want open source software. Microsoft has yet to prove that they can handle the home media market. So far Windows XP Media Edition based system sales have been poor. This is largely due the the expense involved in purchasing and maintaining such a device.
On the other hand, Linux combined with the best open source projects out there make a very viable media system. All I have on my system is a custom built Linux OS without all the crap a media system doesn't need and MPlayer. I can play any media in any way I want. MPG, DiVX, AVI, Real, Quicktime, DVD, MP3, OGG... all of them play and play well. The system is only a P3 and works just fine. The kernel has been optimized for fast boot and performance. It rivals my XP box on a P4 in terms of bott if you are concerned about things like that. Combined with the Linux Progress Patch (hacked to work with a 2.5 kernel) it has a nice boot screen as well. Much cooler than XP. There is no command line on any of the VTs, just X which starts up just after networking. To access a command line, I can either ssh in, or if I really need to, I just hook my laptop to the serial port which is where I have the console directed to.
... $600! Can Microsoft compete with that? No. So fuck off already.
Cost? $700 back in 2000 for the hardware. Software cost? $0. Time expended: 15 hours of work (not including compile times since I just walked away for those). If you use my day rate of $25/hr, that works out to $400 for software. Let's see you buy Windows XP Media Edition for $400. What? Oh you can't!! Hmmm... top that with the MAME collection on the same system and it's also an awesome game console. So, considering that I can get a P3 these days for about $200 and my $400 "labor costs", that puts me at
All of this talk of "work of punch holes and replastering" might scare a guy. I've run CAT5 all over my house and NEVER replastered. Find a good wall where you want the cable and have attic access, punch your hole to match your box size, run a hard wire down the attic to the hole and pull up the CAT5 cable. This is assuming of course that you have an attic. I've run tons of Coax, telephone and CAT5 this way and never had a patch job.
"Action is the thing that escapes most people. Great ideas are a dime a dozen. Great actions are few and far in between.
1) use conduit, if possible. Today cat 6, tomorrow, perhaps Cat 7, or fiber and cat 5e. 2) In each room, use 3/4" conduit into 2-3 wide junction boxes leading to basement/crawlspace/attic. Plastic is easy. 3) use 1.5 - 2.5 conduit going from basement to attic. 4) bring 2-3 cat5e combined with 1-2 rg6. my company is getting ready to introduce poe speakers so you will be able to send you audio throuh the network.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Xbox's sold at a loss .. no they just screw over nVidia and make money by not paying them.
I have an ogg / mp3 internet radio machine set up using the VIA chip and motherboard. Using Red Hat 9. Check out the pics at http://www.darkambient.org/operatingsystem.html under the linux section. It cost about $500 or so and it is amazing. I would suggest going with strict Cat 5 ethernet however. Wireless is good but not there yet, especially through walls. Unless you live in a Studio don't go wireless. I have heard of success with Ethernet over power adapters however, and I am going to implement that downstairs from the computer room.
Seriously - an X-Box with X-Box Media Player installed is all you need. You can also add a wireless bridge to it if you can't run CAT5 there.
It always has the latest codec's and can stream all types of video, music, and now supports shoutcast servers for streaming Internet audio. All with full support for the X-Box remote. It will do everything you need it to do for $200 plus the cost of the modchip.
I'm trying not to be too big of a fan boy, but I use my X-Box for the XBMP almost exclusively now, and it has been PERFECT for my multimedia needs. And this is coming from someone who used to have a living room computer with video-out and all that nonsense. Trust me, the XBMP is much slicker and should really do the trick.
I don't know what a "fast" file server and "fast" computer has to do with it; my laptop uses less than 20% CPU to play the movie, my workstation uses essentially no CPU, and the bandwidth requirements are a fraction of the server's disk bandwidth.
So, I can watch an entire movie streaming over the Internet and wireless, but you can't watch a 1.5 Mbps stream over a 4.8 Mbps LAN (~5 Mbps is, incidentally, about what I get out of my wireless LAN too)? I'd say something is going wrong. You might expect to get a packet dropped here and there, but there's no way mplayer (or whatev) should drain its buffer. Maybe you're in a part of your house far from the AP, and you're actually getting well below peak bandwidth??AFAIK, HTPC owners buy creative drives because they are cheap and reliable enough to losslessly rip/backup tracks onto/from their computers. Listening to music from your hard drive eliminates the need for reclocking like a pre/pro setup so the problem of jitter is significantly and cheaply reduced.
Also...since this guy was talking about mp3's, I doubt he cares about jitter.
The real problem to solve in HTPC's now is all the interference from the (electrically) noisy power supplies.
binaural huh? well then i strongly recommend the album "Binaural" by Pearl Jam. it's a great cd recorded using binaural technology (most of the songs anyway).
You might try a better radio. Radios designed for shortwave listeners, amateur radio operators and commercial/government users, are usually much better than the typical off-the-shelf consumer units. They are less prone to front-end overload and they have better selectivity and shielding. If one station is the cause of your problems, you might try putting a notch filter (band reject) filter in your antenna feed line, tuned to the frequency of the offending station.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
since you're building a new house, i would add fibre...it's effective future-proofing.
'He who has to break a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.' -- Gandalf to Saruman
- support for DivX [No need to risk those original DVDs]
- 10/100 Ethernet [The killer inclusion]
- CD/Mp3 [What would life be like without them?]
- Progressive Scan [Great picture quality]
And it is available for around euro300 !!!I run an SB Live with optical outputs to my stereo. For video, I use a Tview Micro which converts svga to s-video and handles up to 1600x1200 resolution (works great under Linux too). Combine that with a simple wireless keyboard/mouse and yer set.
My setup is a 55inch Toshiba HDTV (4:3) with a Pioneer Stereo Receiver, a 1800+ AMD based PC (built myself) running dual boot of Slackware and Win 98. My Pioneer receiver doubles as a video switch with 5 or 6 S-Video inputs. My TV acts as a dumb monitor (I don't use its tuner). Then, off of my Pioneer receiver, I have a 6 piece (5.1) surround sound system which includes Bose bookshelf speakers at the FR and FL positions.
Also, I picked up a couple of 10 foot usb extension cables which allows me to run Gravis gamepad's to my couch to be used for all of my favorite games.
All in all, it is a pretty nice setup
Once you get a decent stereo set up, you'll realize that most internet radio stations sound like crap.
;]
As for video, 100Mb is easily fast enough to stream DVDs. The simple approach is to do what I've done for my home theater and use Cat5 and duct tape for connectivity, but you may want to go for something a little more glamorous
The future isn't what it used to be.
Git yourself a bottle of hand cream and a box of tissue, and entertain youself!! You know you want to , you filthy freak! Haw!!!! "Look at me! I'm a geek! entertain me!"
Computer: AMD Athlon 1Ghz, 768M DDR RAM, 400Gb storage, wireless keyboard, wireless mouse: $1500 (when purchased)
Video: 33" Sony flat screen TV connected to ATI All-in-wonder Radeon 64 via Svideo cables: $1000
sound: 6.1 surround Jafa X-speaker system powered by JVC amp and Stereo. SoundBlaster Audigy Gamer connected via thick, shielded RCA cables: $1700
Shaking the neighbors' pictures off the wall while playing UT from my couch: priceless
Nothing fails quite like prayer.
If you have an older machine sitting around with a video card that has TV out and about 128MB of ram and CD/DVD rom. I have found this to be a good program to play anything!! :-) XVCD worked good as well!! Look out MPAAA or whatever they are.. I have not found a good way to play a list of mp3's yet but I will figure it out!!
http://movix.sourceforge.net/
I am using just the regular due to memory limitations. It performs great streaming, samba share, or hard disk if one is available. I have not seen any problems and some Pron that didnt look the greatest on CPU looked great full screen on the TV!!! Some even improved majorly.... We all know how kazaa pron is sometimes!!!
For mp3 jukebox and internet audio I like the Slim Devices audio player. It's cat5 only, but it still is pretty sweet.
Now I'm thinking about getting one of the Via Epia based mini-pcs for fileserver/jukebox usage
I saw this at the CEDIA trade show back in September. It looks like a cool way to run audio and video throughout a house. There is no infomation on buying it on the site; so, it might not be available yet.
avbox.info
If have cat5 in my apartment, and the 2 middle pairs are used for phone, can I use the outer 2 pairs for digital audio and digital video signals? That's of course assuming that if I start the feed from the office room, it will be picked up from any other phone/cat5 jack in the apartment. I just want to do away with the visible wires runing from my computer in the bedroom to the TV & stereo in the living room. Also, what would be the voltage/noise/interference of running 2 digital signals with the phone line (which also has DSL)? Is that just screaming for crosstalk?
Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
Absolutely - you can't have digital signals going to speakers without a decoder and then an amp in the speaker.
One thing you *have* to get is a good universal remote to control all your TV/STEREO/DVD/etc. gear. I just got one of the top of the line models from Harmony, and this thing *RIPS*. Took me about 10 minutes to set the thing up and it works flawlessly.
When I want to watch TV now, I pick up the remote, scroll the LCD until the "WATCH TV" icon appears, and hit one button. The TV fires up, and tunes to my favourite channel. My stereo receiver power up and kicks over to the proper channel. One button - everything works. Same sort of deal for watching a DVD or tuning to your favourite radio station. It also supports all the PVR gear and a boatload of electronics. All of the updating is done via their web site, which is constantly updated, so that is a great thing -- no futzing with your 12 different remote controls to get it programmed.
It's also got a built in channel selector, which is nice for a little thing called "covert channel surfing", which allows me to only flip around when I see something I like, as opposed to hitting a new channel every second -- while I find it a little slow, my wife appreciates the extra 10 or so seconds she gets to watch a channel.
Check it out at harmonyremote.com.
I had a cool sig but my wife made me get rid of it.
When I did my house this way, i used 2 cat5 and 1 rg6 / room. About 2 years ago, I upgraded to 3 cat5, 2 rg6, and 2 speakers. The conduit install took a while to do (esp the first cut as this was my first home). The upgrade took < 3/4 day. Well worth the effort. I figure that without the labour cost, the initial conduit install cost my about 20 / room. The upgrade was about another 20 / room.
Here in colorado, all new homes are being built with networks in every room. I made my house a newer home by doing this.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
trust me on this, the xbox is worth the price for this alone to be able to play with the homegrown application scene.
Would you settle for TSP? (twenty-seventh post)
Check these guys. http://www.pandora.com/pdms/
There is so much stuff happening in this area. Microsoft is doing all kinds of new things (HELP!!)
Personally, I think it's all going to flop until somthing like the iPod shows up and does everything with a simple little box.
BTW - Gigabit ethernet is the way to go - wired.
I wired up my house any put in plenty of high perf cat5 a while back. I'm sure I can push gigabit down these wires. Most decent servers today can actually saturate a gigabit pipe so you should be able to play even uncompressed (if you're so inclined) video through a gig pipe.
However, I tend to spend so much time on /. I never get around to watching videos or TV so who cares ? - not me!
I don't know why people insist on using RAID 0 by itself. It's not RAID. One disk fails and you lose everything. You're crazy, and you already said you'd cry if you lost it. Spend the money and either turn it in to RAID 1 or RAID 0+1. Make it live up to the R in RAID.
And I speak knowingly since this is the setup I use at home: a small trusty ATX motherboard (Gigabyte GA7ZXE) and a 1.2GHz Duron with 512MB run using a Zallman CPU cooler on which I replaced the fan for a quieter one, and a quiet power supply in the mini case. A couple of quiet hard drives and a DVD/CD-RW (zone free of course :) )... add to that an ATI All-In-Wonder 7500 64MB DDR (TV out + DVI + cable capture + Video-In) with remote, and you have your own personal little PC that sits just next to the VCR/DVD/DTS Sound system. Add a small 300VA UPS (this setup does not uses much).
... the firewall/internet.
:)
CAT5e was my choice for the connection, with a wire running along the wall connected to a 5 port switch (so that if a friends come with a laptop, he can get a DHCP IP), itself connected to another 5 port switch in the server room
You can use it to record TV, watch your anime fansubs, your DVDs (Using Mplayer and a frame buffer kernel for X11, you can watch it all. See GATOS too), and do searches on the internet when a friend comes other (though you would have to go the 640x480 to be able to read it, which is why I put an old $20 14in monitor under the coffee table)
And this baby makes less noises than my PS2
-- Martial MICHEL
So, considering that I can get a P3 these days for about $200
You can get a whole P3 system -- CPU, mobo, memory, HDD, decent sound card, decent video card, for $200? That's great! Please reveal your hardware source.
Honestly though, as a homeowner myself, I don't really recommend any of these solutions right now!
When I first bought my house, I had grand plans of automating everything. I was going to install X10 appliance and light controllers everywhere, computerize it all with web access, put speakers everywhere, etc. etc.
Well, it's been almost 5 years now, and the farthest I've gotten is getting a Dolby 5.1 surround sound setup in the living room.
I think once the initial excitement of having a new home wore off, I got much more practical - and realized all that stuff just meant more unnecessary expense, and more things to break down the road. I have enough home-related issues as it is. (A couple years ago, I decided to finish our basement, for example. Even that still isn't done, because as soon as we started on it, I discovered a leak was soaking the wood subfloor in the bathroom. Turns out, we had to rip out the bathroom floor and replace everything, due to a leaky pipe that went unnoticed for too long. The basement remodeling fund turned into a bathroom remodeling fund.)
I haven't felt any urgent need to hear Internet radio in all rooms of the house, anyway. Generally, if I want to hear it in another room, I just turn up my stereo so I can do so. (It's not an apartment complex, where turning up your stereo instantly means complaints from the old folks living just beneath you.....)
I have a spare laptop running RH9.1. I got a spare wireless card, with svideo and dvd player built in the laptop. Spare wireless keyboard and mouse.
Is there a "turn key" linux image/distro out there that will turn my laptop into a media player.
Yes I am too lazy to spend all the time downloading and configuring mplayer.. yada yada yada..
I just want M$ to upgrade the damn Xbox to do this so we dont have to go out and buy mod chips.. I would gladly pay 49.95 for an upgrade that would allow me to do all this
I too am getting a new home and wanting to wire the whole place. But I'm not so much interested in music as I am about video editing. I'm planning to use Cat6 cable instead of Cat5, even though I don't have gigabit ethernet cards or switches yet, because I know that eventually I will, and may need them for editing lots and lots of video stored on a central server. Especially when I get into editing hi-def video.
In the meantime, I can use 100 Base-T on Cat6 cable, and my wiring will be that much more future-proof and even more improved for resale value.
That still doesn't mean I won't have some wireless as well. How else am I to control my snowblower from the sauna?
I have just finished setting up something similar to what you are describing. I simply loaded palantir 2.5.1 (http://www.fastpath.it/products/palantir/) on an old pc (had to buy a PCI 802.11b card) and attached it to my home stereo system through Minijack and RCA connections. The media server part of the program will only run on Linux, however the client is written in Java and therefore will run on both Windoze and Linux platforms.
I live in an apartment so running wire through the walls is not an option at this time, so I have went completely wireless.
Running through my Linksys 802.11b router I have 2 PCs hardwired, 2 laptops connected wirelessly, 2 TiVos connected wirelessly and one slightly modded XBox connected wirelessly.
The TiVos have the version 4 sofware isntalled and are able to share content between each other as well as pull MP3s & photos from any share on my netwrork. The Xbox is able to stream audio and play DivX and VCD formats locally.
Now that I am done bragging, I'll tell you how it performs. For audio and images, this set up rocks wirelessly! My wife has set up several photo albums on her PC and we can check them out any time we want. The MP3 share on my machine also works flawlessly. But it is the transfer of video that show the weakness in the system. When transfering say the last Buffy from the living room TiVo to the Bedroom TiVo it is painfully slow! And while you can watch the show as it transfers, there is really no point as the connection is not fast enough to trasfer enough video to watch, so you get very long pauses. My house hold has taken to having both TiVos record some of the same shows! (so i can get my Daily Show fix anywhere I want 8p)
As for the Xbox, forget about it! FTPing into it via wireless methods is only good for clean up. If you seriously want to trasfer that X2 rip you got from usenet, it has to be hardwired to the router. The wireless connection just cant handle it in any reasonable time frame.
While I enjoy my set up quite a bit, when I finally do move into a house, we will be running Cat-5 to every room. The 802.11b router will still be there as it is a god send for laptops but it is no where near what is needed for home entertainment. I am sure other standards would work better or a better geek could work magic, but I am me and this system has been built slowly over the last year and a half...
Str8Dog
using System.Darkside; public
For my personal MP3s, I encode all my music at 384Kbps. They sound excellent and you can tell a difference. If I was so inclined, I could use one of the lossless audio compression formats. All this can be fed digitally directly into the stereo receiver.
The quality of a 128Kbps audio stream is not far off from FM. For me the point is moot anyhow. Local radio does not play what I am interested in listening. Why not give yourself some options.
I believe most of the 'linking' using Cat5 and WiFi will be sending digital information there won't be any loss of quality, that isn't already present in the data. If you mean using Cat5 between my Receiver and the speakers, then yeah, use speaker wire.
Lastly with a good Home Entertainment PC, there are alot of other uses.
I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone mention this. I picked one up after it was mentioned in /. a while ago, and I couldn't be happier. The client runs on a PS2, which means you can use the PS2 to feed Optical Digital out and Component Video Out to any television. The server supports multiple connections, and a PS2 plus the little remote piece won't run you more then $230 or so. $50 for the QCast software. Plus, if you want another client box you just buy another PS2, and the kids'll probably thank you for that (assuming they exist).
For those who didn't catch the little article, QCast supports MP3, OGG Vorbis, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 and the various flavors of DiVX (3.11, 4, and 5), as well a JPEG and PNG photos for slideshow playback.
I had been looking into building an HT Computer (I really just wanted streaming playback of the above list, not something for on-the-fly HD scaling or anything like that). For something that wasn't going to overpower my audio with fan noise, would playback any of those formats without any assistance (sorry Via Epia), and would fit in a case exactly 17" wide so that width would match the rest of the equipment, I was looking at something significantly more expensive than $230. It connects to a file server with a 4x80GB drive setup (drives ran me a sweet $50 each).
I use a ReplayTV for PVR functionality. It connects via ethernet, and there are third party programs available that allow you to connect and "download" one of the shows from it (although it only use 10BaseT). It would be somewhat trivial to have a cron job set to run the program, pipe the file to a DiVX encoder of your choice, and save it on a centralized box.
Oh, yeah, use CAT5. RG6 for the actual video source, but if you're trying to move PVR-ed video around, CAT5. I'd make sure to run all CAT5e or CAT6 so that I could make the jump to gigabit ethernet when the switches stop costing more than some of my computers.
Hope this helps!
Speaking of plenums, if you have forced air heating/cooling do NOT run your cable insdie the ductwork. I have known people who have because it was easy. There are two problems with this, and I have seen both happen.
First, it is not up to code in most places in North America and can be a problem when attempting to sell your home later.
Second, if you have an outside service come in and clean your duct work they will probably end up srewing up your wiring becuase they do not expect it to be there.
I know it may be too late for people who have already deployed equipment, but Sony does offer the Giga Pocket PVR and Room Link combination on their desktops. You can even use WiFi to connect from the PC to your AV equipment. Plus it comes with its own remote.
I am doing the same thing right now. What was most important to me was "real" audio, so look at http://www.russound.com at the Multi-Zone systems.
;-)
This gives me real audio quality from 4 sources in 6 zones. In addition, a sound card in my server (ya I know that's kinda ironic) running mpg123 with my mp3 list in random mode as one of the sources.
This way, the actual PC's in the house can share the same music source from the server too.
Wired vs. wireless is kinda your own call. I have a mix but I made sure that the WAP was a separate DMZ segment off the firewall just 'cause I'm paranoid.
Going a bit off topic, for the gentleman who suggested X10 control: Once you have already got the server in place, by all means get the X10 firecracker or TW interface replacement (the bidirectional one which I forget the numbr of). The Leviton X10 interfaces are the ones to get. *Significantly* more reliable, better S/N ratio, some have scene control, and they look a whole lot better than the X10 stuff - but they are $$$. Also there is an X10Pro irrigation controller.
Mind you, my wife says if I die, she will need to hire an engineer to run the house! But then again, I can sleep at night knowing she isn't seriously considering the insurance money
http://www.thinkgeek.com/electronics/video/5e77/
For audio, buy a decent digital-analog converter like stereolink. This replaces your soundcard, and plugs into your computer on one end, and your home audio on the other. You can then attach massive home speakers or whatever you want
The whole thing ends up looking like this: stereo
When this was discussed before the consensus was to run conduit, so you could change your wires more easily. I still suggest Pneumatic Tubes (http://www.ptubes.com/ , http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?search=pneum atic+tube&go=Go). Use it for sending things like sandwiches and martinis. Plus it gives your place that "Brazil" element.
Also, a network of toy train tracks running around the crown molding.
Get a couple of low power FM transmitters for about $30 apiece, put a couple of nice $5 antennas on each one, tune each to a seperate freq on a clear channel for your area, perferably near each other on the FM channel.
Then hook a sound card up to each and you can play different things on each FM channel. The radios will reach a couple of hundred feet easy and you and your significant other can each listen to your own content anywhere in your house or in the yard with low cost long lasting FM headsets.
You can do something similar for TV, they have low power transmitters for that too, I think they call it the rabbit or something.
Funny thing that... sound and video has been wireless for at least 50 years *L*
23:55 8/5/2546
...
...
... why not a elepahnt or an ostrich?
TOPIC home-lan.
use cable. any cable. who's going to call the police and say my neigbhour is using un-shielded.
quote: "what's a LAN, anyway?"
i got some piano-string-wire (this is dirty way, there is some kind of fiber-class-calbe made for this, the piano-wire MIGHT rupture the elec.-lines), opend the elec. box and but the piano cable thru (push, push until it comes out somewhere ; ) ), then tie the lan-cable to the end of the
piano-wire and pulled that true. out comes the piano-wire and the beginning of the lan wire
the server used to be in the basement dark, nice and cool there).
if you have a laptop, and want to watch movies in glearing daylight, with a silly-laptopmonitor good-luck.
wifi stinks.
when i was in bordingschool a friend of mine did this piano-wire trick and got TV reception in his room.
we'd sneck into his room after 12 and watch good-ol-movies. i think the cable is still there and the
administration doesn't know. everybody new, is first always opting for this room. i think the administration haven't a clue why.
i also wired the phone to the stereo (line-in) and used the microphone, pluged into the stereo (line-in) to talk to my friends.
is cool when you give party and some guy couldn't show up
anyways, if you stream video over the network, if you want to change the movie, you have to run to the
basement and reload the cd-tray in the server... divX it, if you have the time.
since you only have one stereo (i assume) hock up the closesed compi. to the stereo via phone out
of the soundcard...
if your servers a LINUX box, just tell it to masquared and you can (probably) stream to
ANY computer on your home LAN.
as for video thru comp-network. you can't. your server can stream it to the next computer, but THIS computer
needs a special graphics-card which has a normal cinch out (YELLOW) which then plugs into your
super-cool video-projector and or TV. some laptops, i think APPLE's got one with a TV-out. i know
my DELL which i tried to learn to fly, but fell like rock from the 15th floor, had one.
-
get a bunch of kids too.
-
p.s. why does the MATRIX-computer system use humans for bodyheat e.g. electricity, when birds are smaller and produce more bodyheat.
must be a dumb MATRIX-programmer then
Congratulations. You linked to an auction that not only has a high bid of 50% more than the quoted price, it also has more than 1 day left. An experienced researcher such as yourself should know what happens to the bids in the last hour, let alone the last day.
Further, the requirements stated a decent sound and video card, presumably one with a composite or S-video output, given the topic. The store-bought crap you linked to assuredly has neither.
Try again when you have something besides active auctions and four-letter words.
Use Xbox Media Player on a Xbox with a mod chip. It'll let you stream music off the net, as well as play video, mp3s off of shares on your computers. Nice thing about it is that Xbox has optical outs and HDTV support.
These guys always have pleny of sub-$200 PIII's ;)
you are a moron, if you can not figure it out yourself you should not be using it. it is that simple. audio/vido is VERY simple..... i have a great house also, w/bluetooth, and rfid, and a couple of other goody's. all running off a linux server. video and lcd at front door, for leaving video messages. it is really cool.... all done in gtk, perl, and cron.
I would also recommend running wire wherever you can and using wireless for mobile devices (laptops, PDAs, etc.). However, I disagree with the idea of putting a Wireless card in the desktop.
I would suggest that you go with a wireless broadband router instead. Most of those that I've seen also include regular wired ports. Plug your wired system into those and use the wireless for mobile devices. That way, you don't need to have your desktop on to use your laptop's connection. Also, it saves all the peer to peer manual connection setup.
I would also recommend using encryption for privacy reasons but YMMV.
I've had a similiar idea, but have yet to implement it. Right now all my wire is run through the air conditioning ducts. One little thing to remeber. Run an extra piece of small gauge wire or heavy string when you put in your conduit. When you need to run something new you just tie it off and pull it through. Don't forget add a new piece of string along with your new wire at the other end.
Everything in my collection belongs to myself or my friend. Man it takes a while to rip 2000+ disks. Anyway he has his server and I have mine. So if either of us fries a hard drive the other has the backup. All the really important stuff, like my seven years worth of Red Dwarf episodes, is backed up on a couple of drives, but I don't have room for very much of it. The only thing that gets the best backup protection are my personal photographs of family and friends. On top two seperate HD and CDr, I've sent CDr copies to a couple of family members just in case my house burns down. I'm looking to buy another system in August so I'll have enough HD space to finally be able to go dual redundant on everything and tripple on the important stuff. It'll be nice one of these days to put a multi-layer raid array together out of serial drives. Speed+backup+hot swap, now that would be cool.
If you want to be snob about it, then you're not going to be satisfied with anything so just shut the fuck up jargoone. I consider "decent" to be a Soundblaster and any ATI TV out card from 1997 onward. Since that stuff works just fine with Linux. Fucking whore.
I have just completed my wiring for this wonderful device. It comes as a kit from www.russound.com with 6 keypads and some basics for the six audo video zones it creates.
Also I would go with CAT5e for video and network distribution it is much easier now with Leviton Quickport products.
For 'media box' type work, nothing really beats the Qcast player for Playstation 2. For the cost of a used PS2 (around $100) a network adapter (around $20) a Component video cable ($19) and Qcast itself ($49) you can have an unbeatable media machine, anywhere you have a network connection. Want wireless? Use a cheap 802.11 bridge to bring the media to wherever you want it. I can say from personal experience that the quality is top notch, even at wireless speeds across a house, when streaming high or low compression video. Ive watched entire movies wirelessly with absolutely no glitches. The component output for the PS2 is something really hard to come by on any video card for a PC, and it has 5.1 fiber output if plain ol stereo sound isnt good enough for you. All in all, it delivers better quality for a lower price than any PC based solution. And you can play GTA on it! Just my 0.02, and no i don't work for BroadQ (maker of Qcast.) BroadQ
It depends on how much you want to spend. I put in cat5 cable to all the rooms in our townhome that we built 3 years ago. I now have 100Mbit throughput, and it is very nice. Once you do that you may want to add wireless later on. Try it out wired, and then see if you need to spend the extra money for wireless. If you have a laptop, you'll probably want to add it, but run wires if you have the option.
.wav files and store it on the server. With harddrive prices so low, I don't even worry about mp3 or other compression, and I get fantastic sound quality as a result. I can always convert the wav files to mp3 for my laptop if I want. If you buy enough space, you even can do both!
The key part of the system is the computer configuration. I built a server (an old PC with a 60GB harddrive) to store all of my files. All the other computers, including two laptops and three desktops, access it via ssh, vnc, and samba file shares. It is amazing how fast it is, and playing *any* kind of content over a 100Mbit is completely seamless.
I then use home-built PC's with the smallest harddrives I can find to connect the system to the stereo and TV. I use one computer that provides both both music and video (it has a DVD-ROM drive), and recommend using a Radeon All In Wonder as the video card. The computer runs well, and I have minimal investment in it.
Since I built enough storage in the server, I do not have to worry about running out of space anytime soon. I even have debated ripping all of my DVDs to DivX and putting them on the server, but that will take more space.
Whenever I get a new CD, I just rip it to
One thing I recommend is to get a fast CPU for the computer connected to your stereo, and underclock it. If you use the proper cooling, you can get away without a fan, which really improves the noise level. Of course, this takes a bit of work to get right, or you'll melt down the computer. But at least your data will be safe.
Also, put as much RAM as you can afford into your server. Your server will just cache everything it can for an incredible response time. I have a lowly P400 with 768MB RAM as the server, and it has hardly any load, even though it runs samba, a database, a web server, a proxy server (squid) and an intrusion detection system (snort) on it!
I built everything with the idea that I want it to be modular. When I run out of space on the current server, I will be replacing it with much more capacity. Since I figure that I will run out in a year or so, I anticipate buying a Athlon2000 with 2GB of RAM, and at least a half terabyte of RAM. Then I will just use the old server in my bedroom to watch TV and listen to music. In this way, I reuse everything, and formerly worthless computers become quite helpful.
-Mark
Take a look at this setup. for a detailed look at the ultra home network.
You can also go to the grey market at computer shows and such... $200 for a P3 sounds high.
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
I run Xbox Media Player to play my videos (MPG, AVI, etc), audio (an impressive number of codecs supported), and shoutcast streams. It also can function as a slideshow for your pictures. XBMP is a great application and is only getting better. XBMP will play the files from your server (via a number of different cross-platform protocols).
I have a turbonet card from 9thtee installed on my series 1 DirecTivo (Philips DSR 6000). The Tivo is an excellent PVR. While some try and replace some of its functionality with a PC, I think that the Tivo just has a much better interface. By using software such as Tystudio (beta 2) or MFS_FTP, it is possible to pull down MPEG or M2V/M2A elemental streams. You can use this to create a MTV video juke box, archive movies to your HD, or burn DVDs. And yes... you do get the full bitstream available to the DirecTV -- no signal degradation + 5.1 sound. etc.
Evolution: love it or leave it
Microwave emissions aren't ionizing radiation like gamma rays, UV, or X-rays. Microwaves do not have a cumulative effect, as opposed to the "bit flipping" that higher-energy electromagnetic radiation causes in your DNA.
Microwaves have only ONE path to bodily damage - Heating via RF absorption at the molecular level. For microwaves to do damage, the power level has to be high. (Microwave ovens are usually 500 watts and above, most modern ones are around a kilowatt.)
Most WLAN cards are 25 mW. Higher-end ones (Ciscos, for example) are 100. There are a very small number of 200 mW cards.
Needless to say, these power levels are NOT enough to cause any significant heating, even if you're exposed to it 24/7. You're more likely to burn yourself via heat conduction from a laptop computer than you are to have any heat-related injuries from a WLAN card or cell phone. MAYBE if you touch the circuit traces of the PCB antenna directly with your fingers you MIGHT get a mild RF burn on the surface of your skin (This would require opening up the card), but thanks to the inverse square law, that's the worst thing that can happen.
I'll reiterate this again - I work for a company that develops transmitters for cell towers. On a regular basis, we're exposed to RF levels higher than even a habitual cellphone user. (Amps with covers off tend to leak a lot - Never measured the exact amount, but it's enough to register on other equipment in the same room while a transmitting cell phone will not.) Some of my coworkers have been in the industry for two decades and not a single person anyone knows has ever had any RF-related health problems except for the occasional RF burn from accidentally touching a live trace carrying 45 watts of power. A cup of coffee can hurt you more.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Likewise with internet radio, fine for voice, but when it comes to music I would rather listen to an FM radio station with decent sound quality.
:-)
FM radio isn't exactly hi fidelity. I don't know that it is better than a good Internet station, I'll have to compare.
The nice thing about a home system is you can set up your own MP3's (or ogg's) at the quality level you want--heck you can even play lossless files if you like ( roughly 10 MB/minute for a non-encoded CD is 1 1/3 Mbps if I did my math right).
And you get much more control
That's important. My playlist and my wife's will have a lot of overlap but she doesn't like punk or industrial and I don't like jazz. The ability to choose what I or she or we like is quite nice.
And I'd like a reference to signal loss using CAT5 cabling. Honestly. Just saying it negates benefits doesn't make it so, but if you are right I want to know before I wire my own house!
.signature: No such file or directory
Num num num... Humanitarian is on his way to gitcha stannman!!!! Num Num Num... Food in Texas!!!
- 2x Athlon MP 2k+ (on Tyan Tiger MB)
- GeForce 2 with tv out (and 2 other vid cards)
- ATI TV Wonder
- ZapWay IR Receiver
- Sony el-cheapo multi function universal remote control
- Herman Miller Aeron
- Datahand chair mounted split keyboard
- SBLive 5.1
- MSB-Tech Link II DAC
- Good home stereo powering a set of Magnepan MGIIa's (quasi-planar speaker)
- and soon: a SXGA LCD Projector (NEC MT1030+)
and on the software front:- gentoo GNU/Linux
- ALSA audio drivers
- lirc
- mplayer
- xmms
- mldonkey, video store, cable for media acquisition
LIRC, which works with the ZapWay receiver, can be used with xmms and mplayer to ffwd, rew, stop and play media. irexec also ties into LIRC and can be used to control ALSA mixer volume, cue and play http/file urls in xmms/mplayer. TV out is done by the vid card. An X session (with lircmd to control the mouse via the remote control), with customized blackbox menus, etc allows for couch based media navigation. TV recording and video/VCD/DVD playback is done by mplayer and media management done in nautilus (for now). SPDIF output of the SBLive goes from the computer to the DAC, for highest quality sound (if you've never heard a FLAC thru a good DAC on a good quality setup, you've not lived). The computer itself sits in a closet, with good quality monitor/kbd/mouse extenders to isolate the jet engine-ness of the dual mp 2k+s.I hope to eventually suspend a THX acoustically transparant screen across the magnaplanars and use a LCD projector for a 6' x 5' HD image.
Overall the experience has been quite good, tho having it all setup on a workstation requires much maintenance to keep all the apps communicating... a dedicated shuttle box to feed the projector/DAC would be a little nicer, tho I'd still want a central media server. Wireless is not needed here, as the few cables (spdif/video/etc) pose only a problem to the vacuum cleaner. Of course, the setup costs as much as a nice used car (which I don't own) and I find myself dreaming of 6'x5' trees rendered in imax style 3d (cow's can fly in caves, but require awkward polarized glass or expensive eye surgery for 3d flight experience).
Andy
http://benow.ca
Has anyone noticed that a lot of these posts aren't being moderated down at all even though they are pretty much flaimbate and trolls? I think the moderators have lost their focus and are too busy trying to mod down the people they disagree with rather than the people they should be modding down who just post crap like all the above.
One great thing is that some developers have put together some scripts to take the shows that you record with MythTV and encode them into DivX files, so they can be archived off to a CD. I use it all the time, and my 160GB hard drive is almost full. I really have to get time to burn! :-)
Too bad Santa ends up with a router up his ass every Christmas.
Especially if you have a lot of pr0n or recently-released movies.
Best Regards,
-Your neighbor.
-Styopa
Here's a low-voltage wiring guide which should help out if you want to run cables.
Karma? Karma? I don't need no stinkin' karma.
I'll refer you to my previous comment on this topic. If you have the luxury of being in the house before the sheetrock, make _certain_ to take tons of pictures of plumbing and electrical runs -- it will come in very handy down the road when you're looking at a wall and thinking about cutting that hole.
You went to an Ask Slashdot in hopes of getting FEWER choices? :::shakes head:::
I want my Cowboyneal
>I've always gone for speakers, amps etc. that
>will give the best sound quality, why I would
>then want to use an source, such as MP3, that
>would sound the same on a £50 stereo is beyond
>me.
Eh? Maybe 128kbps MP3's played back over a Soundblaster card's cruddy D/A converters and amps would sound awful amplified through a good stereo system, but a 256kbps MP3, streamed out of my Soyo motherboard's optical TOSLINK port, and converted to analog by my Harman/Kardon receiver's 24-bit 96kHz-capable D/A converters sounds pretty durn good. Not quite as good as the original CD perhaps, but close enough for casual listening.
And of course, you aren't limited to 256kbps or MP3. The latest version of Windows Media Player for example includes support for Meridian Lossless Packing, the same *non*-lossy compression method being utilized for DVD-Audio. A CD compressed utilizing MLP will sound identical to the original, but consume between only 1/2 to 2/3'rds the storage space. With 80GB hard drives becoming commonplace, and the average CD containing only about 400MB worth of audio, that works out to at least 160 CD's worth of full-quality, no-artifacts audio (more if your collection includes a lot of old albums, most of which were only 35-40 minutes long due to the limitations of the LP).
If you're like me, there are only a couple of dozen albums you listen to in their entirety. For many of the rest, you'd only need to have your favorite tracks on hand at all times. Although I own more than 300 CD's, I could easily squeeze everything I listen to regularly onto a single 80GB drive using WMP and MLP, with room left over for 256kbps MP3's of the stuff I seldom listen to.
And of course, with hard drive prices continuing their long plunge in tandem with skyrocketing capacity, it won't be long (maybe a year or so) before 160GB drives are common and quite affordable. At that point, I could store my entire collection, MLP compressed, on a single $100 drive.
http://www.microwavenews.com/mobilephone.html
d ules.php?n ame=News&file=article&sid=1577
I am not yet ready to declare this a FUD. I am not concerned with ionizing radiation in the case of microwaves. That, instead, is a concern with too many X-rays (at least in the former soviet union, where x-ray burns are a common phenomenon, or near the poles, where the ozone holes have an effect, or for those who fly a lot).
Rather, what I would be concerned with would be protein transformations that took away the limitation on brain cell replication. This, then, would stimulate early tumor formaton.
[check out this link for support of this concern]
http://www.scienceblog.com/community/mo
Although the studies mentioned above did not find an increase in cancer rates, it is my impression that brain cancer rates have indeed increased overall in the last 20 years, significantly.
If you have better information that counteracts these two *officially unpublished* studies [though I have heard that the studies remain unpublished because of cell phone industry pressure, that is an unprovable allegation], I would be glad to hear it.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
I used to install security systems for ADT in Pittsburgh, and have have a decent amount of wiring experience with "stuff" of this nature. There are codes that you should certainly try to adhere to, and basic theories too. I certainly hope you get the chance to read this as I will try to outline a few, what I consider, important points.
First keep in mind that sheilded is the way that you should always go and don't do this cheap (read shoddy) as you won't want to do it again. Use the good stuff, it isn't that expensive and it is better shielded. Use cat 5e or cat 6, until you get something like an OC3 run to your house, the internal network will always be faster than your incoming bandwidth, because at 100 base TX or 1000 base TXH it will be plenty fast for your needs (you don't need fiber, really).
Second plan for wireless, it is just plain convenient, but don't rely on it. Also try to locate the WAP centrally (if possible) that way you don't have dead zones in your house at the extremes. If your house is two stories and a basement (or more) put it in the middle floor if possible. This maybe picky, but try to get 802.11b to run at an angle through three floors in a 1940s house built by german masons, they are bomb proof, and I am begining to think EMP proof too. Also, read some articles about using *BSD/Linux to create IPsec rules to secure the wireless network, it is much better than WEP, and it keeps people from leaching your bandwidth.
Third keep this couple things in mind. A 110 volt line throws EMI in about a 6 to 8 inch diameter and a 220/240 volt line does it in about a 10 to 12 inch diameter. You don't want to run parallel with one of these lines. So be aware of where your electrical outlets are. Crossing them should be fine (purists will scoff at me, but in reality with good sheilding and just a cross it will be ok).
Fourth use a central wiring closet for everything. It makes life so much easier. If you test all of your wires after they have been run through the walls and they are ok, then the only damages that you should have to worry about will be the ends. Imagine how nice it would be to only have to go to one room to check on everythng (network lines, phone lines, DSL/Cable (internet and video), wireless WAP, central server, and maybe an HP 4000 series?. Maybe even get a T-66 block for phone lines, they are easy and great for expansion (but learn how to do it correctly). Like wise, label the damn wires!!!!! Imagine having to figure out which of the 16 lines is your computer, sure the one without link status (that narrows it down to 12) labels are your friend.
Fifth we used to have these great things called "glow sticks", they were 6 feet long fiberglass rods that were the color of glowsticks. There were way flexible, but straight and stiff enough to push wire through a wall. They had no edges and no sharp points, unlike fish tape. If you do this your self it will be a lot easier with a couple of these (they screw together end on end to extend their length). They are hard to find and you may have to go to a store that caters to security companies (ADT, Brinks, Guardian, EPS, etc.). For network jacks though, Home Depot has a fine selection that are very clean and have adapters for up to six connections (RJ-11, RJ-45, COAX, Banana jacks, RCA, binding posts [screw and sprung types], etc.) They also have great electrical boxes that clamp to dry wall rather that having to nail them to a stud. Finally, look for drill bits at the security outfitter stores too. You can get flexible ones in three, five, and six feet lengths (I wouldn't go longer than three feet, seriously). They are great for drilling through floors from inside the wall. You just cut out your hole for the network jack and then insert the bit into the wall and drill down (be aware of where you will come out though, drilling through a duct isn't that bad but an electrical line or PVC pipe sucks). And for the love of god use sharp bits!!!!!!
K save yourself a lot of trouble and buy your equipment based on the frequencies uses. I live in a student house at university with a tone on wireless toys and I can tell you that the best overall strategy is to buy all phones at 900 MHz and of the same brand if possible. If you need wireless speakers get them at 2.4 GHz and 5.6 GHz wireless (802.11a) LAN access points. If you don't care about speakers then you can save money and buy 802.11b or 802.11g equipment.
Do not by wireless speakers or headphones that run at the same frequency as your wireless you phone or neighboring wireless phone (usually 900 MHz but sometimes 2.4/5.6). When you pickup a many of these phones they send a sequence of pulses across the entire band that you will hear on the wireless speaker or headphones.
I'll narrow my comment to just the distribution side: When I bought my home a few years ago I knew going in that it wasn't wired for coax and most certainly wasn't wired with CAT5. Rather than try and cable to all rooms across 3 levels which would have been a huge pain or try to use the 2.4GHZ wireless video senders (which don't like the "cutting edge" 802.11b equipment I had just bought) I purchased some of the Terk Leapfrog HomeNetwork devices to distribute sound and video throughout the house over the existing telephone cabling.
This works very well and video quality is high - nearly equivalent to coax. This approach is cheaper than a full cable install, and without the hassle. Best part about the Terk devices is because they plug into a phone jack if you want to move them to a different area, that's easy enough.
Additionally, these devices solve another problem that anyone with centralized A/V sources has: In addition to moving the video out to the other rooms, you need to be able to relay the IR control signals from the remote room back to the main A/V cluster. These Terk devices also do IR relaying, and they do it well.
For anyone trying to use these devices, here's a small tip: Because they use phone lines to send the signal, if you have lots of phones or stuff like DSL on the line the signal will degrade. Any twisted pair cable will do, however - the cable does not need to have telephone company voltage on it. Because the telephone cabling in most homes has several twisted pairs, you can oftentimes get very high quality by just using one of the other unused pairs in the phone cabling.
In all I was able to hook up 3 remote rooms for AV distribution and remote control relaying, keeping the cost to under $400 and the house intact, making for a happy wife.