Home entertainment help

[r10crw]

I can t be the only one to go through this. As some are aware we have been building for three years but slowly getting there with the kitchen finished over the weekend. Just need doors and we can move in but this means we now start thinking about the nice to have things.

We have a "good" living room upstairs which is going to be for movies on a projector (already have a good one from a friend as he upgraded, 720p with one HDMI input I think 2000 lumens but good enough for me). We can access the loft and intend to have the cabling to the projector in the ceiling. What we dont want is exposed cabling, rather cut holes in plasterboard and surface mount speakers.

We have a home PC which will be located in the eaves of the house, within wifi access of the living room. It has a good graphics card and two HDMI out which allows me to get the video to it but what about sound? There is no other outputs on the graphics card so do you just normally take this from the motherboard or should I fit another sound card?

Can anyone recommend a sound system which I could integrate into the ceiling that's not ridiculously expensive?

The next bit is maybe a little harder. In a perfect world we would like to switch this living room sound output to the kitchen so we can play music there too but there is also a TV in the Kitchen (Kitchen has a small living area) so that was going to be the second HDMI on the PC.

Which brings me to the real question, we only expect to use this for movies, maybe gaming as the kids grow so should I just stick with the PC or is there perhaps a Blueray player/TV tuner/media storage option which can send sound and video signal to a sound system. (PC runs Linux, windows ok but no apple products are allowed)

Checking through Google seems so difficult. I dont want to spend thousands on a super clarity sound, apps to control everything always proves problematic and as it seems disjointed between systems Im not 100% the integration will be seamless....

Can someone suggest a simple solution or is it always going to be complicated and expensive?

Ideally, tell me to buy this PC, this speaker "switch", and this speaker set/Amp all for £100...

TIA!!

[Mikie711]

Craig, I am home in a couple of weeks and have a spare bunch of kit that's knocking around doing nothing you can have to get you up and running. Surround sound Amp at least, use a PS3 or 4 as blu ray player. Have an Onkyo with speakers and sub that will get you going.
Irrispective of the source your going to need an amp to drive what ever speakers you choose. Need an idea of budget else all you'll get is random suggestions over a wide spectrum of cost.
Tony'g will know what's current but there is loads of options especially for in wall/ceiling set ups. Looking at the same for our new lounge but suspect I will have a different take on it.

[kerryxeg]

Yep I've been there, certainly not an expert. I ran Cat 5 cable all over the house from one location, which has a Synology NAS drive and an apple TV, this is also linked to an OPUS sound system which is a DIY install system, that can do TV and sound.

The theory is good and if I can ever get round to spending the time on it then it may actually work. What I have found is that the NAS drive complemented with s PS3 works fine for movies on a smart TV, which is networked through the cat 5. The Opus system works fine with the apple tv and can be controlled by iphone, ipad etc to provide whatever music you want. In theory it should all work together to give the TV via the network and the same sound via the opus speakers, but I've never spent the time to get that part functioning.

So none of this answers your original question, but based on experience, I would recommend running extra cables, considering network options and future future proofing as much as possible. For simple options, you can do some pretty clever setups with apple tv and PS3 as a starting point.

[Mikie711]

Kerry reminded me of something, budget for a smart remote, because you don't half start amassing remotes at an alarming rate when you embark on home cinema. Logitech make some good ones, not brilliant but good and reliable.

[rossybee]

Tony Gibson is certainly your man

[Sanjøy]

The get it in quick non audiophile solution.

Sumvision networked media streamer ~£20
Old router as network switch £0
1TB disk plugged in to PC £50
Ebay AV amp ~£100
Speakers for surround sound £50 ebay
Sub £50 ebay
Speaker cabling £20
Optical cables from streamer and PS4 to amp £10
3.5mm jack cable to amp £5
PS4 for gaming £?
Magic eye device for controlling it all £10

Media is stored on PC, backup your bluerays etc to the PC, also store all your music on this.
Connect the magic eye to the amp and the network streamer so it can all be controlled from the sofa
Streamer, PC and cat 5 cable to your main internet router all plug in to the spare router which is acting as a switch
Streamer connects to projector via HDMI
PS4 connects to projector via HDMI
Stream and PS4 plug in to amps optical in
PC stereo out plugs into the Amps aux in
Install itunes on PC and then use the apple Remote app to control the music
Use phones and tablets to remote on to the PC to do "stuff" e.g. download musci / movies to it.

Pretty much my setup and I have added better quality components to it as I go along.

S

[r10crw]

Thanks Guys.

Mike Ill definitely take you up on that, I can pay in home made wine and moonshine.... Let me know when, maybe I can collect when I go to see Kerry!!

Ive got a Ps3 and never even thought about it, that would be perfect. Ive got the router in the eaves and cat 5 run all over back to this point and as its just the the other side of the wall from the living room the controllers will be fine.

Sanjoy, does you Amp let you choose which outputs, ie which room?

[neil]

I'd go with Sanjoy's suggestion but just get a second streamer for the kitchen.
If you get an amp with multiple HDMI inputs and an HDMI output you can just connect everything through it - both sound and picture should work over HDMI better than putting the sound through an optical. I'd forget trying to get one amp to give you sound in both rooms. It is possible and I've done it in the past but unless you get an incredibly expensive amp you'll only have a single volume control for the 2 zones so it'll be too loud in one room and too quiet in another. If you've got a second streamer box for the kitchen either use the TV for listening to music or hook up another cheap amplifier if you want to use speakers - you can get mini t amplifiers for £25-£30 that would do the job.

[Corranga]

Another non-audiophile response, well, more description of my set up, which is a little all over the place as I like to play...

Office:
HP Media server running Windows 8 and Plex Media server, connected to main house router via CAT5 network cable under the house.

Games Room
Big plasma TV with Onyko AV connected (5.1) - It's a smart TV, but the functionality is crap, so I never use the smart features!
Onyko has 6 HDMI-ins (and other connections)so lots of stuff plugged in (Xbox 360, PVR, Bluray player (also smart, and even worse than the TV!), WiiU etc..)
The Onyko also has DLNA so can stream music from the server without the TV being on (but not video, more £££ for that at the time..)
and has a Zone 2 out (RCA) going to my living room under the house - as said, the zone 2 out is pre-amp, but in my case is plugged into another amp so no issues..
PS3 allows streaming from the media server.

Living Room
Smaller TV that we use all the time
Old Pioneer 5.1 set up with optical / RCA ins - sound only, no capacity for video, plugged into optical out of the TV.
Chromecast plugged into the TV allows streaming of music / films from the media server - I use my android phone with the plex app to cast to it, so no need for a remote.

Dining Room
Old CD player with NowTV box with Plex side loaded connected to it for audio streaming (not the best solution as it sometimes crashes and I need to take a PC monitor in there to restart it properly and load plex)

At work / anywhere else
Hit the plex website and stream all of my music to my work laptop
or
Open the plex app on my android phone and stream to that.
I do use this in the kitchen with my phone or tablet, and some 2.1 speakers plugged into the headphone socket.

[Kelvin]

I can t be the only one to go through this. As some are aware we have been building for three years but slowly getting there with the kitchen finished over the weekend. Just need doors and we can move in but this means we now start thinking about the nice to have things.

We have a "good" living room upstairs which is going to be for movies on a projector (already have a good one from a friend as he upgraded, 720p with one HDMI input I think 2000 lumens but good enough for me). We can access the loft and intend to have the cabling to the projector in the ceiling. What we dont want is exposed cabling, rather cut holes in plasterboard and surface mount speakers.

We have a home PC which will be located in the eaves of the house, within wifi access of the living room. It has a good graphics card and two HDMI out which allows me to get the video to it but what about sound? There is no other outputs on the graphics card so do you just normally take this from the motherboard or should I fit another sound card?

Can anyone recommend a sound system which I could integrate into the ceiling that's not ridiculously expensive?

The next bit is maybe a little harder. In a perfect world we would like to switch this living room sound output to the kitchen so we can play music there too but there is also a TV in the Kitchen (Kitchen has a small living area) so that was going to be the second HDMI on the PC.

Which brings me to the real question, we only expect to use this for movies, maybe gaming as the kids grow so should I just stick with the PC or is there perhaps a Blueray player/TV tuner/media storage option which can send sound and video signal to a sound system. (PC runs Linux, windows ok but no apple products are allowed)

Checking through Google seems so difficult. I dont want to spend thousands on a super clarity sound, apps to control everything always proves problematic and as it seems disjointed between systems Im not 100% the integration will be seamless....

Can someone suggest a simple solution or is it always going to be complicated and expensive?

Ideally, tell me to buy this PC, this speaker "switch", and this speaker set/Amp all for £100...

TIA!!

Yes, you should be able to take the sound from the motherboard. That said is your intent to feed the sound to an AV processing amp with the speakers connected to this?

In my experience in ceiling speakers at the cheaper end don't tend to sound that great. You can improve matters by adding mass and sound dampening. If your ceiling is on the flimsy side with lots of space above the speaker the sound will be thin and you'll possibly get vibrations. You can buy sound enclosure boxes (or make some which I've done in the past) to fit the speakers in but I guess this depends on access although it sounds as if you have access via the loft.

In terms of getting sound and video to the kitchen TV. I wouldn't run an HDMI cable, you can just stream it from your media server PC to a suitable box. A Raspberry Pi is a cheap and cheerful way of doing this as a client at the TV end although there are several others. In terms of media server software, Plex is pretty good and there's a version for Linux and it supports loads of different clients as well as iOS and Android. Although some of the services you need to pay for.

What we have is a Windows Home Server Media Server but it could be anything to serve the media and the Synology NAS devices are quite good and easy to setup (and support Plex). The WHS Media Server used to serve video to the various boxes around the house before the advent of Netflix and the like and fast broadband. Nowadays we just stream movies over the internet. It does still provide audio around the house. I use Logitech Squeezecentre to host all my own ripped audio as I have several Squeezeboxes. The Squeezeboxes also support Spotify, which is how we mostly listen to music now other than records (of which I have hundreds). Our movie room has the obligatory big telly, AV amp and speakers with various games consoles, a Logitech Squeezebox Touch for high quality audio streaming, a Raspberry Pi (just because), and a BT Vision box. The main living room has telly with a PS3 (for streaming mostly), and BT Vision Box. The chill-out music listening room has my Linn, amps, and another Logitech Squeezebox Touch. The study and our bedroom also have Squeezeboxes so we can listen to music and the radio around the house. The Squeezeboxes are great but Logitech no longer make them and they sell for more than I paid for them second hand. There's one on Amazon for £400, I paid £125 each for the 4 we have. It's the only bit of electronics I've bought that's appreciated in value.

The main thing is it needs to be easy to use for everyone else in the house when you aren't around. Therefore, a single remote with one button that you can configure to switch everything on is the ideal.

[r10crw]

Thanks again to everyone. Never realised about the AV amp with hdmi in and hdmi out. Once again SE has given me all the grounding I need.

Kelvin you nailed it, "The main thing is it needs to be easy to use for everyone else in the house when you aren't around."

[kerryxeg]

Not related to your original question, but have you considered Freesat for TV's. I don't get a great ariel signal, but sat signal is good, so I've gone with a dish which feeds all the signals (freesat and sky) to a multiplexer, which is then connected to each room. The multiplexer sends the signal ie sky or freesat to the room dependent on what gets plugged in. Freesat Tvs are less popular, but the result works if you don't get good digital.

[Sanjøy]

Thanks again to everyone. Never realised about the AV amp with hdmi in and hdmi out. Once again SE has given me all the grounding I need.

Kelvin you nailed it, "The main thing is it needs to be easy to use for everyone else in the house when you aren't around."

Thats a good point and why I bought a Revo radio for the kitchen when the kids were born. One button to press and you have digital radio an da big knob for volume, couldn't be simpler and is used daily as net result.

[Sanjøy]

Made your mind up yet ?

[Mikie711]

Now have a spare Apple TV you can have with the Amp. Connects to iTunes and links to your library.