Hi everyone, I'm looking to get some straightforward general information. I've been searching this forum and trying to learn all about HTPC for about a week now, but am overwhelmed at all they can potentially do! It's like a whole new world has been opened up to me as to the potential of my home theater.
At first I was going to just buy a Sony 400 BD Megachanger, but realized that would only serve one TV, and the changer would be full as soon as I put my movies in and have no room for expansion.
OK so what I want to do is store all my BDs and DVDs in a centralized server and have the movies available to all my TVs in the house. (Master bedroom, living room, media room which isn't built yet). I have just about 300 BD titles, and over 100 DVD titles and of course this number will probably double or triple by the end of the life of the format.
Also what I want to build must be very simple to use so my wife can use it without weird glitches or going through a lot of tedious and confusing steps to play a movie.
Here's the plan that I came up with reading the forums the past week. I plan on building a RAID 5 server with minimum 12TB storage to start. Also this server will be my rip-station as my laptops don't have BD drives. I have my entire home wired with Cat5e and I can add more drops fairly easily in my house, so no issues there. On the TV ends, all 3 are HDMI compatible, and two of them have AVRs they hook to for surround sound/switching (I like uncompressed sound from BDs). I was looking into the WDTV Live or upcoming Popbox or Boxee to attach to the TV in the living room and the bedroom, mainly because of the pretty user interface.
So far, is my planned proposal going to serve my purpose the way I'd like? Are there any holes in my plan? I realize I haven't gone into very much detail, but I do have many more specific questions I'd like to ask if this general set-up will serve my needs.
Also to give a little bit more background, I do understand that a full blown HTPC can serve as a DVR and TV tuner with all sorts of cool little features. However, we have AT&T U-verse which as of right now doesn't integrate into a HTPC at all. Also, I have a couple BD players that stream Netflix and Amazon movies so I'm covered in this department as well. The media room which isn't finished yet and may not be for a couple years, will get a full blown HTPC build when the time is right.
Thank You so much for your help and this awesome forum!
Mark
At first I was going to just buy a Sony 400 BD Megachanger, but realized that would only serve one TV, and the changer would be full as soon as I put my movies in and have no room for expansion.
OK so what I want to do is store all my BDs and DVDs in a centralized server and have the movies available to all my TVs in the house. (Master bedroom, living room, media room which isn't built yet). I have just about 300 BD titles, and over 100 DVD titles and of course this number will probably double or triple by the end of the life of the format.
Also what I want to build must be very simple to use so my wife can use it without weird glitches or going through a lot of tedious and confusing steps to play a movie.
Here's the plan that I came up with reading the forums the past week. I plan on building a RAID 5 server with minimum 12TB storage to start. Also this server will be my rip-station as my laptops don't have BD drives. I have my entire home wired with Cat5e and I can add more drops fairly easily in my house, so no issues there. On the TV ends, all 3 are HDMI compatible, and two of them have AVRs they hook to for surround sound/switching (I like uncompressed sound from BDs). I was looking into the WDTV Live or upcoming Popbox or Boxee to attach to the TV in the living room and the bedroom, mainly because of the pretty user interface.
So far, is my planned proposal going to serve my purpose the way I'd like? Are there any holes in my plan? I realize I haven't gone into very much detail, but I do have many more specific questions I'd like to ask if this general set-up will serve my needs.
Also to give a little bit more background, I do understand that a full blown HTPC can serve as a DVR and TV tuner with all sorts of cool little features. However, we have AT&T U-verse which as of right now doesn't integrate into a HTPC at all. Also, I have a couple BD players that stream Netflix and Amazon movies so I'm covered in this department as well. The media room which isn't finished yet and may not be for a couple years, will get a full blown HTPC build when the time is right.
Thank You so much for your help and this awesome forum!
Mark