Networks Media Network, components

Hi all, thought I would drop a post in here as Im having little luck in the hardware section.

Basically, Im building a media system that will run have 3 different screens, in various rooms. So in room 1 you got a TFT screen with feather touch buttons, which are programmed to list, play, etc various tracks/media, then in room 2 the set up will be the same but you can select a diffent song/media if you wish to whats on in room 1, and the same with room 3.

I have been recommend to have 3 micro station/clients that will operate the 3 tft screens, and control the inputs from the buttons. These 3 micro stations will then be hooked up to main server which will have a large HDD that will hold all the media and can be accessed by the 3 microstations. the clients and server will all be stored in fairly close proximity to each other, but if radio networks are pretty cheap it would be good to have the main server somewhere else (but this is not a must)

Can all this be done?? Can you recommend components and what each machine needs (bit of a noob, but determined!!!!)

Im trying to work to as cheap as possible by the way!!!

Thank you all
Cheers
Russ

 

if you want cheap as possible then either go 10/100 or maybe even firewire which is 400Mbs. the firewire networking in xp works perfectly and is theoretically 4 times as fast as standard 10/100. the cabling is more expensive but you would have no problem streaming multiple files down it. All you need for that is a firewire port for each machine and then plug them in together. for wireless you would really need 802.11g stuff. 802.11b+ (22Mbs as opposed to 11) might manage but it could be patchy!

 

Having cables is no problem, and if the leads cost a little bit then no worries. But what I meant on cheapness is the actual stations, motherboard, cpu, memory, etc.

What spec should i go for with the client station, and any recommended components

So one thing I need is 4 firewire card for the 4 machines

 

You need to do a bit of research and find out how long you can get the firewire cables. You don't see the long ones in many places. most motherboards these days have lan built onboard and a lot of boards have at least one firewire port. You would need 4 firewire ports in one machine and then one port on the clients or just have two in some of them and run them in a chain. Xp can do either very successfully. as for spec, you could probably manage with a duron 1 gig or something like that, 256mb of ram and a basic graphics card like the geforce4mx

 

Brilliant, thank you for your help. The full system can be stored close together so the length of cables is not a problem.

When you say 4 firewire ports in one machine, I presume you mean in the server. Also, what do you mean by looping, what advantage will this have.

 

you could wire the network one of two different ways with firewire.
You could have it so that there are 4 cables going from the server to each individual client

Code:

                   [client]-------------[ser-]-------------[client]
                   [client]-------------[ver ]-------------[client]

or you could wire them in a line

Code:

           [server]------[client]------[client]-----[client]-----[client]

like this. You could even do a mixture.
the advantage of the second would be that you might not need as much cable, but it all depends on where you are positioning the clients.

 

the second is very economic with the wire but it has one flaw... if one of the clients goes down (excluding the end one) all of the other clients will also go down as the network chain will have been broken. So it depends what you want, be it good stability or economy with the wires.

i reckon that a basic spec would be a couple of old motherboards supporting 1ghz durons and get some low end gfx cards and firewire cards (as most likely the older mobo's wont support this onboard).

 

Im not sure Ive been looking at the right wire but I just found 20 meters of network cable on Scan for 4 pounds!!! if its that cheap then no worries.

Also, is this the type of network card I need, Is this firewire
Network Card

 

Opps, I think Ive found fire wire now, Is this what I need??
Network Card2

 

firewire isn't primarily a network product, but that card is the right sort. I would still consider conventional networking though. You need to look at both before you decide. the main expense with cat5 is the switch, with firewire it will be the cables. you probably have been looking at the wrong wire (unfortunately!) that does sound like proper network cable (rj45 cat5) prices,

 

When you say both sorts, do you mean choose either the 10/100 mbs networking or the firewire. If firewire is going to be better for me then the cable should be to expensive (I hope) as I can have all the clients and server next to each other, even in the same case if it helps!!!!!
What do you think would be the best for my needs?

This is the wire I found that was pretty cheap, think it that Cat5 you was talking about, so I take it its no good for firewire networks Network Cable
What type of cable do you need for fire wire, as I couldnt find any!!!

I found this too, not to sure if its any use to me or if its fast enough, but just going off your recommendations, as I know nothing about networking USB Cable

Its no problem having the clients and server together, or even just the server at an easy reach place, but even that no great worry. The longest cables I will need I think will be the serial cables to each TFT screen....pricey...hoping I can make em!!!

 

well, you could make your own firewire cables....

just get some cat5 in bulk (no connectors at the end)

pick up some firewire connectors

since firewire uses 6 wires, and cat5 has 8, you should be fine



unless of course you want conventional, in which case, you can get regular cables, though you don't need a switch, it's much easier than setting up a conventional daisy chain

 

Oh right, really, so its not a special type of wire then firewire, brill. I can get 30m for all of a tenner

What is serial cable prices like.

Another questions is sound. Obviously each client serve a different room, so there for different media will be playng in such. So will I need 3 sound cards installed in each client, or 3 installed in the server.

 

you need a soundcard in each media pc. they will then just fetch each file they are about to play from the server and then turn it from the digital file into the analog signal that your speakers require. Also, usb networking will be very slow. the theoretical bandwidth of usb is 12 Mbps if I remember correctly, so only slightly faster than standard wireless networks. Please tell me as well where you get firewire cable so cheaply! I went to pcworld today (only because I thought it would be easier than waiting for it to be delivered) for a fire wire cable, and all i could find was a 1 metre cable for £22!!! was the same story in staples.

 

there you go mate

100m (yes 100 meter!!!) UTP Cat-5e Cable Reel (Solid) - 10/100/1000 compliant for 11.69 pounds Cable1

305m (ohhhh yess, 305 meter of the stuff!!!) (1000ft) UTP Cat-5 Cable Reel (Solid) - 10/100/1000 compliant - 27.03 pounds Cable2

 

Ok guys,

Ive made a list of my server and client specs to see if you all think they are about right and will do the job ok

Clients-
1 - 1.2 GHz Duron/Celeron Processor
Motherboard with on-board-sound
256Mb Memory
Mx400 - Mx440 64Mb Graphics card (driving the TFT screens)
Second Hand HDD, about 5 - 10 Gb

Server-
2.4 Ghz Intel Celeron
Motherboard with on-board-graphics
512Mb DDR Ram
120Gb IBM/HGST Deskstar HDD (might buy a second later to date)
1 or 4 firewire cards (depending on set up)

The media file that will be play will be song files which will be played either with they matching videos, or the media player swirly graphics. Films

The sound will drive either ceiling mount speakers of small corner mounted speaker via a small amp.

 

Those specs look fine for playing audio/video. This could be an interesting project. What will you be using in terms of software?

 

I know where to get cheap cat5 but you said you could get cheap firewire cable. thats what i'm interested in. The specks look fine as well

 

Nedsbeds - sorry to disapoint mate but thats the cable I meant, didnt know if it was firewire of cat5 (do now!!!) but Bruno_me said you can easily make firewire from cat5 cable

NiHiLiST - Im unsure of software as such, Winamp will probably have to be the main media playing software cause of its apparent ease of assigning button/switches through serial ports. But I want a personal layout to actually be displayed on the TFT screen, with play list, eq's, vol, etc, got my idea, but Im not a programmer so I dont know if there is a package that can be linked to winamp that will display it all as how you want

do you think the spec I posted can be any lower (just being a cheap-o here!!!) or will this compromise stability and perfromance, and I should stick with what I said

 

I'm not sure if they'll use Winamp or not but there are a number of media centre style front-ends available. If you've seen Windows XP Media Centre Edition then they're essentially the same type of thing. Try http://www.htpcnews.com/ for some software links.