Re: [ukha_d] How to spend £5,000

["Mark Harrison \(Yahoo!\)" <mph@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Wireless options, eh :-)

Audio is easy. Go with the Squeezebox (wireless SliMP3) and a decentish PC
(big hard drive) as an MP3 server. Not only is the music replay reasonable,
but the display is clear, and addressable by xAP (and I'm pretty sure xPL?
Ian - can you confirm?) so can display other kinds of info.

Consequent to this, an 802.11g basestation, obviously.

Videoserverwise, it's possible, but if you're on wireless, then I'd go with
PC technology as the playback device.

The bandwidth limitations mean that you won't really be able to do VOD
(Video on Demand) for every room independantly. (that's why you need
wires.)
As you can probably guess, I'm going to recommend VideoLan
(www.videolan.org) for the streaming server _and_ client for one simple
reason... it does multicast. 802.11g will happily play 1 video channel in
high quality.

The point about multicast is that it allows the Video server to stream out
a
video... but have multiple clients pick it up in sync without opening a
second connection to the server (and taking up double the bandwidth.)

Useful for watching a film, and continuining to watch it while nipping out
to the kitchen to make a coffee, or whatever.

Add VideoLAN's streaming from input, and a suitable card on the server, and
lo, wireless distribution of Sky/FreeView round the house over the same
infrastructure as your movie server uses.


Lighting is harder. I'd tell him to wait a few months. There are going to
be
some interesting options for wireless lighting control very soon indeed.


Oh - and add a Roomba per floor, you know it makes sense.


Finally - 6 figures isn't expensive for a house any more. Round here (one
of
the cheapest areas within 45 minutes of London), you will not find ANYTHING
for under 6 figures, which, after all, starts at £100,000.  A studio flat
will come in about about £110k.

Regards,

Mark


----- Original Message -----
From: "Rob Mouser" <groups@xxxxxxx>
To: <ukha_d@xxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, May 11, 2004 3:05 PM
Subject: [ukha_d] How to spend £5,000


I thought this might be a fun one to throw at the group. A mate of mine
here
at work has just bought himself a new home.

Unfortunately although it's a new house he's bought it close to completion
so the ability to integrate any wiring is going to be difficult. For a
start
the walls are all decorated, the floors are all polished solid oak! So no
hole cutting ;-)

BUT, he's got 5k he wants to spend on whole house audio and video. What
should be his top 10 purchases?

Can you believe a builder (A big exclusive homes one.) who's built 4
exclusive 6 figure homes and there is not a sniff of CAT5 or automation in
ANY of the rooms.

CRIMINAL!



Rob









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