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Whole-House TV, Music (1 Viewer)

Dick Boneske

Stunt Coordinator
Joined
Dec 31, 2004
Messages
134
It's becoming obvious that in the future our computer and entertainment center will be one unit. Now, I have the capability of storing and displaying HD content on my computer, but the 23" monitor and computer speakers are not OK for watching movies. My 57" HDTV and 7.1 surround system is where I want to watch movies and listen to music.

Problem is, how to get the program from my computer to the home theater system?? I have two Direct TV HD DVR's with video on demand tied to the internet, antenna for OTA reception, but would like to transmit videos and music from the computer to my home theater system. Slingbox and other systems are not yet HD--or are some available now?
 
Joined
Feb 7, 2006
Messages
35
this is how i do it, pretty sure it is not the right way.


i have a htpc in my bedroom that has a wired and wireless internet connection. 50" tv at the end of my bed, 32" tv as the pcs monitor. hdmi and dvi cables run to the tvs from each.


now if i want to watch a movie downstairs in the living room, i have a 30 foot rgb cable going from the wall mounted 42" tv in the living room, to a laptop by the couch. i have my pc upstairs sharing my movie, music, and tv show folder from my pc in my bedroom. the wireless connection is fast enough that i can watch my videos and listen to music over the network without copying them to the laptop. if i want the sound to come from my reciever, i can plug an audio jack to rca adapter in the audio port from the laptop and into the reciever. ideally, id have a pc downstairs too with a better soundcard connected to the reciever. but the ghetto way works for now.


i had to phone a friend whos good at setting up networks as my pc is xp, and the laptop is vista. i also had to change some settings in the wireless router so it was a little pain, but it works well.
 

VomitOmelette

Auditioning
Joined
Jul 11, 2010
Messages
1
Real Name
Nick
I use PS3 Media Server to stream videos & music from my desktop right to my PS3 which is a great DVD player. With a little tweaking in the media server settings I can even stream Blu-ray files over wireless G beautifully. When I was looking for a solution to the same problem, before getting the ps3, I was going to go with a nettop, which I think is a great option. Acer makes a great nettop- the Aspire Revo 3610 that is perfect, HDMI out, capable of 1080p /bluray playback, built in wireless, its mountable to the back of flat-panels, comes with wireless mouse and keyboard, so if you ever wanted to surf the web (youtube, hulu) on your main display, its a snap. You can use windows media center to watch your videos, and even get a media center remote so you don't have to use the mouse & keyboard. You can install free programs like XBMC for managing your movie collection, which is much sleeker than windows media center for a home theater experience. Plus you will have some extra storage on its hard drive for movies, and you could add an external HDD right to it for even more movie storage. It also uses very little power. It seems a little pricey at $400, but for what it's really capable of adding to your home theater, and if you plan on doing a lot of streaming I think it's well worth it.
 

lvicious

Stunt Coordinator
Joined
Mar 31, 2010
Messages
92
Location
Texas
Real Name
Lance G
I finally just built a media server and a HTPC that sits in my living room and store all my media on my server which is connected to the htpc from the back bedroom. Solved pretty much every issue I had which included what you mentioned in your op.


Or for some you can buy a home server and like a popcorn hour.


The main issue I had with using the PS3 was the lack of certain supported video codecs and not wanting to convert my media. PS3 has become strictly a gaming console for me and that's it with new hardware additions I've bought recently.


Love XBMC Nick as well ^.


What Nick said above is a solid reasonable way to go if the PS3 will do and play everything you have besides the obvious cd's, blurays, dvds.
 

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