I would like to go from tube TV, DVD player, PC, wireless router, simple surround tuner and XBOX (media center modded) to an intergrated system with all media stored on HDD, including PVR from DirectTV basic box, and either network accessed or FTP to...well where ever. I have a good grasp of how to do most things, though I lack the terminology, so if you could keep it simple I would appreciate any help. Some details: Self-built, okay a buddy built it for me, but I was present at the delivery!! PC AMD64 3200+ // 2GB memory // Nvidia GeForce 6600gt // 160GB main HDD / 300 GB HDD(storage, no OS) // DVD R/RW // ethernet card (onboard) // soundcard (onboard) // Motherboard: MSI (blerg) something (sorry) // OS Win XP Linksys wireless router // Panasonic DVD player // Sony Suround system (low-end) // Motorola box from DirectTV Damn, I don't know what else to offer up. I've been told the PC is a beast, I have a tendancy to buy for long-term rather than needing to upgrade every 6-12 months. So where can I start? How can I run music and movies from, ideally, one source to output devices such as TV, which I will be replacing eventually with an HD projector and/or HDTV and speakers or tuner? YOIKES and CHEERS!!
main computer - amd64 3200 with 1 gig of ram, 500gb total harddrive dvd burner with ati aiw 9800 running xp64 now for a real beast video server - dual proc amd mp 2400 3gigs of ram 2.4 terabytes of hard drive space serving up through gigabit and wireles mimo
anyway to get serious, start simple, get your tivo component working first, then build from there, decide if you want local storage or everything running off of a backend server. You will want your video off of the main network, so segment with a second router that only handles the a/v stuff through your house (running off of the same stuff you use for the net will seriously bog you down) Once you decide on integrated pvr server or a stand alone server go out and build your 1 or 2 machines. Do some reading in the afterdawn forums or better yet the avs forums because building a server or a video pvr is alot different then building a normal computer (alot of the design decisions are different I.E. no monster video card, get the one that will give you the best picture on a television for the type of connection you are going for - rca, svideo, dvi, etc) Decide linux or windows and what pvr software you will be using (I recommend mediaportal for windows and mythtv for linux) Depending on how much you want to serve at once you may want to step up to gigabit throughout your home (running a basic test I was able to stream 2 dvds, 4 divx, and 5 mp3 streams with bandwidth left over) are you using the pvr for recording only or is it replacing your dvd, stereo, and vcr? if so invest in a sound card with optical out to a ac3 reciever to decode for the dvd's. You don't just go and slap something together there are alot of decisions to be made and what you want out of it will dictate where it leads you (the stuff mentioned has only been a taste of stuff to think about) Take your time and do it a piece at a time, testing each new component as you go, and it will come out the way you want it
btw if your going for integration into your a/v system your gonna want another computer for this, although what you have with modification could do what you want, computers integrated into home theatre equipment become home theatre equipment, unless you are using a high end display, reading any kind of text off of a tv is a strain, your better off using your computer you have as a computer and building from the ground up with a new one
also while I won't say its impossible I will say it is very hard to pull video off of consumer pvr systems, the only ones I know of that people have had full sucess with is the replay tv and the tivo brands, my brother asked me to find a way for a pvr that he got with his digital cable and I could not find any. So I would say if you don't have a tivo or replay tv forget about pulling the video off
WOW!! Thank you very much for the informaiton, it has solidified what direction I need to go in. With what you've said, it totally makes sense just to build a new dedicated media center and run what ever wire/cable to get the whole house dialed in. One other question that I'd like to pose... Is it possible to have say one wall outlet with two network connections? One for the media router and one for internet connection? Or would it be better to have them separate, say a wired intranet and a wireless internet? Okay, so its more than one, but its all about the same.
You can have as many connections in a wall as you want, I personaly run my cable to buisness standards of 2 cat5 (computer), 1 cat3 (phone), and 1 coax (tv/cable/sat/etc) per drop location. Remember those 2 cat5 have to go somewhere so make sure you get a switch large enough to support however many connections you are going to setup So say you run 2 connections to 5 rooms, I would invest in a 16 port switch, that way you have room to grow. Why not a 12 port you ask? remember you will use 1 port up for branching your internet into it, and 1 if you add a server on to it, that will fill you up, you can always add more later but better to spend the money upfront then have to go back and monkey it in later
if you want to run 2 seperate like that, internet cable goes to main router, media center goes to secondary router it would be easier though just to run a internet connection to the secondary router, it won't need the internet all the time but it will be there when you need it, and since it is on a different router with a different ip the internet traffic in your house does not pull down the traffic on the secondary router
Ah, so what you're saying is to have two routers one dediicated to an [i}intranet of sorts to send/receive data from one source in the house to/from another; the other router dedicated to internet access so as not to drag on the entire system. Then, run a line from the second router to the first so that when I would need the internet, from anywhere in the house, I could pull it through the dedicated intranet router.
router 1 = house router router 2 = pvr router 1) plug the ethernet cable coming from your cable or dsl modem into the wan port of router 1 2) plug any house hold computers or devices into ports 2 - whatever on router 1 3) plug ethernet cable from port 1 of router 1 into wan port of router 2 5) plug laptop or temporary computer into port 2 of router 2 6) log into router 2 using its ip (usually 192.168.0.1) Usually all home routers are on the ip address of 192.168.0.1 although some can be on 192.168.1.1 check your documentation to be sure. Now since we have 2 routers you cannot have them using the same ip address, that would be called double natting or double network address translation and nothing on router 2 would work, we need to setup router 2 to talk to router 1 7) on router 2 go into its ip settings and make these changes ip = 192.168.1.0 dns = 192.168.0.1 gateway = 192.168.0.1 subnet = 255.255.255.0 btw - subsitute ip address accordingly dependent to your situation set encryption to 64 bit wep on router 2 and create a wep key set your ssid to what you want save and reboot your router 2 that should be the end of the software setup unless you need to go into router 2 to open any ports for whatever server software you are using
GOOD GRAVY!!! So, uh...what did you/ do you do? This is a lot of fatastic information that I would have most likely spent many an hour...days...months puzzling over. I really apprciate you taking time out of your day to help the noob/wanna-be tech guy.
ok I will try to simplify it you have a cable modem or dsl modem that gets hooked up to router 1 (internet router) all regular computers in the house get hooked up to this in ports 2-4 or if you have more computers you put a switch on port 2 and hook the computers up to that. your second router will handle the audio/video routing throughout your house, now you want an internet connection to this because it is used to download tv program information if you are making a pvr, software updates, and any other cool stuff you want to add later, (weather, movie listings, etc) now you run an ethernet cable from port 1 of your internet router to the wan port of your audio/video router plug a computer into port 2 of your audio/video router and open internet explorer, point it to 192.168.0.1 (or whatever your ip address is, check the manual that came with the router) configure it manually, you want to be configuring your ip address and dns information (again check the manual) then plug in the number to match (check the manual for internet router for proper ip addresses for it) after you are done save the settings, reboot the router, then try to connect to the internet with the computer that is hooked up to port 2 of audio/video router, if it works then you are done with that setup, if not go back and relook your settings over.
btw your right it does take months, I spent 6 months just reading before I even bought the first peice of hardware, after that it was monkey with it, more reading, then back to monkey, trying to find the best solution to the problem. Dont get discouraged, we all start out not knowing anything, if we knew it all from the start there would be no drive in life to learn anything
Oh, in no way am I discouraged. I'm sure that at the beginning this seemed a lot to take in and that's where I'm at now. I really did want to give you a major thanks for sharing the wealth. I have a friend, the one who built my computer and he is notvery forthcoming with information. I wanted to actually build the computer myself, it didn't seem that difficult, but he insisted that I just sit and watch...grrr. Anyway, I thank you and I hope that if you have any questions, and I will look through the forums I will be able to provide the assitance that you've given me. CHEERS!!!
