Whole Home Media Center
Posted: Sun Jun 12, 2011 7:37 pm
Hello All,
I am a refugee from the "other" board that was ruined by MS. I have chosen DVBLink, Huappauge HDPVR's, Acer 3700's, DirecTV and Media Center as my solution for distributing Audio and Video through out my home. Here's the network drawing of what I have done. http://diablo.homedns.org/Diablo%20Network.pdf
Edit : Network drawing updated to reflect removal of dead Netgear GSM7224 and small 8 port switch. Replacements are 2 x Dell PC 5324's. Link Aggregation Groups used to tie switches together for a 4 Gig link between the switches. Each server now has a 2 port GigE Link Aggregation Group giving them 2 gigs.
We'll start at the room that houses the server rack and equipment complete with it's own air conditioning to deal with the heat build up from the servers. Before we finished the basement it was all open so heat build up was never an issue. Now that they are confined in a smaller space I had no choice but to add the AC. Operating systems involved are a combination of Windows 2008 server, Windows 7 Home/Professional and Ultimate.
In it you'll find the servers mentioned in the drawing as well as the KVM, Switches, Router and DTV recievers along the the HDPVR's on top. Also included in the rack is an APC Power Distribution module that is controllable via IP. I put this in as some of the things I read indicated the HDPVR's would occasionally need a power cycle. This let me do it from the living room via the network instead of walking downstairs to pull the power cable. I have never had to use it but it's there. I can also reboot the DTV boxes as well if the need arises.
All along I read that the HDPVR's would all need to be connected to their own USB controllers. I have had no such issues. All 3 are connected to the same 4 port USB card. All the DTV recievers are connected to the network and channel changes are handled via IP commands sent to the recievers directly from DVBLink.
This feeds DirecTV/DVD's/Music to the following rooms in the house.
The Living Room. This is where all the DVR action happens and is then automatically moved to the storage server for viewing from any other location in the house.
The Master Bedroom.
The gym which contains 3 TV's. One for each portion of the room.
One located over the downstairs mini kitchen/Bar area.
And of course on every PC in the house. My 2 gaming rigs like the one below and our notebooks.
All of these can be controlled via our Android handsets as well as my Xoom tablet using Eventghost. All control is done over the IP network. All DVD's and Music are stored on the Homessb server and are available to any location in the house. We also use the USB ports in our cars along with a 16GB thumb drive in each to carry the entire music collection that is available at home with us in the cars.
Now there are currently some limitations such as being limited to 8 ative clients by DVBLink. Hopefully that will be resolved by the next version. Also we still have to keep the TV remote in the room just to turn the TV's on and off. However there's no DRM on anything and all content can play everywhere.
I monitor the entire setup with Paessler PRTG. It keeps up with traffic stats and emails me if anything out of the ordinary happens on my network.
I hope this maybe shows a little of what is possible and gives some folks ideas about what they can do.
Sincerely,
Kenny Duval
I am a refugee from the "other" board that was ruined by MS. I have chosen DVBLink, Huappauge HDPVR's, Acer 3700's, DirecTV and Media Center as my solution for distributing Audio and Video through out my home. Here's the network drawing of what I have done. http://diablo.homedns.org/Diablo%20Network.pdf
Edit : Network drawing updated to reflect removal of dead Netgear GSM7224 and small 8 port switch. Replacements are 2 x Dell PC 5324's. Link Aggregation Groups used to tie switches together for a 4 Gig link between the switches. Each server now has a 2 port GigE Link Aggregation Group giving them 2 gigs.
We'll start at the room that houses the server rack and equipment complete with it's own air conditioning to deal with the heat build up from the servers. Before we finished the basement it was all open so heat build up was never an issue. Now that they are confined in a smaller space I had no choice but to add the AC. Operating systems involved are a combination of Windows 2008 server, Windows 7 Home/Professional and Ultimate.
In it you'll find the servers mentioned in the drawing as well as the KVM, Switches, Router and DTV recievers along the the HDPVR's on top. Also included in the rack is an APC Power Distribution module that is controllable via IP. I put this in as some of the things I read indicated the HDPVR's would occasionally need a power cycle. This let me do it from the living room via the network instead of walking downstairs to pull the power cable. I have never had to use it but it's there. I can also reboot the DTV boxes as well if the need arises.
All along I read that the HDPVR's would all need to be connected to their own USB controllers. I have had no such issues. All 3 are connected to the same 4 port USB card. All the DTV recievers are connected to the network and channel changes are handled via IP commands sent to the recievers directly from DVBLink.
This feeds DirecTV/DVD's/Music to the following rooms in the house.
The Living Room. This is where all the DVR action happens and is then automatically moved to the storage server for viewing from any other location in the house.
The Master Bedroom.
The gym which contains 3 TV's. One for each portion of the room.
One located over the downstairs mini kitchen/Bar area.
And of course on every PC in the house. My 2 gaming rigs like the one below and our notebooks.
All of these can be controlled via our Android handsets as well as my Xoom tablet using Eventghost. All control is done over the IP network. All DVD's and Music are stored on the Homessb server and are available to any location in the house. We also use the USB ports in our cars along with a 16GB thumb drive in each to carry the entire music collection that is available at home with us in the cars.
Now there are currently some limitations such as being limited to 8 ative clients by DVBLink. Hopefully that will be resolved by the next version. Also we still have to keep the TV remote in the room just to turn the TV's on and off. However there's no DRM on anything and all content can play everywhere.
I monitor the entire setup with Paessler PRTG. It keeps up with traffic stats and emails me if anything out of the ordinary happens on my network.
I hope this maybe shows a little of what is possible and gives some folks ideas about what they can do.
Sincerely,
Kenny Duval