Streaming Video

Sounds good tpin70, be keen to hear/see how it all works out. They are pretty good prices - did you get them from the US? EBay? Brands?

Cheers

got the mux from evilbay, hdmi extenders and cabling from a mate that cables for a living. I wanted to dist to 8 tv's but 4 will have to do for now as the mux's get horribly expensive above 4 x 4. if all works well i will have just a tv on the wall in the family room with no assoicated guff and cables sitting under it and my mrs will be able to get on the running machine in the rumpus room without having to move the running machine so she can watch foxtel in the family room

That is exactly the result I want - keep the updates coming and I hope it all works well!

received and installed the extenders today. 1080 received on all links from the blueray player .. now just need the hdmi mux to bring it all together .. the extenders came with power supplys but they are not needed

That's a good start tpin70. Any chance of some pics of what you are doing/the gear etc?

No need for power supplies - how does that work?

Cheers

hey .. ill throw some pics up in the coming days all has come to a halt for several reasons most of all the place is being tiled. I installed the Hdmi extenders and they work a treat. bluray accross them looks very nice. I have a samsung series 4 plasma and blueray, and 2 lg plasmas. one of the LGs is only hdmi1 standard and wont work over the extenders which does not suprise me.

I got the extenders working and tested them then added in the matrix switch. On my samsung I received a unknown format error. after a bit of googling I found this is a common problem with samsung and anything hdmi. Im currently waiting on a reply from samsung about updated firmware to fix the problem. My second LG plasma 2009 vinatage works very well through the matrix switch and works as it should be. foxtel, blueray and pvr all successfully connected.

Whilst im waiting for the tiling im investigating HDMI over IP. it uses a box on the end behind the reciver device and one on the sending device the same as you need for an extender but this setup runs through a managed switch via a single cat 5e/6 cable. What it does is each device is assigned a different VLan by the switch and these are changed on the fly to connect the items. with multi casting you could have a sending device (ie dvd) and upto 199 tv's. or 1 tv and 199 sending devices The technology is very simple in its concept and and everything I have read states no seen picture quality reduction. switch times are very quick 2 seconds compared to 5-10 for a matrix switch. The downside to the technology is unless your IT savy is you need to purchase a separate controller for it ie control 4 etc.

being an IT admin this technology is very simple to me and I have the most important part of the setup (a managed switch). I am looking very seriously at this technology. Its not for the feint hearted I costed it (ballpark) and the setup would be about 3k without controller. Something like the control 4 controller starts at about 3k also

Sounds like it's coming together tpin. Do you have any links on the HDMI over IP box? I'm in IT as well so it sounds like something that might be interesting (apart from the price!). Can you see any advantages to it for that price aside from the switch times and obvious scalability?

http://www.justaddpower.com/Home-Theater-HDMI-Matrix/View-all-products.html is the link

I think if you have a read for yourself you will understand the concept better. I think it has a wide range of advantages but nothing better than scalability. the Ability to fully intergrate it into your IP network is second to none. on the same POE network you can run a dedicated voip network (internal and external) and connecting this into a home management system seems like it will intergrate very nice with your security ie video etc ..

HDMI over IP is simple far to expensive as you need to purchase a manage switch and transmitters at each location which are like 800$ each and then you need a control box to actually control the manage switch and transmitters like Control 4 do. This is a good solution if you have large premises's as you may need to feed HDMI to 10 TV's. But even the downfall of that is you won't be able to get loseless sound to each transmitter as it defaults back to standard (major downfall).

I haven't read all the thread other than some posts on the first page but heres how I've solved the streaming media issue in my place:

Random old parts server with 3 TV tuners running Linux with MythTV (Software PVR) and a bunch of drives with all my media (Movies, Music, Photos etc) hidden under the stairs next to my network gear.

From there I can run as many media front ends as I like really. In the lounge I'm using an Asrock mini PC (Intel Atom CPU/Nvidia ION chipset in a box about 20x20cm if that. I use an MS MCE copy remote and from the couch can stream my recorded TV over the network or watch any movie in full HD without a glitch. If and when I get a harmony one, that will be able to control it also. For all intensive purposes its dead silent (I can just hear plasma buzz and nothing else with audio muted) and once setup, the user has no idea what software is underneath the interface.

It probably sounds more complicated that it is, but after setting up the system, I'd never go back to off the shelf PVR's or HDD based media players in the lounge room.

The main benefit is centralised media. So you can watch the footy in one room, missus can watch last nights masterchef recording in another room and the kids can watch whatever and all you need is a LAN. No complicated video/audio transmitting solutions.

Hi tpin70!

Just wondering which mux, extenders etc you ended up going with? At the moment I'm looking around for a 4x4 HDMI matrix as well as cat6 to HDMI extenders - and as you've been saying, there are just so many products around that it's hard to know what the best options are!

I came across this matrix, which actually has the option of direct Cat6 output from the matrix: http://www.octavainc.com/HDMI%20Etherne ... 204x4.html
it also does IR passthrough over Cat6...although, i'd still need a control solution for all the sources, so a separate IR solution is probably the way to go. Something like this seems fairly neat: http://www.resi-linx.com/detail.php?prodid=25&maincat=

As for extenders, a mate of mine recommended these: http://www.aten.com/products/productIte ... =subClass6

Anyway, i'd be very interested to know what you went with and how it's all looking!!

Cheers
Adam

i went with a generic 4x4 mux and it was a wrong move. it works fine locally and does work via the extenders but it has issues switching. I found that the audio became out of sync with the video. other issues I found are I have an old 42 inch plasma with hdmi v1.1 and it wont pick it up at all. I also have a 50" samsung and it has problems with syncing. a bit of a read up on the samsung shows it has problems syncing at the best of times. so im having a re-think about how im going to achieve. The extenders I have work great to the samsung and my other 50" LG. they wont work with the 42 hdmi 1.1.

bring on hdmi 1.4 or HDbaseT. I know that would mean changing all my equipment tv's etc but I think it will be worth the wait. If you go with your mux you have found I would be very interested in hearing how it goes.

Hi tpin, just wondering if you'd made any progress with your mux issues?

@Adam(BuildingACT) - have you bought or set anything up yet?

Cheers.

Hey Westy

Sorry for not replying sooner! Slowly making progress...but still trying to pull together all the bits and pieces I need/want. Basically, my system will be made up along the following lines:

Netgear WiFi modem
TP Link 8 port gigabit switch
Aten Cat6 to HDMI 1.3 baluns
Aten 4x4 HDMI matrix
Kords IR-30 IR extender kit
DViCo TVIX 6640 media player
Mvix Box 2TB NAS
Foxtel IQ
PS3

Currently waiting on the HDMI baluns and the HMDI mux, but hopefully will have them in the next week or so and can see how they go!

Ordered a new Sony Bravia on the weekend...making use of the "free PS3" promotion...and got my eye on a new projector, receiver, screen etc...so hopefully over the next 6 months will have everything working like clockwork

Cheers
Adam

No worries, thanks for the info. Gives me a good starting point when setting up my stuff in 6-12 months' time (hopefully we'll be in after 6). Are you getting the stuff locally or from OS? The problem I found with OS stuff is powering it (if it needs power). But it's so much cheaper than here!

Anyway, keep the info coming!

Cheers

Just a quick update - wasn't able to get my hands on the Aten 4x4 hdmi
matrix (no stock, no firm leadtime to order), so instead I've ordered the Octava Inc 4x4 hdmi matrix http://www.octavainc.com/HDMI%20matrix% ... 204x4.html which will hopefully be here sometime next week!

p.s. Westy - sourcing pretty much everything locally through a mate of mine who is a local distributor of a lot of AV/Home Theatre gear and can get most things close to cost price for me! For media players, etc, I get my gear from www.medianow.com.au

Ah, handy to have someone you know in the business. If he's a distributor, I take it they can be bought in Australia?

A question - if you are running a HT room, how are you planning to hook in the devices to the matrix switch as well as the local amp/AVR? I run all my devices into an AVR with one output to the screen, so I'm thinking they'd have to go through the matrix switch first and then one of the outputs would have to be the local AVR yes? I wonder if this would affect PQ (as my AVR does upscaling as well)?

Hey Westy, yep pretty much all the gear I'm getting can be sourced locally, although some things like the 4x4 matrix have been harder to track down!

And yep, you've hit the nail on the head! All 'shared' sources will be hooked up to the matrix and one of the four 'outputs' will be a dedicated AVR for the HT room (colocated with the matrix and all sources).

As the matrix simply routes the signal from the source (i.e. doesn't process the signal) there shouldn't be any issue in terms of pq/signal quality AFAIK. The matrix is also HDCP 'transparent', so again, fingers crossed, no issues!

Down the track, I'll more than likely end up having a couple of sources dedicated to the HT setup e.g. second Foxtel box, dedicated NMP...at which point I'll hook them straight up to the AVR.

Ok, thanks for the confirmation Adam. Glad to know I'm on the right track.

So onto the next question...

How are you planning to 'route' the signals? Can the signals be switched like any other network traffic once they come out of the extenders (baluns) on CAT6? Is that what the 8 port switch is for? So for each source it will go:

Source --HDMI--> matrix --HDMI--> Extender --CAT6--> switch --CAT6--> home network --CAT6--> extender --HDMI--> target

Cheers
westy

nope it won't work like that, it isn't converted in to IP traffic... so you can't use a Switch in that capacity.

Source --HDMI--> matrix --HDMI--> Extender --CAT6--> Patch pannel----Desired room--Cat6 cabling--- Wall plate--> CAT6--> extender --HDMI--> target.


best way IMO.

Soucre (home file server) Cat6 patch lead---> Network Switch---> Patch panel----Desired room--Cat6 cabling--- Wall plate--> CAT6--> Network Media player/ PC/ HTPC---HDMI-- Screen

and heck load more cheaper afaik