Audio, and media storage for my game room - Questions on what I need.

[gator20]

Ash and are planning on having a kid so my office is going to have to move upstairs to my 3rd floor media room. So, I am converting from our media room into my poker room / office.the convience I have in this room is I have acces to the entire ceiling and behind three walls. Below are two images of what we want the final product to look like.

http://i214.photobucket.com/albums/cc279/gator_20/photo2-22.png
http://i214.photobucket.com/albums/cc279/gator_20/photo1-22.jpg

The idea is, I want to have three tvs but all can show any of our peripherals at any time. The equipment I have is a 55" LG smart TV, two 42" toshiba LCDs, computer, xbox, wii, Sony blue ray and surround sound system.

I want to have a digital media hub to store movies. Of course music is ran through my computer and iTunes. We do have wireless Internet in the house too.

What equipment do I need to make this possible? Any info is appreciated and links to suggestions would be even better.

[Quads]

HDMI Switch or Multiplexer.
All on the same signal, or different.

[gator20]

HDMI Switch or Multiplexer.
All on the same signal, or different.

What can I store media on and how do I upload movies to it?

[Directional]

Do you want to stream movies from your computer to the TV's ? I see you have the xbox, but as far as streaming devices go, it's not that great of a unit. You can get something like XBMC, for your computer, but then you have to use it as the player. Another alternative is to get a streaming device, like a Boxee, WD Live Plus, Apple TV,, etc, and a network storage device like a NAS drive or a small home server. The advatages of going that route are that you don't have to have a PC running all the time, and, it's easier to set up shares on your home network so you can access the files from any pc in the house.

[gator20]

Do you want to stream movies from your computer to the TV's ? I see you have the xbox, but as far as streaming devices go, it's not that great of a unit. You can get something like XBMC, for your computer, but then you have to use it as the player. Another alternative is to get a streaming device, like a Boxee, WD Live Plus, Apple TV,, etc, and a network storage device like a NAS drive or a small home server. The advatages of going that route are that you don't have to have a PC running all the time, and, it's easier to set up shares on your home network so you can access the files from any pc in the house.

I would like to stream (we have Netflix now)but would also like some type of hard drive to store my DVD and movies one, wether from DVD or torrent.....have no clue if that's even possible.

[pauld22]

I would like to stream (we have Netflix now)but would also like some type of hard drive to store my DVD and movies one, wether from DVD or torrent.....have no clue if that's even possible.

I have a 1TB external hard drive that all torrents get saved directly to, cds get ripped to, pics get saved to. There is an icon sitting on my desktop labelled External (F).

[gator20]

I have a 1TB external hard drive that all torrents get saved directly to, cds get ripped to, pics get saved to. There is an icon sitting on my desktop labelled External (F).

How does this connect to your tv?
Through the computer connection?
How is the video quality?

[pauld22]

How does this connect to your tv?
Through the computer connection?
How is the video quality?

Unfortunately I don't have anything like that set up but a friend of mine has all of his files streamed to his TV through through his network via PS3 and everything works great. Beautiful picture, quick and easy to use.

Someone suggested XBMC (http://xbmc.org/) . I think Quads has tinkered with this and can give you some feedback on it.

[nuzbim]

How does this connect to your tv?
Through the computer connection?
How is the video quality?

WD TV live, this is what i use now to stream all my vids from my laptop. connects via hdmi to the tv and picks up streams from pc's/laptops, plays every single type of video from what i've seen and as long as your bandwidth is good, streams in HD. i usually rip br discs to save on my media player and it plays them with no issues.

[LeafsFan]

I have an Apple TV that connects to the wall plug, and to the TV via HDMI. All you have to do is have the computer on, and iTunes open/running to have it work. All files are stored on an external hard drive. Files get to the device via the wireless internet. Just make sure your router is fairly close to the Apple TV box (I originally had mine in the basement, and performance suffered) for best results. I love mine...

[Quads]

How does this connect to your tv?
Through the computer connection?
How is the video quality?

I run an XBMC, which is essentially just a PC that sits next / behind the TV.
It connects to the TV via HDMI
It's also connected to my wireless router.
Along with 2, 3TB HDD's
XBMC plays movies (torrents, ripped, DVD, BR, etc.) flawlessly
It also will play / DJ all of my music on the box.
I've got my music and play lists uploaded to google music, so I can stream from there.
Again, because it's a PC connected to the interwebs, I can also stream other content, youtubes, hulu, pandora, etc, (sorry, i don't do COD, PS2, etc. but it will do the same with it as far as streaming content). Netflix, again, it's a PC, so it will stream.

It works very well. The *only* complaint I have is at times I get a poor quality rip from a torrent. All the stuff I rip myself, I throw on the external HDD, and play / store / etc. If I rip the DVD / BR myself, then I do a full disc rip to get the menus, etc. Most often torrents rip that stuff out, compress, reformat for ipods, play stations, etc. etc. so at times you have to hunt around for full rips / uncompressed stuff. I've yet to not be able to find what I was looking for. XBMC will also play damn near every video format out there. Yes, even mkv.

Again, because it's a PC on my network, I can also grab, play, stream, etc. files and such from other machines on the network.

XBMC is free. XBMC (http://xbmc.org/) Download, and play with on your laptop. IT will make sense right out of the box. You can spend days customizing it and playing with addons and other modules. (youtube, pandora, limewire, npr, fileshark, weather station, etc.)

Make sense?
Questions?

[jrees]

I use a the Boxee myself, and love it. I have all my Blurays ripped into MKV (10 GB-50GB each). I skipped the menus and such, so it's just the full bitrate audio/video from the BR into an MKV file (with the audio tracks I decided to rip with it). Full BR quality, without the 5 minutes of forced bullshit that the disc makes me sit through. I connect my boxee to an external HD dock, and just slap in HDs depending on what I wanted to watch. It can stream, but I haven't played with it............need to really organize all my media.

[Directional]

Like jrees , i run a Boxee. Currently i have it connected to my wireless network. I keep all my DVD rips on a home server, as well as my tunes, and stream it all. No Blur Ray yet, as i know it wouldn't stream over wifi, but in the new house we are building, everything will be wired. Love the Boxee, does all i want.

[Gadgets]

I got a quad core from work ($50, should have bought two) 4gb ram running xbmc. Great machine, streams anything i need, had previously ripped all my dvds and it works good. Only thing I did wrong was rip my movies to iso. Discovered later that mkv would have worked better.

[sunsetpizza]

I've got a NAS drive. I'm slowly organizing my music and movies onto it. I play the movies thru the blue ray player "home link" option. THe music is piped thru the house with the Sonos players.
Come by the house when you get a chance and I'll show you the set up.

[wicked wick]

If I rip the DVD / BR myself, then I do a full disc rip to get the menus, etc.

Questions?

What are you using to rip the DVD / BRs?

hmmm yes search is your friend

IMGBurn (http://perfectmancave.com/forum/showpost.php?p=295657&postcount=2)

You still recommend this?

[Quads]

Yes. DVD Decrypter or IMGBurn If I can't rip it with those, I don't rip it.
I need to learn to use Hand Brake as that's a bit more full featured, but the interface is garbage.

[jrees]

What are you using to rip the DVD / BRs?

hmmm yes search is your friend

IMGBurn (http://perfectmancave.com/forum/showpost.php?p=295657&postcount=2)

You still recommend this?

I am loving MakeMKV. Pretty damned simple process....

[Quads]

Yes, I'mma fan of MKV as well.

[Dennis]

If you use atv's ($99) on each TV, I believe that you can have them each access an external hardrive wirelessly thru Apple's "Airplay" system. My own "home theater" efforts haven't reached that stage yet, so I can't speak from experience how well it works, but I've heard some good things about it...