Hi all so my parents are building a new house and I am setting up the network. I dont have much experience with networks but id like to learn. Basically what I want is to have a NAS which every computer backs up to regularly. There will be 3 laptops and one desktop. All windows 8. This part is pretty easy to do. The hard bit which I would like is to have speakers installed in various rooms and outdoors, and also the tvs connected to this nas and be able to access music and movies by controlling it with a remote or from phone/laptops. So from a phone id like to be able to choose a song to play in specific rooms and movies to play on a tv. But it needs to be able to play different songs/movies in different areas. So for example I can play a song in the workshop while mum plays a song in the lounge room and dad watches a movie in the tv. The rooms with tv will share speakers with the music system. Space is not an issue there is a couple of large empty spaces I can use for the hardware due to the layout of the house. Cost is not a huge issue but we obviously dont want to spend more than necessary. The wiring will be done by an electrician but i would like to plan the points and install the hardware. So what is the best way to do this? One thing I was thinking was to run ethernet back to the void form every room in the house and run everything across that. Can a computer output audio/video straight to ethernet? Then be converted to hdmi at the other end. Is there software which can be controlled by a phone which will allow this? Thanks heaps for any help and hopefully i have explained it well enough.
First off you should get GB ethernet especially for the backups. thats CAT 6e I would suggest a 300m roll of vertical reinforced cable, to start with. you will want at least 4 Ethernet sockets per room if you want to run HDMI over 2 of them. You will also have to choose either to use active speakers to the "PC's" or get some used/ new amps for each room. I would suggest sorting out the networking first off. Might want to consider laying audio cables too while your in there. Never know what you may want in the future. DO your self a favor and in your server use different drives for audio and video.
I will be using cat 6e, i am not running the cables though. Will be running an amp for each room. Was planning to run audio and video over cat 6 so shouldnt need any audio cabling except from amp to speakers. But I have a good grasp on setting up the audio once its at the amp. The problem i am having is controlling the audio and video and how to get it from nas to amp.
Might look into vortexbox on the server end, and squeezeplay on the client end. They offer independent control for different client, and there is app for both iphone and droid for it to control it remotely.
Would squeezeplay require a computer in each room/zone? And would it allow the phones to control multiple clients at once? So choose a song to play in 2 places at once.
Yes it would require a client in each zone, but that could be something as simple as an RPi, you want independent control on. I think the phone app allow you to choose which client, picking from a list but it might be inelegant like by ip only.
Do you already have the TVs? If so do they have DLNA or other smart features? We have a Sony smart tv which is able to play video from a NAS. It took a bit of setting up, but the big advantage is being able to control it with the TV remote. Otherwise, you need some sort of media player for each TV. Audio-wise, I have been looking at Sonos to do something similar to what you want. There are cheaper solutions out there, but it needs to be simple enough for the whole family to use. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
for music in different rooms the best solution is SONOS without a doubt. Do a quick search for it. I used to install it and although its quite expensive the integration and ease of use is amazing. You can use whatever speakers you want with it if you opt for the the ZP120's or something similar. Its compatible with Android and Iphones too so you can take a dump and turn on music in your bedroom at the same time !!!! Film wise the biggest headache is making sure your TVs support decent codecs and have good built in software for NAS or other external media. I know sony TVs are rubbish they support sony format, mp4 and vob and thats about it. the alternative to this is to use a media player with each TV like a WDlive TV or whatever. All my stuff is encoded in H.264 with .mkv which most TVs dont support.
I would be happy using RPi but it needs to be very user friendly. I also do have a small amount of programming experience in vb and am learning c# this year but very limited. We will most likely buy new tvs so that is an option but a media player might be better for the reasons above. I have looked at Sonos but its is VERY expensive for the amount of rooms wed like music to and the house is pre cast concrete and im not sure how good the range would be to the workshop which is at least 3 panels away. I would prefer something running through cat 6 and more inbuilt. Is there anything similar to sonos which is less expensive and wired? Would also prefer not to have speakers on shelves and alike but have them roof or wall mounted. Thanks.
sonos can be wired or wireless - It also can act like a wireless AP. honest there isnt a better solution than sonos for multi room. bundles can make it cheaper. Speakers dont matter you can use whatever you like if you use a ZP120 and if you already have an AMP you can use a ZP90 to hook up that way. http://www.sonos.com/shop/products/connectamp
Sonos is simply amazing. My dad's whole house is sonos'd up, as he has lots of money. But it's a terrific system.
What I suggested is very much like sonos, but free on the software side and only as expensive as you make it on the hardware side.
Please do not try to run amplified audio over Cat cables they are to thin/resistive. just look at the size of the copper wires! more copper = less resistance.
Ill have a better look at it ivan. Will it be easy to use on the control end though? Its a major concern for me. I would not be running amplified audio over cat i know that. Just an audio signal over cat. I am sure the sonos is great but with 5+ zones its just too expensive.
With that in mind I would focus on having a flexible backbone (wiring) so that you have your options open for upgrades and expansion. If it where me I would run 4 Cat6e per room plus audio. That way I can slowly flesh-out the system over a longer period and have the wiring set nomatter how I want to mix things up in the future. Make sure to use CAT6 keystones otherwise you will end up with CAT5 performance and buy a wire tester.
It's free software, set it up and decide if it is suitable. You can use this as a windows server side with the client I linked before to take a shortcut for a faster set up. Then get the relevant phone app and have a test out. I would also agree with setting up the ethernet and audio as separate.
I had a play it is very good and players can be named. It would be very easy to setup a server to contain the music and control from an iphone at least is very easy. And its free. I have a few concerns though: Would a RPi for each zone be acceptable and relatively easy to setup? The low cost, power and size makes it an ideal client. Can I simply plug all the RPi clients and server into a switch and it will find everything? Then the router also plugged into the switch so wireless devices can control it? What about the future? What happens if logitech no longer supports the system? Do I have to redo the entire thing or is there a similar app available which will allow RPi clients? Thanks for your help this is looking like a very good option for very little cost. PS would it be possible for the server to just be a NAS or do I need windows running on the server to run the program?
I haven't used RPi personally. Some say it is easy to set up, others not so much. I suppose it depends how familiar you are with linux. If you want something a little more powerful and capable maybe something like those foxconn nettops would be a good choice if you would rather go Windows while still keeping the budget on the lower side. On the server end, they have both Windows and linux version so as long as the nas allow to install software packages I don't see why you couldn't. As for the software, if they stopped supporting it tomorrow as long as it is working I dont see why it matters that much.
Synology NAS's can run the Logitech media server very easily - you just download and install from within the OS. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
