The begining of Music to streaming Media Content with the ultimate set up - CC Flickr Credit: Taras Kalapun

CC Flickr Credit: Taras Kalapun

After hours of exhaustive research and days spent installing, testing and tinkering, I have the perfect master-plan for turning my flat into a digital entertainment hub. Skip the preamble if you want to go straight to the setup

All it took was one casual observation to set things in motion; “I’d of thought – knowing you – all this would be somehow…wireless?!”

Whenever we have a bunch of friends stay over – often after a nights partying – I’ll often hook the laptop to my lounge TV, load up Front Row and we’ll watch us some movie trailers. There’s something ever so soothing watching all those two minute narratives flash by, teasing us as to what we’ll be witnessing in a not-too-distant future. Most of the trailers are from the faraway shores of America so the films are often ones we won’t see for up to a year.

Its an arse though; hooking up all those wires. Plus I have a terabyte hard drive in the back room that contains all our music, photos and digital copies of films /TV shows. Also Jade and I don’t watch live TV. It quite simply sucks. The endless dross piled up in the name of entrainment is unbearable and just the slight of a TV advert gets my blood boiling. (WTF is a 100% lawyer?)

Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of good TV. Its just not on TV. It’s streaming from the internet on iPlayer, or 4oD. It’s on Blu-ray and DVD box sets that Lovefilm will post to your front door. Its downloadable from iTunes, torrents or what have you. It’s all digital, my friend and what’s more its on your schedule, as you like it, interruption free.
Like the day in 2002 when I declared the CD dead and ripped my entire collection to iTunes, I think I’m on to somthing.

The Goal

  • Get everything I can digitised and stored in one location.
  • Be able to access this content from every room in the house, any hour, on demand, through the relevant system.
  • Gain remote access to this content as required.
  • Add in the ability to stream content from the internet.
  • Keep things as environmentally friendly as possible – I don’t want to add to our fuel bill and feel guilty while the planet shoulders my desire to be entertained round the clock.
  • Make it convenient – it needs to be easy so that the girlfriend and visitors don’t have to go through any complicated procedure.

Equipment – Existing

  • 37 Inch HD TV (Panasonic TX-37LZD70) – The main display in the lounge
  • Xbox 360 – Used for gaming but also an optional conduit for piping in content to TV / speakers
  • 5.1 Logitech Speakers (Z 5500) – Main audio setup with multiple inputs
  • Sony BluRay player (BDP-S350)
  • Universal Remote Control (Logitech Harmony One)
  • Macbook Pro
  • 1TB External Hard drive (LaCie D2) – Currently used to house backups of mac and music / film collection
  • 2x WiFi router / expander (Apple Airport Express) – Used to create WiFi network throughout the flat plus can stream iTunes library to external speakers.
  • 2x iPhones – Can control iTunes remotely / stream iPlayer – films on mac via AirVideo

Granted, I already have a pretty kickass setup that could achieve something close to what I’ve outlined but it has a number of drawbacks:

To get content off the external HDD (Hard drive) it has to be plugged into the Mac. The Mac then has to be on and connected to the network. Third party software Connect 360 then needs to be running to send the video to the Xbox. The Xbox therefore has to be on. Quite a tall order if the girlfriend just fancies watching a True Blood. Plus I use the Mac for work so if I’m not home, then the whole thing falls apart.

Equipment – Required

A NAS server

This is the baby that is going to be housed in the back room, silently yet continuously ensuring that all the digital content is going to be available wherever its needed. It took a lot of research to find something that:

  • Doesn’t break the bank – Ideal price under £200
  • Comes prebuilt with a decent amount of hard drive space with the ability to easily “hotswap”, that is, be able to eject a HDD and insert a replacement upgrade without fuss.
  • Has a second HDD that uses a RAID configuration to provide a backup – if Im trusting my entire collection of content to this thing, I better have a fail safe option.
  • Comes with decent NAS server software pre-installed – I figure its going to take me long enough setting this beast up without having to muck around installing stuff.

My current favourite is the Netgear ReadyNAS Duo; great reviews from a whole bunch of sources and meets my requirements spot on. Plus Netgear have an offer on now to send you a free 500G HDD with every purchase.

Apple TV

There’s dozens of options for getting my content to the place its going to seen the most – the lounge but I figure this the best option as it fits in with my existing Apple ecosystem plus it looks very user friendly and runs almost silent.

To make it useful though I’m going to have to hack it as straight out the box, its almost worthless! Yes thats right Apple, as it stands this thing is nothing more than a hobby product; all its built to do is extend an iTunes library and provide a way to buy things off the iTunes store without using a computer. Balls to that.

I’m going to install either Boxee or XBMC onto it (Boxee has more features but is a little more unstable). This creates the ability to access all the content on that NAS server with a sexy, straightforward user interface. It also gives me the option to add streams for all that on demand internet goodness; iPlayer, 4oD, hell I can even pipe twitter into the thing.

All can then be controlled via the Harmony One remote on which I’ll set up an action to turn all the revenant kit on and take the user to the Boxee interface. Boom!

The Xbox, iPhones and Mac will all be able to access the NAS server to pull content off whatever room they are in. As long as future purchases fit in with the UPnP standard, I’ll be able to expand this thing to cover every whim and fancy until I’m watching Dexter on the Microwave and realise I’ve crossed a line.

So there you have it folks. I’ve caught a glimpse of the future and I’m going to bring it home. Plus best of all, no more wires!