Home media setup

Peerzy

Peerzy

Peerzy

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Joined
9 Nov 2008
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Unsure where best to put this so I'll try GD for a start!

I'm moving soon and want to make sure I get my home media setup spot on, by this I mean everything from the the 2 TVs in the house (living room and bedroom) to the devices we want to use to playback onto them.

In an ideal world I'd like everything to be completely wireless and for me to be able to play anything on either TV from any source (PC, Laptop, TV channels, DVD / Blu-ray).

Obviously that is crazy talk so I'll try my best to get as close as possible - we will never use both TVs at the same time, which rules out Sky MultiRoom for me as you would have two separate boxes - what happens when we record something downstairs in the living room but want to watch it upstairs in the bedroom.

Ideally I guess I want everything connected up to the TV downstairs (Sky / TV provider, Blu-ray player, PC & laptop) and for the signal on that TV to be mirrored to the TV upstairs. I've done this before with a £150 wireless HDMI sender but this failed after 13 months, was made but some random Chinese company and didn't work half the time.

I was happy with this solution as I could use the Sky+ app to change the channels when upstairs, use a laptop to RDP into the PC and change video files and DVD / Blu ray player wouldn't need controlling after you push start.

Hardware I currently have:

2x TV's (fairly basic so HDMI but no networking features)
HTPC that will connect to a TV via HDMI
WD TV Live (currently used in the bedroom PC to view files on the HTPC)
PS3 (for Blu-Rays & DVDs)
Sky (although we don't pay for Sports or Movies so I'm happy to look at other alternatives if it works out better)
Laptop (Macbook Air)
2x Phones (for Sky+ Android App)

What would people suggest? The bedroom TV location is directly above the living room TV location so running a cable between the two shouldn't be an issue.

TL : DR - How do I mirror what is being displayed on 1 TV to another across the house reliably and cheaply to allow me to have access to all media on both TVs. Also interested to hear what other people have as a home media setup.
 
I think you might be able to use one of those universal remotes that work remotely.

You put the sender down stairs and then you can use the remote upstairs to control the stuff down stairs. Then you just have to use a hdmi cable from an av receiver that has two hdmi outputs. Then you can control everything from upstairs.

A combination of an infrared remote repeater, a universal remote or even just your av receiver remote. av receiver with two hdmi outputs cost loads.

You can also get a twin set of universal remotes.

Marmitek PowerMid XL infrared extender set

Alternatively you could buy an hdmi splitter and attach it to the output of an av receiver with one hdmi output. Plug all your kit in to the av receiver.
 
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groen said:
I think you might be able to use one of those universal remotes that work remotely.

You put the sender down stairs and then you can use the remote upstairs to control the stuff down stairs. Then you just have to use a hdmi cable from an av receiver that has two hdmi outputs. Then you can control everything from upstairs.
Click to expand...

If it makes any difference I have spare Sky remotes (3 in total), I'm not sure I understand the idea of using HDMI though to both TVs. I do have a powered HDMI splitter but running HDMI cable from one TV to another (probably about 7m away and through the ceiling) might be quite hard.

This is also only a solution to mirroring the Sky, I can put the WD TV Live upstairs which will allow me to play media off of my PC but I would still need a way to mirror the PS3 for DVD / Blu Ray playback.

We are happy to use the Sky+ app on our phones when upstairs to control the Sky box so shouldn't need any IR repeaters or anything like that, I guess my splitter box and a HDMI cable would work to the TV upstairs but not with more than 1 input device.
 
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If you buy a av receiver like the yamaha rxv375 it has 4 hdmi inputs and one output. If you plug your sky, your pc, your consoles in to the av receiver. Then you just need to find a way to get the hdmi output upstairs. I didn't realize it was so far. I have heard you can get 10m hdmi without losing data. But you would be best for some kind of wireless hdmi device like you used previously if you don't want to run a cable. I am not sure if there is any alternative.

But once you have the remote rfid upstairs and you can control the av receiver downstairs, you can switch between the inputs and then you just need to have a sky remote also going through the infrared extender.
 
groen said:
If you buy a av receiver like the yamaha rxv375 it has 4 hdmi inputs and one output. If you plug your sky, your pc, your consoles in to the av receiver. Then you just need to find a way to get the hdmi output upstairs. I didn't realize it was so far. I have heard you can get 10m hdmi without losing data. But you would be best for some kind of wireless hdmi device like you used previously if you don't want to run a cable. I am not sure if there is any alternative.

But once you have the remote rfid upstairs and you can control the av receiver downstairs, you can switch between the inputs and then you just need to have a sky remote also going through the infrared extender.
Click to expand...

I think something like that Yamaha thing might be overkill, considering I could use my existing HDMI splitter and just manually change the HDMI input cable and save £250~.

It if makes any difference the TV downstairs will be being replaced very soon with something next (so I could aim for a specific model with certain features) and the current TV in the living room will be going in the bedroom (32" basic Sony from about 3 years ago).
 
If you buy a new tv with enough hdmi inputs for all your things then you can just buy another tv remote and use the infrared extender to send the sky and tv remote down stairs.

TVs don't have hdmi output like av receiver, so you will have to split one hdmi before it hits the tv, like the sky, and send it up stairs, you would have to buy a hdmi hub with two hdmi outputs if you wanted to send all the devices up stairs.
 
Both current TV's have 3 HDMI ports so that isn't an issue, any new PC would also have 3 HDMI ports. It's just a case of mirroring all 3 devices (Sky, PC and PS3) to two PCs in two different rooms.
 
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