Help, with my new house systems

[milll36]

Hi im currently building a house, i have a big collection of regular dvds and bluray movies. Im thinking on purchasing a WHS so i could rip all my movies to it. I saw the SAge 200 extender and liked that is HD, but then i read that it doesnt support hd audio . So here is my problem, my house consist of 3 bedrooms, that i dont mind not having hd audio, and a Movie theater in my den with a 1080p Projector, that i do want to have full hd audio because of my home theater system there, questions:
1) What options do i have for my Movie Theater
2) Currently i have all my DVDs on hardrives but not my bluray, any suggestions on what software to use for ripping them, with good quality.
3) What else do i need to buy to add my Digital HD Cable Box to record on sage tv, thanks

[Fuzzy]

If you want to go with a SageTV Backbone in your new house (which is something I would recommend).. You can get pretty much everything you want.

And ideal setup would be:
- A central location for your Server, Storage, Tuners (whatever television source you have), etc. Ideally, this would be it's own small closet, with ventilation. That server would take care of recording television, storing your video library, and serving it up to the various locations in your house.
- Bedrooms would have an HD-200 hooked up to their TV. These would network with the server, and provide the interface to SageTV. They will have full DVD support (can play back ripped DVD's with full menus. DVD Audio support (DD5.1 or DTS) assuming you have a surround receiver there.. otherwise it can playback DD5.1 downmixed to stereo analog. They will have 'partial' BluRay support. They will be able to playback the 'main movie' from ripped blu-ray discs, if detected properly (they will play back the 'longest playlist' on the disc). Same Audio limitations as DVD Playback.
- You Theater setup, since you are looking for HD Audio, will probably have to be a PC-based client. You can use the SageTV Client software as the front-end, so the interface will all be exactly the same as elsewhere in the house. However, for playing back the blu-ray rips, it would have to launch a more capable player (I'd suggest ArcSoft TotalMedia Theater 3). This will feature full Blu-Ray Menu support, with Full HD Audio (when used with a compatible HDMI capable video card.. I'd recommend an ATI 4550...)

As for getting your television into the sage server, that will depends totally on your preferred source. Most likely, You would be looking at a few Hauppauge HD-PVR devices, connected to your Cable or Sat Set-Top-Boxes. These would record your television programs into HD H.264 videos, to be played by sage. They can be controlled by a USB-UIRT (which can control up to 3 DirectTV or Cable STB's, or any number of Dish STB's), or via firewire or serial control (if your STB supports it).

[Fuzzy]

For ripping the Blu-Rays to disc, if you are wanting to keep the entire disc (menus, BD-Live, etc) then AnyDVD-HD is what you want. If you want to narrow the rip down to a single file, with just the tracks you want, I'd suggest MakeMKV.

[milll36]

Ok, that part i got it, now i need help with the main server, I need to rip my disc from the server, so it has to be powerfull i guess also as you said that its going to send the hd signal to my movie theater it has to have good audio/video cards,any setup that you could recomend to me

thanks

[Fuzzy]

I would actually recommend a different PC for the home theater. It can be done with one, as you can see from my signature, but it would b more reliable to have it split. That way you don't have to worry about codecs, and complex operations on the server. You also don't have to worry about the strains of playback (which can be quite processor intensive, especially for BluRay content) interfering with recording. MOST reliable would be a simple, locked away server doing the recording, and feeding a bunch of HD200's. However, sine you want HD Audio, the HD200 isn't an option in the main theater room...

[milll36]

i understand that, but what system would you recomend me for ripping my blurays and using it as the server?

[lotusvball]

Could I make one suggestion. If it is not already too late, while building your house, insert cable tubing into the walls. I have tubing running in my walls to the basement. This makes it much easier to run cable I may not have thought of thru the walls. and it only cost me $350 at the time. I can now run fiber optic from the upstairs room to the basement without having to rip into the walls. I know that wireless is an option, but cable is much cheaper an more reliable.

[milll36]

thanks for your suggestion, im trying to figure out what do i need to be able to rip my bluray disc to the server, so i can order my parts, i dont thing an hp whs server would have the power for that,

[xxLJLxx]

Originally Posted by milll36

thanks for your suggestion, im trying to figure out what do i need to be able to rip my bluray disc to the server, so i can order my parts, i dont thing an hp whs server would have the power for that,

As far as bluray ripping goes, your server shouldn't need a TON of power. It depends on what else you will be running (Comskip, PlayOn, etc...). You will need something somewhat beefy to run all that together smoothly.

[matt91]

Originally Posted by lotusvball

Could I make one suggestion. If it is not already too late, while building your house, insert cable tubing into the walls. I have tubing running in my walls to the basement. This makes it much easier to run cable I may not have thought of thru the walls. and it only cost me $350 at the time. I can now run fiber optic from the upstairs room to the basement without having to rip into the walls. I know that wireless is an option, but cable is much cheaper an more reliable.

can you provide a link to the (approximate) item that you used? I'd like to tuck it away for our house remodel project in the next couple of years.

What size tubing did you run? From every room to the server room?

[milll36]

i used 3/4 inch tubing, from a central location to eeach room

[matt91]

Huh...interesting. If you wanted to run a new Cat5 cable from the second floor to the basement, how easy would be it? That is, is it a pain to run the wire due to turns in the tubing, or is it pretty easy? (I guess maybe this depends on how you installed it...)

[HuMan321]

Originally Posted by matt91

Huh...interesting. If you wanted to run a new Cat5 cable from the second floor to the basement, how easy would be it? That is, is it a pain to run the wire due to turns in the tubing, or is it pretty easy? (I guess maybe this depends on how you installed it...)

Pull in a pull string initially and everytime you add any cabling. Sometimes a light coating of slippery soap can aid in longer twisty runs.

[Menehune]

Depending upon the blue "smurf" tubing, some have a smoother inside than others. I prefer to use no more the 360 degrees for plastic tubing before placing a pull box. Too many turns and the friction around the corners causes the cable to bind making it much harder to pull.

It's much better to have a straight, gentle curve than a sharp 90 degree turn in the tubing.

You can also use a shop vac and a baggie tied to dental floss to pull a string thru the tubing after the fact. Tie the pull string onto the floss, pull thru. At the other end, tie on your cable and a second piece of pull string.
The second piece is pulled thru so you never have to curse and swear while vacuuming the pull string thru the conduit again

If you don't have a shop vac, you could use a fish tape if you have one long enough. Push thru to the far end, tie on the cable and string, pull back.

You need to be careful with pulling lubricants. Some can be incompatible with either the tubing or cable jacket, causing deterioration of the plastics or even gluing the cable into the tubing over time. I generally pull cables dry so I don't have to clean my hands and equipment after.

[Fuzzy]

Dry is best if you can. There are special lubricants designed to aid in cable pulling. As said, minimize thenumbers of turns before pull boxes, and you won't have a problem.

As for the system used for ripping the blu-rays, it really doesn't need any power to speak of. For the most part, it's just copying friles form the disc to the harddrive. Basically just need a blu-Ray drive, and AnyDVD-HD.

[milll36]

I realized something, if im from panama central america, all the recording part of sage with the pvr cards are a problem because i wont have the epg data on sage, what other funtions do i going to use of it, because for beeing a player with my whs and any media extender i could have the media everywhere

[Fuzzy]

SageTV does not PROVIDE epg data outside the country, but you CAN use XMLTV data in sage. I'm not up on the hows of doing so, but there is PROBABLY a source of XMLTV data for panama.

another qustion, what will your source of programming be? Are you looking at using satellite, or over the air reception?

[milll36]

i have satelite and digital cable tv