Wireless streaming and home automation (1 Viewer)

[Ascending]

We just moved from a house with a home theater to a condo without one. I would like to wirelessly stream music and videos from my study to my living room. Here’s what I have: TV and internet through Verizon FiOS; a wireless router hardwired to a recent 24” iMac in the study, and a recent model TV with a bank of input ports including HDMI, hardwired to a set top box in the living room. I also have laying around, and not currently being used, an older Mac G4 with an Airport Extreme base station and Airport Express module, a middle-aged DVD receiver and speakers, and a wii gaming module.

Although a little outdated, I’m happy with the receiver’s sound quality, and don’t intend to upgrade. Besides I think I’m stuck with a simple 2.1, or at best 3.1 speaker arrangement. I’m also not interested in Blu-ray right now. My focus is on streaming video.

Here’s the kicker. I have a lot of the house lights on an Insteon home automation system, controlled by Indigo software on the iMac. I’d really like to have internet streaming music (Pandora and/or iTunes) turn on and off automatically at certain times of the day, and also turn off when the TV is on. When the TV is on, I’d like the option of watching regular programming through the set top box, or streaming internet video (iTunes movies and/or Netflix) through a wireless connection.

There are probably several ways to accomplish this, but I need some opinions on the best way, and some suggestions on what other hardware/software I’d need to implement an elegant solution; Roku perhaps? Thanks!

 

[Robert_J]

Besides Roku, look at Sonos. Popcorn Hour is more of a stand alone box than a system but it may do some of the features that you want.

 

[Ascending]

Thanks. I'll look at Popcorn Hour. Sonos would be great, but it's an expensive stand-alone system, and I'd like to take advantage of the stuff I already have.


Thanks again.

 

[nolesrule]

Nothing beats the Logitech Squeezebox line of products for music streaming and interface. I have yet to see any all-in-one media devices that can meet real music needs to the same degree. There are plenty of competent video options, but they are terrible at music in comparison, unless all you care about is one album at a time listening.