Multi-room systems

Hi Muzz.

Our main brand for Multi-Room audio and video is Elan Home Systems, made in the U.S.:

http://www.elanhomesystems.com/

Top quality gear (I'm even using a pair of the MP800W and a pair of the MP650W in-walls as fronts in my cinema).

As for other areas:

Lighting: IR light switches you can simply replace your existing light switches with are not too hard to come by. We use a couple of different types when asked, and a sparky (or you ) can simply swap them over. I love mine - I've got a triple brass IR Touch Dimmer setup for the 3 banks of lights in my theatre. Quite inexpensive too.

Curtains: We've never had much call for that so haven't looked into it very much. Looked into motorised blinds (internal) a while ago - looking at (very roughly) about $1K per standard/average window.

Hi JT.

If you want to distribute audio and video to more than 2 rooms/zones then that's were a proper multi-room system comes into play, but if you're only talking about 2 rooms or more to the point 2 displays then you can do all of that with one A/V Receiver.

Many of today's A/V Receivers that are above the entry level support more than 1 video output in Component video and even HDMI (the Marantz SR-7002 has 4 HDMI inputs and 2 outputs, and up-converts all video to HDMI).

If you are yet to purchase your A/V Receiver for this theatre then getting one like this will make this very easy.

If you really want to distribute high quality video and audio to more than just a second room then you need to look at a decent audio/video distribution solution.

And yes, Elan Home systems do this, but you can get more affordable solutions using other componenets from other brands as well... (my own A/V Receiver is pre-HDMI and only has 1 Component video out, but I have a powered video distribution amp that can distribute Component video (and analogue audio) to 4 rooms, and these are only a few hundred dollars these days...).

I've found the Elan Home Systems stuff to be about the best value once you get into genuine multi-room audio/video territory (at least 2 different sources available and controllable from at least 2 different rooms...), even than the NuVo stuff on that U.S. web site mentioned above, and I've tried looking into a few of the 'cheaper' alternatives but they don't offer what the Elan stuff offers (and some of what they don't offer is stuff that 'makes or breaks' the solution as a whole...).

I'm going to have a go at rolling my own home automation system when I eventually build. Basic design is have a main server with a couple of HDTV cards (just for recording), and a NAS drive (basically a hard-drive that hooks straight into a network) to hold all my movies/music. Then have micro-PC's in each room serving as end-points that existing TV's and amps (and lights/curtains/whatever) plug into.

You say smarter and more cost effective - I say it's an alternative, and a good one, but not necessarily smarter and cheaper. Remember, you're talking about needing a device (media player, media PC, media extender, etc.) to play this media in every location (or at least for every location), whereas the 'multi-room' concept is more about central components doing the work and distributing the result via wire to the rooms' screens etc.