HOW TO DESIGN & BUILD
YOUR HOME MEDIA NETWORK

I wanted a home network that would connect and transport computer data, music and video. The network would be high-speed, flexible and capable of storing lots of digital data - photos, video, music, general backups. The network should include wireless for laptop mobility and Ethernet cable for reliability and speed. Audio networking had to be capable of delivering music to to different parts of the house and allowing the listener to choose the music. The video network would be able to record content (both from cable TV and the internet), play DVD's, TV, internet video, and stream live TV or recorded content to all video screens on the network. After much research and experimentation, I decided on a system based on wired gigabit ethernet, Windows Media Center PC and Windows Xbox.

I designed the network with two main goals: low price and simplicity.

RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

I spent a year doing research. I visited the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas and the Electronic House Expo (EHX) in Orlando. I read extensively (partial bibliography is below). I took a course in Cisco networking at the Salt Lake Community College. I talked to three IT consultants who worked on large business network systems, including one with 30,000 employees. I expected that if I looked in enough places, I'd learn about industry standards and what was the most popular way to build a home entertainment network. Instead I learned that there was no general consensus or recognized leader in equipment for or organizational structure of a home computer/entertainment network. Most home entertainment networks were custom-built and -installed and cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. But more significantly, operating these networks required ongoing, expensive technical assistance to keep the equipment from a multitude of manufacturers communicating to each other. Periodic outages or breakdowns were the rule, rather than the exception.

My lightbulb-over-the-head moment came at the Storage Decisions conference, part of the CES show in 2006. Storage Decisions was a rather technical conference about digital storage in consumer electronics, with much talk that flew right over my head. When Andrew Mills, President of Netcell, gave his talk about Centralized Video Storage on the Home LAN, he showed a map of his home computer/entertainment network. It was exactly what I wanted to do. He explained that he had 15 years of experience in the computer networking industry, but he still had a very difficult time setting up his network at home. His message was the same that was heard from many others at the Storage Decisions meeting - if digital entertainment media is going to become widely used around the home, the equipment and software managers must teach their products to communicate dependably and without outside, hired technical support. There are attempts to establish industry standards, such as the Digital Living Network Alliance, but this hasn't yet resulted in off-the-shelf equipment packages that can be operated by consumers with no technical training.

So there was no simple list of equipment that you could just connect and operate. The only consensus was that the consumer entertainment industry had to do much more before the average homeowner could hook up his own network. I would just have to figure it all out myself.

BUILDING THE NETWORK

First, the network connections - wireless or wired? I had a wireless network that worked well, but coverage and speed weren't always reliable in every part of the house. I needed a wired network for higher speed and reliability.

Ethernet or standard audio and video wiring? One technician recommended using speaker wire to send music to other parts of the house and coaxial cable to send TV & video. This would have been simpler and cheaper for a single streaming connection. It would limit the quality, flexibility and scalability of the system.

Ethernet cable would allow many different types of signals and media to be sent throughout the house. It could be used for data transmission, security and climate control. It would require additional equipment to translate the digital audio and video signals to analog signals that can be used by a TV or stereo.

Cat 5e cable is the current Ethernet standard in homes with advanced structured wiring systems. I wanted to be ahead of the curve, so I decided to put in Cat 6 cable, which is 40% more expensive and a bit more difficult to work with, but can carry a 1000 mbps signal with more reliability. This type of networking, gigabit Ethernet, would also require new adapters (gigabit Ethernet cards) for most computers and other equipment to take advantage of the higher speed network.

What equipment would be best for this simple network? At CES and EHX, I looked at equipment and software from many manufacturers, including Escient, Crestron, ELAN, Kaleidescape, Sonos, Phillips, Exceptional Innovation, Russound, Netstreams and Control 4. Many companies had single pieces of equipment that cost $5000-$20,000. They couldn't help me put together an affordable network. The most interesting products came from Control 4, which has very good, lower priced equipment, but they require working with a custom installer who would setup, program and maintain the network. An individual could not buy Control 4 equipment direct and set up his own network. I wanted equipment easily purchased off the internet or at a computer/electronics store and that could be set up without hiring a consultant.

I decided to use a Windows Media Center PC (MCPC) as the core of the home network. I chose one with lots of storage and a TV tuner - it would function similarly to a TIVO recorder. In addition, the Media Center PC would play and store music, photos and video.

Next I got a Buffalo Terastation NAS (network attached storage). This has a terabyte (1000 gigabytes) of storage, RAID 5 configuration for extra backup security plus access from any computer on the network. I could use this for storing music, videos and general backup.

I needed a TV that could work with the MCPC. My first choice was a mistake - a Samsung HD CRT TV. When I connected it to the PC using an S-video cable, the picture was fine for viewing a DVD played on the PC, but when I wanted to view the computer screen on the TV, any small print was unreadable and the edges (where there are significant control buttons) of the PC image were lost. I got a new graphics card plus an HDMI-DVI cable, called Samsung and Nvidia customer support but I still could not get a decent picture when viewing computer operations on the TV screen. After two months of visiting the tech support department of the store, I gave up on the CRT TV. I returned it and got a Samsung LCD HDTV, which works well with the MCPC. It was quite a bit of work setting the graphics card specs to work with this TV. There are no easy-to-follow instructions for settings such as resolution, refresh rate and display mode. I still have not been able to get the entire computer monitor screen to show on the TV, but it works pretty well.

Next I had to learn how to stream audio and video from the MCPC to another room in the house over the LAN. I looked at many options - Sonos, Phillips, Buffalo, Logitech, Pure AV and others. They all seemed to be too expensive and didn't have the functions I wanted. I read a number of articles about the XBOX 360 working as a media extender for a MCPC, so I bought one. Besides being an excellent game player for my two young sons, the XBOX works well streaming video and audio with a simple user interface. It was also easy to set up.

Now I have the home digital media network I lusted after. What would I do differently? What hasn't worked well? The only complaint I have is the GUI (user interface) of the Xbox/Media Center. I had to buy a remote to operate it - to play music and videos at the remote locations. With hundreds of CD's on the network, there is no easy way to quickly scan through the albums to pick what you want to hear. The selection of music is done much better on a computer, especially in Windows Media Player. How does this network compare to an Apple-based system with the new Apple TV appliance, which has many of the same functions as the Xbox? I'll be very interested in reading reviews and comparisons as the Apple TV becomes more widely used.

For now, I'm happy with this simple, functional and inexpensive network. Maybe I'll listen to some Shostokovich tonight while making dinner. Or I could watch that video about the Pioneers of Data Storage that I recorded on Podtech.net last week. If only the hard drive wasn't choked with 120 gigabytes of Ed, Edd & Eddie and Mythbusters episodes that my sons recorded.....

copyright 2007 ballard photographix