New Home = New Network + NAS Project

gypsymoth

gypsymoth

gypsymoth

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Joined
7 Nov 2011
Posts
12
Hi Folks

In process of buying a new house and want to get the networking and media bit right as soon as possible

Rather than ramble, I'm outlining my current & future gear, and my basic requirements. I'd love some assistance structuring the project

What I have now

-- Phillips 9664 TV (with ethernet and wifi capabilities)
-- A noisy Hackintosh media centre running OSX Leopard - currently connected to TV via DVI-to-HDMI... sound goes to a separate amp (not ideal)
-- A PS3 (older version, thus noisy). Used for games and Blu-Ray (does the job)
-- A Sony Tuner. Unused but pretty advanced with multiple HDMI inputs, 7.1 audio etc. Not enough space in current flat to set it up.
-- A basic 5.1 speaker set (unused)
-- 1000s for mp3s, lots of downloaded AVI files and photos
-- Apple Airport Extreme + Netgear N modem
-- Macbooks, iPhones etc..

What I'm Getting

-- Sky HD (not multiroom)
-- BE Broadband (used the before, quick and not that expensive). Dynamic IP
-- iMac for music studio
-- Small LCD TV for spare room

Structure of House

-- Victorian build - brick walls
-- Basement (currently unused but will be music studio), first floor (with a planned adjoining office), 1st floor bedrooms, limited access loft

Basic requirements (laymans terms):

-- A new NAS to serve up music, films etc.. throughout house. File sharing possible throughout
-- An Apple / OSX friendly environment
-- Strong wireless in all locations
-- Wired connection for iMac on first floor, PS3 and media centre / NAS - want to acheive max speed where it matters
-- The ability to watch stored media on upstairs TV, and if possible, Sky without paying for Multiroom!
-- Simple interfaces for my g/f to get to media on NAS
-- I'm happy for the PS3 to just do the games and play the blu-ray - dont want it as a media hub

Phew!

Quite a few moving parts, but I'm sure with planning I can do it without spending £1000s.

Ideas so far:

-- For the upstairs TV, I've looked at getting a 2nd hand Apple TV and hacking it with XBMC so it gets the media from the NAS
-- Digisender to send the Sky TV from the ground floor to the upstairs TV
-- Friends have mentioned installing Cat5e cabling in the walls for data transfer, but I'm unsure whether the house build will support this (havent moved in yet)

I guess I come to you guys with some key questions

-- At a high level, can all my requirements be fulfilled or are they fairly standard?
-- Am I going about it the wrong way?
-- Is there enough scope for future expansion (5-10 years)?

Apologies for the long post, but any suggestions - even partial ones - appreciated! Dont want to pay someone to come in and do this for me - my late father (an IT guy) wouldnt be happy!

Thanks
 
You can install networking cabling into almost any type of structure, it just depends on how much mess you’re prepared to make in the process.

If you have the opportunity cable the house (Cat5e or Cat6) with as many drops as you can ever imagine using, and then add few more.
 
I've just bought some flat cat6 cable that I'm going to wire above the skirting board and hide with some d-line trunking as the wireless is just not streaming my 15gb rips very well, even the short distance of 15 feet! Got the cable for £15 for 50 metres

For media off the Nas I can suggest a boxee box, they are about £150 now and are very easy to use, my girlfriend has no problems with it whatsoever, neither does my friends 7 year old daughter.

For the Nas look at the hp micro server, it's £250 but there seems to be a permanent £100 cash back offer on it making it a bargain, you can fit up to 4 internal hdds inside it which should serve you for a while.

If you cable the whole house with cat6 you can also do hdmi over it to share the sky
 
hey guys - many thanks for the feedback - really really useful

sHo0sH - I'm intrigued about the Sky over HDMI option... are you suggesting sending the HDMI out from the Sky box directly to the Cat6, then piping that into the Boxee?

Also, why did you go for Cat6 over 5e?

Cheers again
 
Cat 6 is the more future proof cable, backwards compatible and has less crosstalk therefore faster speeds, should handle up to 10Gbps AFAIK.

Do a google search for HDMI over ethernet and you will see some options. You would view this as another HDMI channel and would just repeat what was being shown on the other TV. I have seen someone in the Home cinema thread saying that if you have a second sky box, you can get multiroom for free as long as its not recording, but don't quote me on that!

Boxee would just need a cat6 cable connected to the gigabit switch for internet and access to files on the network, it is a media streamer so can watch iplayer etc from online, and then any rips that you might have made of your dvd/blurays.
 
Hey - thanks for that tipoff. Had a look at ethernet and hdmi, and found a number of options - all generally using cat6 cabling for distances up to 40m. That should be sufficient to cable up to the spare room

Still looking for other tips / recommendations for the other aspects of my setup!

cheers
 
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