Hi everyone my name is Reilly. Im currently building my own house, and have been researching the net constantly for the last few months trying to figure out which way to go for different aspects of my home automation. After reading some of the other threads in this forum i felt it may be very beneficial for me to make a post so here we go!
My house is a 4500 sq ft 3 floor house, im looking to have the automation cover audio/video, lighting, and then hvac, security, etc
The questions i have are more based on a particular setup, so let me go into exactly what i want to do, and then hoepfully someone can shed some light on the best way of doing it
Audio/Video - Id like to have a single central server with all my mp3s, vdeos, tvshows etc, id like to serve that to all TVs in the house, and id like to be able to serve all the tvs at once with same OR different content from that server as well as simultaneously being able to play mp3s from that central server in all zones throughout the house, or different mp3s in different zones at the same time. Now the kicker is id like to have a nice graphical interface similiar to xbmc or mediaportal (with eye candylike nice menus, box cover art and descriptions etc), but from what i have seen, those dont offer serving multiples at the same time, i would just be able to have that as 1 input unless i setup multiple servers (which i dont want to do) Im looking at using a matrix hdmi switch to have multiple inputs such as cable box, htpc, dvd player etc, but my main issue is i want to have the htpc serve more than one piece of media at a time.. any thoughts?
Lighting - Ive just started looking at lighting so i guess i just want to incorporate it with whatever home automation i install, and have scenes and all off and all on ability etc, i had read another thread on this forum and people were talking about running cat5 to each switch in your house, and have that cat5 run back to a central server room.. the problem was the last post on that was in 2009 so i wanted to check if that was still the best way to go or not?
Speech recognition - Im also thinking about working in some speech recognition macros such as "computer, watch tv in media room" stuff like that, ive been looking at girder pro 5 using a usb uirt IR transmitter receiver, but i havent been getting much response on the girder forums these days, so not sure if thats really going to be an option or not.
Oh also i was hoping to stay away from proprietary systems like crestron and control 4 because of cost and just would rather have somehting i can tweak and change myself, and not need a pro to come in.
Thanks to anyone that can give me any pointers as to whats good and whats not and the best/most efficient ways of achieving what i want.
Reilly
My house is a 4500 sq ft 3 floor house, im looking to have the automation cover audio/video, lighting, and then hvac, security, etc
The questions i have are more based on a particular setup, so let me go into exactly what i want to do, and then hoepfully someone can shed some light on the best way of doing it
Audio/Video - Id like to have a single central server with all my mp3s, vdeos, tvshows etc, id like to serve that to all TVs in the house, and id like to be able to serve all the tvs at once with same OR different content from that server as well as simultaneously being able to play mp3s from that central server in all zones throughout the house, or different mp3s in different zones at the same time. Now the kicker is id like to have a nice graphical interface similiar to xbmc or mediaportal (with eye candylike nice menus, box cover art and descriptions etc), but from what i have seen, those dont offer serving multiples at the same time, i would just be able to have that as 1 input unless i setup multiple servers (which i dont want to do) Im looking at using a matrix hdmi switch to have multiple inputs such as cable box, htpc, dvd player etc, but my main issue is i want to have the htpc serve more than one piece of media at a time.. any thoughts?
Lighting - Ive just started looking at lighting so i guess i just want to incorporate it with whatever home automation i install, and have scenes and all off and all on ability etc, i had read another thread on this forum and people were talking about running cat5 to each switch in your house, and have that cat5 run back to a central server room.. the problem was the last post on that was in 2009 so i wanted to check if that was still the best way to go or not?
Speech recognition - Im also thinking about working in some speech recognition macros such as "computer, watch tv in media room" stuff like that, ive been looking at girder pro 5 using a usb uirt IR transmitter receiver, but i havent been getting much response on the girder forums these days, so not sure if thats really going to be an option or not.
Oh also i was hoping to stay away from proprietary systems like crestron and control 4 because of cost and just would rather have somehting i can tweak and change myself, and not need a pro to come in.
Thanks to anyone that can give me any pointers as to whats good and whats not and the best/most efficient ways of achieving what i want.
Reilly