3 Room Streaming Solution?

3 machines would be enough if one plays the files and stores them.

the server wouldn't need much power at all, actually its just a file server really... a NAS would even work just fine...

the Player machines would just need enough power to be able to play the content...

I have a server with about 5TB sitting in my garage that servers up content throughout the house. We have 5 media centers, one home office machine and 3 laptops. All media centers and the home office are on wired gigabit LAN with CAT6. The laptops are all wireless 54mbps.

I have tested my setup quite a few times.

- I can stream the exact same SD DVD movie to all five media centers at the same time without a hiccup.
- I can stream the exact same HD DVD movie to all five media centers at the same time without a hiccup.
- Obviously different movies in different areas of the house are not even an issue.
- I can record live HD TV to the server directly from all 5 media centers at the same time.
- Playback of HD streams on all 5 is not even an issue.

The server probably doesn't even break 20% CPU usage while doing all this.

(I won't even go into the music/photos etc part. That's trivial).

My server was about $800, about $120 for the SATA cards, and about $1,300 in hard drives. (And about $50 in miscellaneous wires etc).

Each of my media centers cost about $600 including the O/S.

thats the price point I am hoping to hit
but I haven't really done anything about that yet...
still, Gigabyte has a really cool MB with the AMD/ATI 690 integrated graphics that looks cool ~$80, plus a cheap AMD 64 X2 ~$100, some ram `$90?,a cheap PS ~$30... should be doable...
unfortunately for me, I want them to be centrally located in 1U server type chassis, going into a matrix switch that is controlled by CQC....
that will add a bit to the cost, but the end result is that it should be easier than Sonos for someone to use... and Sonos is so simple, anyone can just pick up the controller and make music happen anywhere... I want that same simplicity and power with my video...

Kapone, could you please tell us the hardware configuration of your server?
thanks

Tyan s5360 motherboard with 4GB RAM, dual 3.2GHz Xeon Nocona CPUs, 5 Sil3124 based host adapater cards with 4 eSATA ports each (for a total of 20 ports), and each port is port multiplier capable, so I can hang a Sil 3726/4726 based port multiplier off of each port to give me a total of 100 SATA ports.

Currently a mix of 250GB and 500GB drives totaling 5TB.

All housed in rack mount enclosures with hotswap SATA cages.

I have a computer in one room with an ATI Wonder 650 and a Sharp LCD HD TV in another room. I can record HD on the computer using Beyond TV. What would be the easiest way to get the recorded video to the TV? Buy another computer and stream the video? What software do you use to ship the video?

um, if you are already using BTV, the absolute easiest thing to do is build yourself a cheap/small/quiet PC for next to the TV and try out BTVLink... works wonderfully, almost like it was made for situations just like that...

I have a Hidef HTPC in the theater room which does all the saving and managing of digital multimedia. I then have a Buffalo 2TB NAS drive for storage. I then use a Buffalo Linktheater for the rest of the house. It's strictly a media server and I've attached the SD composite out to a modulator and added the channel to my house cable. At each TV I have a IR repeater and I can go anyplace in the house and watch any video or play and music. This is a lot less equipment and easier and not to mention cheaper.

Another note about this. I had considered that the HTPC could be the media server for the whole house by way of connecting one of its outputs to a modulator and then you'd have control of it throughout the house. I've gotten it working but I think I'll stick with the Linktheater for SD stuff throughout the house because it's just frankly easier to control with just a TV and a remote. The HTPC seemed like a great idea and I could in theory do email from bed but it looks to me that it's just as easy to grab my laptop and not have to fool with multiple displays connected to the same device.

Just FYI, you can really buy some good video modulators these days and adding channels is easy. I have 4 camera channels and 5 others from DVDs, Tivo, Satelite and etc.

I think I may in the future consider trying to find a good VGA cable and run a VGA connection up to the bedroom and put in a nice Hidef monitor.

John

Thanks for the inputs SomeWhatLost and jongig. Let me look into your suggestions.

I assume you are doing this on a Gigabit network? Can you list NIC cards and switches used?

Yup. Hard wired gigabit with CAT6 throughout.

NIC cards are all onboard. On the server, it's the Intel PRO 1000 (onboard), and on the clients, it's a mix of realtek and marvell onboard. The switches are all Netgear Pro (but not enter prise or anything) gigabit switches.

well,I just put in my order at newegg and I almost made the $400 range... actually what blew it for me was the 1U server chassis/PS and what really blew it was the $299 SDD for the OS drive... but it just looked so cool, and quite...
actually, total bill was like $690, if I wasn't wasting money on a $300 SDD that is only 8GB I could of just made it...