[Question] Setting up my entertainment center.

Dave

Dave

Staff member
So I'm trying to set up my entertainment center to be all-inclusive. Here's what I have:
  • Cable modem
  • Wireless router
  • DVR
What I'd like to do is to be able to stream the TV through the computer or watch movies/surf/whatever depending on what I have it set up as. Ultimately I'd like to have one thing on the big monitor and something else on the smaller one. Like TV playing on the main monitor and surfing on the other.

I went coax into the DVR and cable out to the cable modem, thinking that it would carry the signal through, but no dice. I really don't want to buy a TV tuner for the computer, but from what I'm seeing that's my only real option.

Any ideas?
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
I thought that would degrade the signal too much for digital cable and broadband.
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

Usually the cable modem has to be the first thing in the chain. If it doesn't have a passthrough for downstream devices then a splitter is probably your only choice. Just make sure not to have too many splitters in your house or your speeds will suffer.

--Patrick
 
Bowielee

Bowielee

Does it cause that issue now? I assume you already have cable internet and cable TV, just in different rooms?

The signal still comes in on the same bandwith on one cable, splitting it would be no different, and would be what the cable company would do if you asked them to install a second line in another room, just that their splitter would be outside the house, rather than inside it.
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
Okay, so splitter it is. So all I'll have to do is switch the inputs on the monitor and it'll be good. Thanks, guys. I had already considered and dismissed that solution. Wrongly, it seems.
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
Splitter in, both are working fine. (Yes, I have splitters and other random crap like that just lying around.) I was worried about signal degradation? Nope.

 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
Well, I'm attempting to set up a system that will allow me to stream my movies and stuff on the 50' TV because I have a bunch in HD but I don't have a Blu-ray player or recorder. Plus...Diablo III or Minecraft in 50' was just so cool when I set it up before...
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

Dave said:
Splitter in, both are working fine. (Yes, I have splitters and other random crap like that just lying around.) I was worried about signal degradation? Nope.

Click to expand...
If you only have one or two, there's no problem. It's just when you start splitting split splitters that it really starts to dump.

--Patrick
 
figmentPez

figmentPez

Staff member
Dave said:
Well, I'm attempting to set up a system that will allow me to stream my movies and stuff on the 50' TV because I have a bunch in HD but I don't have a Blu-ray player or recorder. Plus...Diablo III or Minecraft in 50' was just so cool when I set it up before...
Click to expand...
Cheapest way is a long HDMI cable. That's how my TV is hooked up to my computer. Works well, but there's a cable running from my bedroom to my living room. Well, a second cable, since I've also got ethernet.
 
Thread Necromancer

Thread Necromancer

I feel like the many many years as a communications and cable tech would come in handy in this thread. And the many home theater and homebrew dvrs/media PCs I've put together would.

... but.. it also looks like it's been covered so far without me. I'll leave my lectures on RF theory and etc at the door.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
While not useful for gaming, I was pleasantly surprised to find my WD HDTVLive box counts as a media device that windows 7 and up natively recognizes and can use with just plain old windows media player. Got all your files on your computer, just use teamviewer to remote into it from your phone, right click the movie you want to play, select "Play to," then WDTV Live, and bingo bango, your video is on your TV.
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
GasBandit said:
While not useful for gaming, I was pleasantly surprised to find my WD HDTVLive box counts as a media device that windows 7 and up natively recognizes and can use with just plain old windows media player. Got all your files on your computer, just use teamviewer to remote into it from your phone, right click the movie you want to play, select "Play to," then WDTV Live, and bingo bango, your video is on your TV.
Click to expand...
I thought about getting a Chromecast, but only certain things are able to be broadcast so I haven't done it yet.
 
Necronic

Necronic

Staff member
Buy yourself a Roku and install the PLEX channel on it. Best investment of my life.

ed: ok I'm getting married in like 2 weeks so that might be a better investment.
 
Thread Necromancer

Thread Necromancer

Plex channel on the roku is great for streaming media to your tv. It won't let you do the games thing though.
For my money, I enjoyed turning my pc into a dedicated media box. but I warn you now, if you go down that road you will never stop. It will be an always constant project. not because it's not functional, but because you'll want MORE out of it.

I had mine with my entire DVD collection in full disk images, 6 tv tuners (4 off air HiDef and 2 analog cable), 37 days worth of flac ripped music library, and all your normal gaming and pc functions. And there was always a tweak, also some little more that can be gotten out of it. The ex wife would get frustrated because I was always changing things. It was too "complicated" but oh heaven if it ever broke did she get bent out of shape because she had to go back to "normal" tv.

It's a real love/hate relationship.

For simplistic purpose though, just to have your pc functions on your tv: a dual output video card that you can run one dvi to hdmi out to the tv, and one to the second monitor, wireless keyboard and mouse, and boom, you've got function.
 
Tinwhistler

Tinwhistler

Thread Necromancer said:
Plex channel on the roku is great for streaming media to your tv. It won't let you do the games thing though.
For my money, I enjoyed turning my pc into a dedicated media box. but I warn you now, if you go down that road you will never stop. It will be an always constant project. not because it's not functional, but because you'll want MORE out of it.

I had mine with my entire DVD collection in full disk images, 6 tv tuners (4 off air HiDef and 2 analog cable), 37 days worth of flac ripped music library, and all your normal gaming and pc functions. And there was always a tweak, also some little more that can be gotten out of it. The ex wife would get frustrated because I was always changing things. It was too "complicated" but oh heaven if it ever broke did she get bent out of shape because she had to go back to "normal" tv.

It's a real love/hate relationship.

For simplistic purpose though, just to have your pc functions on your tv: a dual output video card that you can run one dvi to hdmi out to the tv, and one to the second monitor, wireless keyboard and mouse, and boom, you've got function.
Click to expand...
My wife scoffed when I first wanted a media server. Now we can't live without it.

I've got my entire DVD and music library ripped to a server running Plex, and 4 Roku 3s distributed around the house. The only reason i haven't gotten rid of cable altogether is because my son still watches the kid channels (nick toons, etc) that I get with basic cable.
 
Last edited:
Thread Necromancer

Thread Necromancer

PatrThom said:
We just rigged up a broadcast antenna for the kids' shows. Now we just have all this dark RG57 running around the house.

--Patrick
Click to expand...
RG57? *shudder* I really hope not.

RG59 minimum and even then you have serious attenuation problems. RG6/6 Quad shield is about minimum standard for at least the last 10+ years.
 
Tinwhistler

Tinwhistler

PatrThom said:
We just rigged up a broadcast antenna for the kids' shows. Now we just have all this dark RG57 running around the house.

--Patrick
Click to expand...
I had ethernet/coax faceplates installed in every room when we had the wall built, and all the cable done before the walls went up.
I'm seriously considering buying a small 10u rack for the basement. heh.
 
Thread Necromancer

Thread Necromancer

Tinwhistler said:
I had ethernet/coax faceplates installed in every room when we had the wall built, and all the cable done before the walls went up.
I'm seriously considering buying a small 10u rack for the basement. heh.
Click to expand...
And now your talking about the best 500 bucks you ever spent...
for these purposes anyway
 
Necronic

Necronic

Staff member
you know my PLEX server is actually really poorly put together. I basically just took my old gaming PC, put a few hard drives in it and shared it. Same windows vista OS, I just run it headless. I have to restart it once a week or so. My main PC is where PLEX is managed though, so it bounces, wirelessly, from the PLEX/Server PC to the wireless router, back to my gaming PC, then back to the router, and then on to the Roku (I think).

Ed: In other words I am using a full scale gaming PC with an 800W power supply and a monster video card as a NAS.

Surprisingly I haven't really had any problems with that horrible setup.
 
Bowielee

Bowielee

My PC already is my full on entertainment center. However, I don't have cable, so I don't have to worry about the cable hookups. I don't know that I'd ever want to go back to a traditional desktop set up until I actually have an office where I will be doing my work for school.

For entertainment purposes, I love my PC to TV setup. The one thing that I did have to get is a long USB chord to hook up to a hub for gaming controllers because I didn't want all of them running across the floor.
 
Tinwhistler

Tinwhistler

Necronic said:
huh, really? I never paid for that....I do need to start loading more stuff on my PLEX server though.
Click to expand...
If you have plexpass, you don't get hit with the $5.00 fee.[DOUBLEPOST=1411063221,1411063004][/DOUBLEPOST]
Necronic said:
you know my PLEX server is actually really poorly put together. I basically just took my old gaming PC, put a few hard drives in it and shared it. Same windows vista OS, I just run it headless. I have to restart it once a week or so. My main PC is where PLEX is managed though, so it bounces, wirelessly, from the PLEX/Server PC to the wireless router, back to my gaming PC, then back to the router, and then on to the Roku (I think).

Ed: In other words I am using a full scale gaming PC with an 800W power supply and a monster video card as a NAS.

Surprisingly I haven't really had any problems with that horrible setup.
Click to expand...
When I build a new machine for myself, I re-purpose my old hardware for my son. His old hardware goes in a junk trunk in the basement. That's what I used to build my NAS server--the only new thing I bought was a 4tb drive. The rest of the hardware is easily 5-6 years old. Doesn't have to be much of a beast to push files across a network cable.
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

Thread Necromancer said:
RG57? *shudder* I really hope not.
Click to expand...
Sorry, that was just me confusing 75Ω with RG58. Yes, I meant RG59. That house was wired for cable probably in the mid-80's and believe me when I say it is a dark forest of multiple (pre-digital) unidirectional signal amplifiers/splitters and cables that are run along joists, steam pipes, or even zip tied directly to the Romex in places. I'd love to pull it all out now that it's useless, but I don't know if I want to go through all the trouble. I did go through and make sure all the amplifiers are unplugged/switched off, though.

--Patrick
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
So I am playing an HD movie (1080p), running my torrents, and playing Diablo III. Couple of lags in DIII but other than that it's all good.
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

This seemed like the best place to put this:

So...GPUs come with their own embedded hardware video de/encoders now. Does that mean you can finally tap the massive speed boost of GPU-assisted encoding in the newest AMD RX 6xxx/NVIDIA RTX 3xxx/Intel 750 "Xe" GPUs to finally compress all your video content at archive quality?

In a word, No.

Yes, hardware-boosted encoders are getting better. But no, they're not "archival" quality yet. Better to stick with x265 software-based encoding for now.

--Patrick
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top