Building a home

[MRT144]

We're going to go without the soundbar in the bedroom to try it out. It's not going to be used too much, so we're not overly concerned. Can always add one later. (FWIW, we got that 46" Samsung for the bedroom for only $899)

All of the places we're putting TVs have Cat-6 outlets (and the one on the bonus room has fibre, which is currently unterminated and in the wall). I have a Drobo which is a Samba/DLNA/UPNP server for content (and I've TBs of content, mostly HD). All of these new TVs have built in DLNA clients. I also have a Boxee Box I'll use in the bonus room, because it'll play 100% of all my content and I'm not sure the TVs can decode all of the formats.

For TV content itself, it's all hooked up to a Shaw Gateway system. There's one large 6-tuner HDTV box in the basement, then each TV gets a small terminal. All PVR content is recorded on the mother box (up to 6 shows at once), and can be accessed from any TV. We can start watching a show in the great room while we eat dinner, then pause it, go upstairs, and resume watching it from the bigger TV.

I put a lot of thought into the digital goodness of the house.

It's pretty interesting how TV manufacturers have integrated so much streaming stuff into their TVs now. The DLNA thing is pretty neat. I don't need to let the porn folder show up on the PS3 anymore, I could just have it on the TV applicaiton.

[Hauldren Collider]

I put a lot of thought into the digital goodness of the house.

Nice

For maximum tech cred, you should have all your equipment mounted on 19" server racks

[Asher]

Asher, not all high school dropouts are electronic stores hucksters (FD: I worked at guitar center in the pro audio dept when I was 21 and I am a high school drop out)

[Hauldren Collider]

By the way, I forgot, I actually have been harassed by salespeople before. About a month ago at Radio Shack, a guy tried to sell me insurance for the gigabit ethernet cable I was buying. I told him, "If it breaks, I'll go to the ECE lab on campus and crimp a new one myself." He just stared at me for a minute and was like, "okay, if you're sure."

What the **** is with this consumer appliance insurance business anyways? You'd have to be retarded to buy insurance for anything that isn't an unmanageable loss.

[MRT144]

By the way, I forgot, I actually have been harassed by salespeople before. About a month ago at Radio Shack, a guy tried to sell me insurance for the gigabit ethernet cable I was buying. I told him, "If it breaks, I'll go to the ECE lab on campus and crimp a new one myself." He just stared at me for a minute and was like, "okay, if you're sure."

What the **** is with this consumer appliance insurance business anyways? You'd have to be retarded to buy insurance for anything that isn't an unmanageable loss.

God, the insurance/warranty thing is just, it's just unbelievable. The only thing I can imagine it on is a refrigerator and that is likely very heavy bias because our fridge broke a few months ago and we spent 900 on a new one (but spent likely an extra 400 dollars on food replacement/eating out). Even then, I didn't buy the insurance. But when you're plunking down 20% of the purchase price on insurance...that's just silly.

[DanS]

Re the Shaw Gateway, who makes it?

[Asher]

Arris

http://www.arrisi.com/solutions/whole_home/index.asp

[Hauldren Collider]

God, the insurance/warranty thing is just, it's just unbelievable. The only thing I can imagine it on is a refrigerator and that is likely very heavy bias because our fridge broke a few months ago and we spent 900 on a new one (but spent likely an extra 400 dollars on food replacement/eating out). Even then, I didn't buy the insurance. But when you're plunking down 20% of the purchase price on insurance...that's just silly.

Even then it wouldn't make sense, because they are going to charge more than the cost to cover the failure rate or else they wouldn't make money. As long as you can afford to replace it if it fails (as opposed to a house or a car where it would probably be too expensive), it's a money loser to get insurance.

[MRT144]

Totally. I just can't believe that the extended warranty thing is usually 20% or some such number of the purchase cost. Like, they don't even make it questionably valuable. In general, if you can afford an item + 20% at time of purchase you wouldn't be unduly burdened.

And don't even get me started on entertainment device warranty.

[DanS]

Thanks, Asher.

[regexcellent]

What's the wired networking like? I'd put in cat 6a/cat 7 and go for 10GBaseT.

[Asher]

It's cat 6 for now. With fibre wired with it (unterminated).

[Hauldren Collider]

Go infiniband

[regexcellent]

Go infiniband

I'm pretty sure infiniband is limited to 15 meters or so distance, which might make things tricky depending on the size of the house. Not to mention getting a router for it...

Fiber is neat but I suspect the next generation of consumer NICs will be 10GBase-T as opposed to something like 10GBase-SR or 10GBase-LRM. Simply because of its backwards compatibility with existing hardware.

[Asher]

10GBase-T is only ~37 meters in a typical home environment (vs 100 for gigabit).