Automating home theater?

[jskibo]

We are just wrapping up the basement build out consisting of a 9 seat home theater, 8 seat wet bar with keg tap and a couple of TV's, bedroom and bath.

I have all my equipment rack mounted in the theater and had purchased some Buffalo IR gear to play with but I don't think that's going to do it. I also looked at an ebay Bitwise unit but ran fast after seeing the lack of support for DIY now.

Since the bar is pretty easy to set up, I think I want to move the Buffalo gear to that. I already have am LV box on the back bar wall wired with CAT5. Only need to control an Onkyo RC160 receiver and a DirectTV box from that as I can control the Panasonic 50" Plasma and Panasonic 42" LED TV's locally. The Onkyo also feeds the outdoor zone for the rear deck.

In the theater I would like to do something that is easy for the Wife and kids to use. Since we have 2 iPads, 3 iPhones and 3 or 4 iPod touch units, I would like to have something that can be used through an Apple app. At some point I will dedicate an iPad soley to the theater room.

The gear I need to control is:

Panasonic AE4000U Projector (Have wire to it for either 12v trigger or IR)
NAD T747
NAD T955 (should be able to use 12v trigger)
DirectTV H24 box
PS3 40GB
Xbox 360
2u rack server runing W7/64
All are run through an APC S15 except the PJ

There is also an HP Media Smart server, CCTV cam server and about to add a Homeseer box to the mix

Was thinking of using Global Cache now. Maybe a GC100-12 or 18 and iRule? is there something better?

Few pics before its all done:

 

[tmbrown97]

Looks awesome! Someday I'm going to move out of California just so I can get my damn basement with Theater, Bar and Exercise room...

Before I saw you mention it, the first thing that came to mind is the GlobalCache stuff - you can get into the IR, 12V, and RS232 control with them. And they have good support - so if iRule isn't doing enough for you, you can grow into HomeSeer or Elve and get into more advanced control options - that way the iPad can execute a macro that dims the lights, drops the screen, turns on the source equipment, sets the source, and starts the movie - all from a single press... but while you're tinkering with the bigger stuff, she can still use iRule reliably.

I'm no expert on IR control though - I've researched it but have no real-world experience yet... but I'll be trying the globalcache units before long. There are far better versed experts around here that can share their experience.

BTW, I love the HP MediaSmart HomeServer - if you have it acting as just a WHS, you might consider making it work a little harder... I run Elve and 3CX VOIP phone system and even an NVR now and it's holding up just fine without me having more equipment taking up space around the house.

 

[jskibo]

Thanks!

I grabbed a couple Global Cache iTach units last night, a wifi2ir and a wifi2rs232 to try out. Rommie remote site had the best price on them ($99), iRule is in Detroit so I would get taked buying from them. I might add more to the other TV's in the house if they work well.

Been wiring up my Elk, but decided to change to the new LCD keypads so won't have it running until next weekend. Also plan on getting a homeseer box up and running shortly.

I have been using the MediaSmart server just for music and movie streaming as well as bacups of a few machines. Didn't know you could run the other stuff on it, will have to check it out. I did look on ebay this morning after you mentioned the other uses and found ssomeone selling a Ex475 that had a hard drive failure for $100, so I grabbed it. Had the same problem long ago on mine and will reload it if I can find my 3.0 discs. Worth it for the $'s

 

[kertofer]

I am in the middle of doing a similar control setup using Global Cache and Homeseer. I am setting mine up so that the Global Cache can control all of the gear that is centralized, then I ran a serial cable from my Homeseer box to the projector location. I can now trigger all of this from a touchscreen, I use an iPad, using the Homeseer HSTouch screens. I also have a Scene controller in the room to use for lighting and such and one of the scenes triggers events within Homeseer to setup all my gear when the lights are turned on using the "Movie" scene.