[gabs247]

Was talking to a mate, because I'm building a new house and wanted to set up a media server. He has the idea of setting up a rack and some distribution servers and running cat6 around the house, but networking was never my strong point.

I would like a home theatre room, plus an open living room, plus potentially other network ports around the house that will need access. So I was thinking of just having a Media Server in the HT room, and then having a Media client in the living room. I'm assuming if I access it anywhere else, it'd be via a laptop/PC or game console or another media client.

So having a look, probably my likely options are Windows HS or Ubuntu with MediaTomb? Does that sound right? Or is there a way to distribute media in a more lightweight approach than a media centre in each room?

Also, does anyone know if it's possible to get say a DigitalNow Quad Tuner and put that on the media server, and access that from the network? Rather than having to have a tuner in each media centre.

Some of the things I'd like to have:
- Central server for all my media (movies, photos, music)
- Be able to stream that to potentially any room in the house
- Have a single Quad tuner accessible to either HT room or living room, potentially other locations
- Have a RAID configuration
- Be able to add more storage as required
- Be able to back it up to either external HDD, to a PC in another room or to the cloud?
- UPS?
- Set it up as a Firewall

Would I need a dedicated rack with proper cooling, because I guess potentially I'd need more than a 4 port modem/router? And if I had a server, switch and UPS I might need that?

Any advice/suggestions greatly appreciated. As I said, I'm designing a new house and so just trying to figure out what I want to do to future proof my home media requirements :)

cheers,
gabs

[gabs247]

No one has any advice?

[TiggerK]

Hi gabs,

such a detailed subject, and covered around this site in so many threads, you might have hit a blank spot in people's responses!

Anyway, my basic advice, (and based on my setup), is to keep it simple. Get a dedicated file server, just a basic modern PC (say Core i3, 4GB RAM) with plenty of drive bays and a UPS, use RAID via a good hardware RAID card (Adaptec - check the MB has the right slot for it), run your choice of O/S, I'd go Win 7 Pro (or Linux if you know it or are prepared for the learning curve), plugged into a Gigabit switch, with CAT6 cables around the house. Forget the tuners in this. It'll need a fair few internal fans to help move some air over the HDD's, and hence a bit of ventilation, and will be a bit noisy.
For each TV, run a basic media center PC. (again, i3, 4GB RAM, 300GB+ HDD for recorded TV, dual tuner, nice case, Win 7 Pro), plugged into Cat6, all good. Win 7 Pro means you can backup the whole system image to the file server when needed.

Some of the things I'd like to have:
- Central server for all my media (movies, photos, music) - Yes as per above.
- Be able to stream that to potentially any room in the house - No problem if you wire it all up. Wireless is generally to be avoided but always an option.
- Have a single Quad tuner accessible to either HT room or living room, potentially other locations - I say forget this (unless you head down the Linux/Myth front end/backend path) - Just put a dual tuner in each Media Center box and run Coax to each. It just works.
- Have a RAID configuration - as per above
- Be able to add more storage as required - as per above
- Be able to back it up to either external HDD, to a PC in another room or to the cloud? - as per above - backup to extHDD or a network location if using Win7 Pro, cloud an option for data/docs/photos etc but none of these are feasible for ALL your TB's of media, hence the RAID.
- UPS? - as per above, 2000VA or thereabouts will happily cover a file server/router/switch etc.
- Set it up as a Firewall - Get a half decent router, does the job fine.

Others might suggest a Drobo / NAS box with RAID for file serving, or running Xbox360's on each TV and sharing a Quad tuner placed into the File Server, that would certainly be an option too, but haven't used it, so can't recommend it personally.

Hope that's a start anyway, my 2c.

Cheers
TiggerK

[gabs247]

Thanks TiggerK.

I actually had another issue, power consumption. I was wondering whether running a single heavy server would be better than having mutlitple HTPCs and a file server? Also, then you share the quad tuner, rather than splitting it to two duals, but as you said it's aoption you haven't explored and possible with mythbuntu.

Yeah, we've also noticed display homes runnning Home Automation with ceiling speakers everywhere, can this be done with a Media Server? That would be awesome if there was a way to play your music to different rooms, but the price tag for these HA systems is quite lofty...

cheers

TiggerK, on 16 January 2012 - 08:50 PM, said:

Hi gabs,

such a detailed subject, and covered around this site in so many threads, you might have hit a blank spot in people's responses!

Anyway, my basic advice, (and based on my setup), is to keep it simple. Get a dedicated file server, just a basic modern PC (say Core i3, 4GB RAM) with plenty of drive bays and a UPS, use RAID via a good hardware RAID card (Adaptec - check the MB has the right slot for it), run your choice of O/S, I'd go Win 7 Pro (or Linux if you know it or are prepared for the learning curve), plugged into a Gigabit switch, with CAT6 cables around the house. Forget the tuners in this. It'll need a fair few internal fans to help move some air over the HDD's, and hence a bit of ventilation, and will be a bit noisy.
For each TV, run a basic media center PC. (again, i3, 4GB RAM, 300GB+ HDD for recorded TV, dual tuner, nice case, Win 7 Pro), plugged into Cat6, all good. Win 7 Pro means you can backup the whole system image to the file server when needed.

Some of the things I'd like to have:
- Central server for all my media (movies, photos, music) - Yes as per above.
- Be able to stream that to potentially any room in the house - No problem if you wire it all up. Wireless is generally to be avoided but always an option.
- Have a single Quad tuner accessible to either HT room or living room, potentially other locations - I say forget this (unless you head down the Linux/Myth front end/backend path) - Just put a dual tuner in each Media Center box and run Coax to each. It just works.
- Have a RAID configuration - as per above
- Be able to add more storage as required - as per above
- Be able to back it up to either external HDD, to a PC in another room or to the cloud? - as per above - backup to extHDD or a network location if using Win7 Pro, cloud an option for data/docs/photos etc but none of these are feasible for ALL your TB's of media, hence the RAID.
- UPS? - as per above, 2000VA or thereabouts will happily cover a file server/router/switch etc.
- Set it up as a Firewall - Get a half decent router, does the job fine.

Others might suggest a Drobo / NAS box with RAID for file serving, or running Xbox360's on each TV and sharing a Quad tuner placed into the File Server, that would certainly be an option too, but haven't used it, so can't recommend it personally.

Hope that's a start anyway, my 2c.

Cheers
TiggerK

[dwebkombi]

Some things to think about:
- I would suggest CAT6 cable to every room in the house that you think will ever need an internet connection. This is cheap an easy if you do it at the time of building. Run it all back to a central point such as a room or vented cupboard backing onto the HT room.
- This room could house your MCPC, and or central server. The MCPC could have 4+ tuners and connect to the the HT gear via HDMI and remote via IR extenders.
- Media could be accessed via xbox extenders very reliably to any room with a cat6 port (think the limit is 4 extenders. I like extenders as I only have to look after 1 MCPC.

- I would definitely try to keep the main server and any extra noise out of the HT room. Keep all your PC gear somewhere with plenty of power outlets and some ventilation.

[DDH]

As previously stated, so many possible answers. A key question is always, are you looking for a press and forget system, or are you a tinkerer who is going to want a cross between "production" and "development"?

I'll approach this from the second point of view, as I have myself. I've gone down the build some infrastruture then add systems on top architectural path.

My setup is to build a medium sized central server based on ESXi 5. This runs 24x7 and means I only have a single machine running all the time.

Now on the ESXi box I then run whatever I want, pretty well abstracted from the hardware. So I can run a proxy, firewall box, etc. I can also run media systems as Windows, Linux, etc. All I need to do is serve up content to the cleint MCE's around the house. My central setup at present comprises:
- Arch Linux Squid proxy with SquidGuard
- Windows 2008 R2 with its own RAID 5 array addressed directly using ESXi passthrough technology
- Windows 7 MCE with both internal and USB tuners (6 in total)
- Another protected Windows machine for BT work
- Another Windows machine for remote access (incoming)
- Various Windows machines for members of the house that are accessed via RDP
Various other "develoment" machines such as Arch Linux, Ubuntu with various other media centre software

Certainly not for everyone. What it has done though is give me one central machine to run with abstraction from most of the systems running on top of it. being able to run up additional VMs and test without touching production certainly keeps the WAF high.

[TiggerK]

Another thought is to simply combine the file server and home theatre room MC system. Put it in a ventilated/soundproofed cupboard or separate room behind the screen (So you can access Bluray etc when needed), up the specs a bit (i5/i7 CPU, 8GB RAM, SSD for O/S) and it can do both jobs happily. As long as the remote sensor is visible, you won't need to access the machine itself too much. I rip all my content (using another PC) onto the file server before watching it anyway, so other than the occasional rented movie, I never use the BD player.

I too have only the file server running 24x7,and if I was building it from scratch now, the newer model RAID cards will power off the RAID array drives, so could do standby or hard drive power off modes too and get the power down even more. All other systems power down after a short while, and SSD's help them come back on quickly.

As for automation, anything is possible, but often painful. Again extenders may help, plus a lot of small media playing devices (inc many modern TV's) now read networked drives so you can play music from the file server etc So many options!! But CAT6 connections everywhere as dwebkombi suggests is definitely the way to go all back to a 16/24 port Gigabit switch, and try to allow for the ability to run other cables later if at all possible. You always need one more cable somewhere down the track!

And speaking as an audio nut, don't skimp on the audio setup in the media theatre room!! Good speakers and amps! Ask here if in doubt about anything!

Cheers
TiggerK

[Dinks]

Designing a new home is full of many things that need to be considered and none of us are futurists! Having said that, the NBN is coming, so you need to bare that in mind with any plans you may finally settle with. So an area preferably a heat insulated cupboard/wardrobe (tech hates summer heat) with possibly a fan inserted to circulate air through the cupboard near the front of the house (Garage) where the phone lines NBN cabling will be installed to. This cupboard will need to be reasonably large and have plenty of power outlets. Consider having an electrical circuit just for this room. That way it remains electrically isolated from the rest of the home. Have a look at the links to articles in the PC Authority magazine that have photos of the NBN gear and what we are all in for. Have a read of OzCableGuy's site on home cabling, Darren is a respected member of Whirlpool and has always given me straight advice.


My 2 cents worth is CAT6 and TV coax to EVERY room, well I have a wireless extender in a bathroom to boost the wireless signal to the throne, you never know what you want to bolt into a home in 10/20 years time. No need to terminate it in a wall plate if you are trying to cut costs, or run cable to both sides of a bedroom. You may think the bed will always sit in that position however SWMBO'd may have a different opinion later on. Stipulate to the builder that the noggins are placed sideways at certain points to facilitate the pulling of cables at a later time. Beats having to put an auger up/down through a wall or worse still, run a cable cover around the skirting board. Take plenty of photos as the house frame is being built with a tape measure in the photos so that in 5/15 years time you can make modifications with more precision. Chalk the measurements on the concrete slab if possible.

Without knowing the layout of the home its a bit of a stretch to advise you, however if the home included a walk-in pantry between the kitchen and the home theatre then you could house all the above in this room as well as the kitchen storage area. It would also go some way to noise proofing the home theatre, makes for a good selling point for SWMBO'd.

With this all in place, later on you can then concentrate on the hardware that you want to use. Given you are 31? what happens when the children grow, there needs will have changed also. Remember that hardware is updated at least every decade and no matter whether you are the set and forget or tinkerer if the house has been built from the outset to accommodate change, then the rest is a matter of purchase and install as and when you desire. When the time comes to move (heaven forbid) the cabling is a selling feature.

[logifuse]

Don't rule out MediaPortal & ForTheRecord for your server. I've got a quad tuner in my server/main HTPC (as Tigger suggests) that serves that, my bedroom PC, my home desktop & my laptop (where I watch TV live via RTSP via wireless N out by the BBQ - heading out there now in fact :D ). Any Windows desktop can be a client.

I'm successfully running a fanless ION2 as my bedroom front end, but I reckon you need a bit more GPU than that for a full client on a 1080p screen (although there is some great codec work going on at the moment for Nvidia GPUs).

Justin

[Kazdalk]

If you are a Microsoft man I would consider the following.

For the server I would run Windows Home Server 2011 (WHS) with a software based RAID5 array. It can serve up media and data around the house connected via Cat 6. I have moved away from a dedicated RAID card as the problem is if it busts then you need to buy the same again to get data off the disks and they aren't cheap. Also, I don't need the disk to be that fast, just redundant. Personally I am using a HP Microserver that electrically runs off the smell of an oily rag and can handle 6 disks internally when also using the DVD slot (http://www.pccasegea...oducts_id=11025) and a 2 port PCIe SATA card.

For the HTPC front ends, individual Win7 boxes is often the easiest way to go to each TV. But instead of having tuners in each one, I am using HDHomerun networked dual tuners which are not tied to a specific box. Additionally WHS2011 has the inbuilt ability to draw back recorded TV from each HTPC back to its central disk.

An imminent version of Gridjunction can run on the WHS 2011 server and during a power failure, shut it down in an orderly fashion.

WHS and Win7 all play very nicely together and WHS can also automatically backup any Win7 laptops you have. CrashPlan installed on the server could be used to backup to the cloud any documents etc. Cloud backup for media is not practical considering the size of the files.

Anyone want to by an 8 port PCIe x 4 SATA II RAID card (Intel SRCSATAWB) for $300? :)

This post has been edited by Kazdalk: 18 January 2012 - 11:50 PM