Another newbie!

[ClaireC]

Hi all - love the site - really interesting and must admit while I don't understand all the technicalities I'm learning fast!!
Would love anybody’s comments/advice etc on what might be best/cheapest set-up for us?

• New build hse, all cables terminated in one location (basement) where we envisage installing a “hub” to inc patch panel, speaker amp(s) etc;
• Cabling: Cat5e and power from all possible audio input/output points; Cat5e, power and coax from all possible video input/output points, plus speaker cabling from in ceiling/wall speakers, Internet and digital satellite.
• Idea was to use WMC to manage all of these, inc streaming different video/audio to the various zones while also having access to Windows in office.

Would you recommend using a master PC/HTPC running Windows 7 and WMC to run house system, therefore using all TVs, monitors as dumb monitors off one PC (would PC be able to cope with possible processing demand if all monitors/TV drawing information at same time??)

Or would it better to locate mini PCs/Tablets in all input/output locations and connect these to a NAS via the LAN.

Also haven’t quite gotten our heads around Speakers; is there a WMC controllable device we could connect to the terminal of the speaker cables to allow us to also select to which speakers we could send sound, and the option of using a Party Mode (Have considered Sonos as the easy answer for Audio, but still prefer WMC/iTunes interfaces)

Any advice/suggestions would be greatly appreciated and keep up the good work!

[northan]

WOW Can't exactly call you a novice with the lingo your spouting already.
You sound like your going to have a great setup no matter how you go. New builds always get me excited, the possibility of doing anything you like.

As of interest how many rooms do you think you will need to hook up and are you making a cinema/entertainment room in the basement or something.

For Definite the wiring that your doing or done is really important because it's easy to expand on that in the future.

See you around

[elootos]

Hello and welcome to the site

Sounds like you've got the possibility of a thousand options open to you with the wiring you have. Me? I'd have a server(s) in the basement for films/music etc, then small client PCs at each location you want to access it all. But as your speaker cabling sounds like it terminates back in the basement, this may not be an option if you want audio from each PC played locally. A WHS may also be of benefit for archived TV recordings and PC backups, but I wouldn't recommend it for large scale film storage (once-bitten-twice-shy ). I'd look to a simple unRAID server for films and large file storage.

As for things like party mode, well you can install something like the free VLC Player that can broadcast a playlist across the network. All you need is the same player installed on each local PC. You lose the nice WMC/iTunes interface though of course. However reading the VLC wiki, you can set the master VLC player to broadcast in a Windows Media Player friendly format that will of course then play in Media Center. Control of the server can be via either the standard but clunky Remote Desktop in Windows, or the free and excellent TeamViewer (recommended as it also has an iPhone app)

Otherwise get a speaker switcher for each room. Manual push button ones are £10, or IR powered ones are about £90, or lastly a zonal amp back in the basement with IR control over your Cat5 cabling is £??!

If you let us know what you want from each room then we may be able to delve deeper into the options.