Home entertainment system

[St. Fursey]

I'm doing some renovations at home so it's a good time to sneak in some sort of an entertainment system. 
The living room will hold the main hub;
modem, TV box, media box etc

The plan is to put a TV in the kitchen and maybe the attic - I'd like to be able to view movies from the media box on these.

Wired network points seem like the way to go for Internet/network access in the attic and brew shed

What i want to be able to do is maximise access to the Internet and media box - probably wired in the new shed and attic -wifi in other rooms?

I'm still figuring out what I can get away with; ceiling speakers have been vetoed but I'm working on it

Anyone out there have recommendations/links/advice?

[lordstilton]

XBMC as your software..it runs on pretty much everything http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T970YM3w1LY

[Stitch]

+1 to XBMC. I have a NAS drive running off the main router holding all of the content. I use my android phone as a remote across the network. Works a treat. Even have rte player 4OD youtube running off of this. Across wireless works very well. Starts to play content then buffers in background. I have all my beer documentaties, videos, podcasts and so on only on the one in the "brew cave". All my wifes tv programs are setup on the xbmc box down stairs. Works great for me.

[St. Fursey]

Looks interesting! What are the hardware recommendations for such a setup? Thoughts on this?
http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&id=130955594755

Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk

[lordstilton]

No digital audio out on that...These two are decent and cheaper http://www.geekbuying.com/item/Ugoos-UT1-Rockchip-RK3188-quad-core-Cortex-A9---1-8Ghz-Google-Android-4-2-OS-Mini-TV-BOX-HDMI-HDD-Player-2G-8G-with-Double-External-Wifi-Antenna-RJ45-AV-Silver-317567.html

http://www.geekbuying.com/item/Ugoos-UT1-Rockchip-RK3188-quad-core-Cortex-A9---1-8Ghz-Google-Android-4-2-OS-Mini-TV-BOX-HDMI-HDD-Player-2G-8G-with-Double-External-Wifi-Antenna-RJ45-AV-Silver-317567.html

You could also run XBMC from a raspberry pi if your looking for a cheaper option again

I'm sure there are other people on here that could point you to something better...The other thing you'll need to invest in is a NAS for central storage of your files or you could use an old pc with this http://www.freenas.org/ on it.

[Metattron]

Use a raspberry pi running RaspBMC or openElec, both free downloads.  Dirt cheap and will do passthrough from your tv remote over hdmi.  Does HD video too, no bother.  Attach it to the back of the tv so its out of sight.  Can run off a usb port on some tvs too, very low power. 

[Eoin]

Get a PS3 or a PS4 as the main network player on your primary TV, this also then combines blu-ray....that said the physical media may no longer concern you as almost everything is digital delivery now.

[St. Fursey]

Get a PS3 or a PS4 as the main network player on your primary TV, this also then combines blu-ray....that said the physical media may no longer concern you as almost everything is digital delivery now.

I'd say that a PS3/4 would be wasted on me as I have no interest in games. I'd much prefer to integrate a PC or something for Web browsing on the big screen (and the odd late night YouTube karaoke session)

[lordstilton]

For the money you spend on a playstation you could hook up a few rooms with raspberry pi and Xbmc is much slicker than the ps media setup.. Google Xbmc add ons..there not entirely legal so it's your call to install them or not.. Free sky package and the likes

[lordstilton]

http://lifehacker.com/5929913/build-a-xbmc-media-center-with-a-35-raspberry-pi here's a guide

[imark]

+1 on openelec + raspberry pi. Cheap easy and performs well.

[delzep]

My head hurts when I read all this raspberry pi stuff. What if I can't hook it up to my router as it's in a different room? I have a bog standard router that Magnet Broadband gave me - will that do I have to buy a fancy one?

I have a media USB hard drive thing hooked up to the telly already. Will the raspberry pi be worth it?

[Eoin]

Fair enough if you play no games then the console is overengineered for the purpose and you'd be better with a rasberry pi or some such cigarette box yoke.

[Eoin]

I have a Vu Duo satellite receiver. 7+ day epg and all that lark, built in 1TB hard disk (shared on the LAN), on the main TV in the living room.

I have Vu Solo (clones) on the other TVs, using the HDD in the Vu Duo as if it was their own local disk. So they see everything it sees, recordings, mkv files, mp4 etc, so there's a nice uniform user interface for everyone in the house. Same remote controls etc.

House is wired for (gigabit) ethernet, which really helps.

While they'll play almost any file type thrown at them up to 1080p, they don't do online streaming very well.

But then again finding something that will do Netflix proved to be a chore, so in the end I opted for a Roku 3, as there is no one device that does everything I want.

I was looking at Roku at one point too, they look pretty good.

The gigabit lan is the clincher though, HD does not stream well over LAN, wireless or fixed particularly well and I found it also needs a bit of processing power behind it to stream at all. But then I was using laptops with playstation streaming program.

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

May not be relevant but I have a Sonos system in my house and it's fantastic, I've had this system about 6 years and never had a problem with it. It's only audio but if anyone else is reading the thread, it might be if interest