The connected house: Music and video in any room

As the world becomes more connected, video downloads outrun their traditional counterparts and online music stores well and truly take hold, many have begun thinking about chipping away the old ball and chain that is physical media. Begone, CD! Thou art banished, DVD! Standalone players are cast out! Digital is in, and we want to experience our downloads all around the home. Distributed via a home network centralized storage and decent media playing hardware, entirely within your grasp.

The goal

To collate all your music and videos in one spot, then be able to access them from wherever you want in your house, without hunting down CDs or DVDs.


The final goal is to put all your media files on a central storage device, then feed them to the settop box which, in turn, is hooked up to the TV.

What do I need?

At the bare minimum, you'll need a computer, network router, appropriate cables and multimedia streamer. To watch stuff on your TV, you'll need a nice luscious screen, too. If you're just after music, some kick-arse speakers are also good additions. Ideally, you'll have some sort of file server with a quantifiable buttload of storage space (that's measured in gigabytes or terabytes, not cubic meters), a gigabit router, a broadband connection and the aforementioned streamer.

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techmulticast

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techmulticast says...
Thanks Mr Craig Simms, This is a well timed and well thought article. As I also want to network up my home entertainment. (currently trying to save enough money to get a new PC with Vista Home. loi)

One infor I am confuse, in the network diagram / diagram_1.jpg (please refer to picture at section, 'The goal').
U connect Set Top Box to Router directly. I assume that is either a PS3/Xbox360/Apple TV right? It is not a coaxial Cable Set Top Box right? Although Cable Set Top Box might come with a ethernet jack, it is more for interactivity right?

Nevertheless. Thanks again. I will go check out logitech's Squeezebox now. Cheers

May 29, 2008 18:50

isaac976

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isaac976 says...
I've already hooked it up to my TV, all i need is a laptop and my Svideo cable for my tv room.. mind you .. quality aint that good.. but for quality, i've hooked up my 42inch LCD in the living room to a router connected to my PC upstairs my house.. so yup, follow the yellow brick road.. its well worth it surfing the internet on that big ass screen, remember to get comfortable wireless mouse and keyboard.

May 29, 2008 19:13

bigreddo

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bigreddo says...
It seems like a marketplace demand is not being met: How to get a laptop to become the HD media center PC?

There exist desktop PCI cards that allow playing HD media and 5.1 audio to the HD TV, such as the ATI Radeon HD 2400 Pro. Who has a version that can interface via a laptop PC's USB 2.0 or Type II PC Card slot?

Jun 01, 2008 23:02

jammio

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jammio says...
Nice article. Have been doing this for a while.
My ps3 is on my network via Wi-fi. I'm just wondering if anyone can tell me how much better it would be via ethernet because when forwarding video, i find a bit of a lag which isn't there when playing video from the ps3's hdd. Just an additional bit of information - Added my N95 to the home network. Works beautifully.

Jun 11, 2008 21:36