Whole house AV server basics

packratt

Active Member
I'm in the process of building a house. The house will be wired for LAN (assume required routers/switches covered). I would like to set up a central server to provide music and video to multiple locations in the house.

There will be a receiver or preamp/amp at each location.

What will be needed to get the AV from the server to the receiver?

I'm thinking the server will be running the vortex box software.
 
Keep in mind, if you plan on running Vortexbox, you will have to do one of 2 things. You can either go to the server and pop in a disc and have it rip the contents, or you could make it use a network accessible optical drive so you dont have to hit the server room everytime. I have a whole-house server, dual quad core Xeon with 16GB of RAM, but I run alot of virtual machines. Vortexbox runs on one for music, and the other runs Sick Beard and Sabnzbd+ for TV shows. Other than that, I have an Asterisk phone system, web proxy, and web server running on the other VMs. I call it Motherbrain :D

Things you need for your network.

1) Rack
These either come as wall-mount, which is good for a switch and patch panel, but not much else, as they cant hold a much weight compared to a floor-mount rack. If you plan on going with a pedestal server, this is a good choice, because you can put your server in any room of your house. If you get a floor-mounted rack, the expandability is much greater, but parts of it are less portable. For instance, if you mount your server in the rack, itll probably stay there.

2) Switch
Depending on the size of the house and how much wire you need run, a good 24-port gigabit switch is highly recommended. 24-ports should provide enough connectivity for your whole home.

3) Patch panel
This is where the cables from all of your rooms will lead to. Again, a 24-port patch panel should be sufficient. The back of the patch panel has punch-downs for the network cable. From the patch panel, you run short runs of ethernet to the switch.

3) Rack shelf
This will be the space for your cable modem and router. Its just a simple shelf that attaches to the rack.

4) D-ring cable management
This keeps all of your network cables nice and tidy. You can do without, but I highly suggest it.

5) a UPS
UPSes are a necessity, this helps keep things running in the event of a power outage. They generally give you enough time to safely shut down your equipment so you dont suffer any data loss.
 
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Keep in mind, if you plan on running Vortexbox, you will have to do one of 2 things. You can either go to the server and pop in a disc and have it rip the contents, or you could make it use a network accessible optical drive so you dont have to hit the server room everytime. I have a whole-house server, dual quad core Xeon with 16GB of RAM, but I run alot of virtual machines. Vortexbox runs on one for music, and the other runs Sick Beard and Sabnzbd+ for TV shows. Other than that, I have an Asterisk phone system, web proxy, and web server running on the other VMs. I call it Motherbrain :D

This server will be dedicated to music and movies only with no out of house connectivity. Going to the server and inserting a disc to add additional data wouldn't be a problem.

Things you need for your network.

1) Rack
These either come as wall-mount, which is good for a switch and patch panel, but not much else, as they cant hold a much weight compared to a floor-mount rack. If you plan on going with a pedestal server, this is a good choice, because you can put your server in any room of your house. If you get a floor-mounted rack, the expandability is much greater, but parts of it are less portable. For instance, if you mount your server in the rack, itll probably stay there.

Was planning on going pedestal style with the server.

2) Switch

3) Patch panel

3) Rack shelf

4) D-ring cable management

5) a UPS

Either already have the above or have them on list.

How do you get from the wall jack to the receiver and select the song/movie at the listening point? That's the equipment I'm not certain on.
 
How do you get from the wall jack to the receiver and select the song/movie at the listening point? That's the equipment I'm not certain on.

Im a big fan of XBMC, its great for both music and movies. I use soft-modded Apple TVs (2nd gen) for my movies and TV shows. The 3rd gen will work in the future, but it hasnt been jailbroken yet. I like the Apple TVs because theyre cheap (~$100) and work well as a media center. You can build your own media center HTPCs, but youll spend significantly more on one than you would on 3 or 4 Apple TVs. Just a heads-up, next year the Ouya is coming. Ouya is a small Android computer that costs $100, and the XBMc team is on the dev team for Ouya. Itll make one hell of a good, cheap media center. Theyre due out March next year. In the meantime, you may be able to find some used Apple TV 2s on eBay. The jailbreak process is very easy, as is installing XBMC ;)
 
My advice would be to have all the amps in same location as server. Connection from server to amps then easy. Now the problem is going from amps to speakers. If you can hardwire then done.

If you can't hardwire from amp to speakers then need wireless. I do both. Have 3 amps next to server (hardwire to speakers). One amp is remote. I use AudioEngine W1 which incorporates DAC and sends FM signal to remote amp. Works great.

Since I purchased that AudioEngine has improved their product line and can now send to multiple remote amps. I have been running this for couple years with no problems and sound quality is excellent.
 
My advice would be to have all the amps in same location as server. Connection from server to amps then easy. Now the problem is going from amps to speakers. If you can hardwire then done..

While that is a viable option, once his home is hardwired, having amps in the location of the server wont be necessary. Afterall, the network is carrying the data, all the OP needs is front ends to play back both audio and video ;).

These make very good front ends as well: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856119069 They run OpenELEC right out of the box. OpenELEC is a version of XBMC that can run from flash media. I run it on a Raspberry Pi from an SD card. A 2GB or 4GB SD card should be fine, being that everything will be stored on the server. OpenELEC is also very light on resources, 1GB of RAM would be plenty. My Raspberry Pi only has 256MB of RAM, and it runs like butter :yes: The beauty of XBMC/OpenELEC is that it can be controlled over wifi via an Android device or iDevice. XBMC puts out an app for both platforms, and its very intuitive. Have a look here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.xbmc.android.remote&hl=en
 
I essentially did the same thing as the o.p. I hardwired my whole house and now have a wd streamer at each tv/stereo in my house for a total of 3. I think 2 of them i bought new for 100, the third on craigslist for 50. The are nice because you can stream from the local network, both audio and video, but also provide connectivity to netflix and spotify to name a few
Another option is since you are building a new house and probably buying new t.v's, many can access dlna servers too. I think onkyo is one of many manufacturers that have network receivers too.
 
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