urgent help needed with HT and home network...

hi all

not sure if this is the right forum so mods feel free to move to the correct one.

I just need a confirmation that what i am doing is correct. Am building a house in Oz and having cat 5e put all over the house, leading back to the study, where i have my wireless router (its about 4 years old now so will prob need updating) - am assuming that i just plug the router into the network port???. Then I am looking to get a NAS (something like a WD Sharespace but may start with a mybook world edition) and plugging that into the router. So, if i then plug a newtork media player (I have a popcorn hour and a asrock ap-300 (great bit of kit)) or laptop/pc into the network socket, plug that into the tv/hifi then i will be able to see all the stuff on the NAS (mp3 and avi's) and play through that channel.

Now, if i want to distribute foxtel, do i just plug the foxtel box into the router? or do i plug that into an ariel (coax) cable routed round the house and just have that as a seperate channel on the screens?

To change channel, I am assuming that i am going to have to have some infra red remote system placed strategically around the house?

all these questions!!!!

cheers

Chris

I'll post some more Info tomorrow.. when my brain isn't fried from being in a hot roof all day

Hi Chris,

I'll try and keep this as least techy as possible.

You want to run a Cat5e cable to each room you want to connect any computer device with a cable and bring each of those cables back to the central point where your router is.

Most standard routers have 4 network ports on the - labelled 1 to 4 - you plug the cat5e cables into those ports. Most routers have their DHCP turned on by default and it will provide a unique IP address to each computer device you connect - including the NAS.

With your NAS and Media centre connected - you'll need to add the NAS drive to the lists of drives the Media Centre checks for content - after which all of the content will appear in your video library.

Usually you'd need to have a decoder at each point with the TV where you want Foxtel - with coax cable to each decoder - that way you can have different channels on. But if you've recorded any Foxtel from the Media Centre onto the NAS - any other comptuer on the network should be able to see it.

Hope that helps a bit

thanks guys - think i get it. what about hte remote control?

can i run foxtel round the hous eon cat 5e and control channel/iq?

Firstly, you should be aware that running Foxtel around the house is not the same (as easy) as running FTA transmitted TV signal around the house.
The Foxtel signal has to be decoded by the Foxtel box. Unlike the FTA transmitted TV signal which is decoded by each of your TVs (inbuilt tuners).
Let's assume that you receive Foxtel in your central location (study) and then send this Foxtel signal to your TV (in another room).
You say you will do this "on CAT 5e" - but standard coax will be sufficient for re-transmitting the Foxtel signal.

For remote control, taking Foxtel as the example...
This requires "line-of-sight" (IR) remote control. So, you need to point it at the box for the remote to work. Obviously you can't do that if the Foxtel box is in another room.
There are ways around this :
- stump up the exhorbitant amount for Foxtel Multi-room solutions (a Foxtel box in each room that needs one). This has the advantage that you will be able to watch different Foxtel channels in the different rooms - but you will need to take out a second mortgage to fund it
- use IR repeaters. These are IR receiver devices that sit near your TV (that you can point the Foxtel remote at) and they re-transmit the remote codes to the Foxtel box over a wire and a sticky little transmitter that you attach to the single central Foxtel box.


OK - I tried to keep that as non-technical as possible. Hope you are still with me

If your Foxtel box is not within a short distance of the TV (e.g. your box is in a different room altogether) - that is still OK. You can buy a device similar to the simple IR receiver/transmitter setup that will send your IR codes over CAT cable back to the location of the Foxtel box a long way away.

The reality is that the long-distance IR repeater option is not that cheap. And you may find that it is less hassle and more beneficial to just to pay for a multiroom Foxtel solution (are they really still charging an extra $25 per month per room for this ?).

JIlla is onth e"money" too.. there are ways of doing foxtel in other rooms .. which state are you in ???? if you are not in SA i can send you a file witha heap of really good info on it .. but if you are in SA feele free to contact me for a over all solution to get your house "connected"

just pm me your email address

thanks guys - if i run it over the coax cable that will be fine.
cheers
Chris