How to connect all these together?

[pguy]

Hello guys,

I bought a NAS for my home storage needs and connected it with my computer. It has significant amount of storage and now I can store all the movies/songs in a digital format without worrying much about running out of space.

This NAS storage is in a separate room, but I can connect an ethernet cable to the hall where the main entertainment system will be. I want to be able to stream movies & music from one room to the other.

In the hall, I will be looking at a HT setup that has a tata sky hd + blu-ray + this nas system connected to it to make all media accessible.

My questions:

1) In the hall, what kind of a streamer should I look at? (I don't care much about the streamer having a HDD) as I store data already on a NAS.

2) Can all these things be connected to a AVR without issues so that the no of boxes can be minimized?

3) Most of the songs stored are in the flac format, while playing through a media streamer would there be a loss in fidelity/SQ? I am being particular here because I do care a lot about the SQ.

What do you guys suggest?

 

[vaibhavyagnik]

i would suggest,
1. Go for a decent HTPC, a cost effective solution will be zotac ion, with built in wifi.
2. buy a N series wifi router, belkin and Linksys
3. if not already present, buy a N series wifi PCI card for your NAS.
4. Buy an AVR with HDMI Passthrough capability for all your sound Needs.

Connections:
1. NAS - HTPC - Wifi router - (other Instruments using wifi like laptop, phone etc.) in LAN
3. Bluray HDMI > AVR HDMI > TV
2. tata sky HD HDMI > AVR HDMI > TV
3. HTPC HDMI > AVR HDMI > TV

You want to save some money, dont buy the BD player. stick with HTPC only. more cost effective and more upgradeability/flexibility

 

[pguy]

Currently the NAS is connected to a gigabit switch and using a regular wifi to send signals across the house. I can see the need for the N-series AP/router though.

I don't have a HTPC, but have a regular desktop that is also connected to the NAS. Why do I need a HTPC? Is there a way to ethernet connect the NAS to AVR/Media streamer and keep SQ at its best?

 

[vaibhavyagnik]

Please post your PC configuration. if your PC is sufficient hardware wise, you do not need to buy or build a HTPC. when you are connecting AVR to various sources through HDMI, you do not have to worry as unprocessed sound will be passed on to the AVR. you will get the best possible fidelity. Not to mention HDMI has the ability to carry over DTS-HD and DD True HD

 

[pguy]

Its a 8GB RAM machine w/ Q6600 processors (quad core). I would prefer not to keep this machine on all the time because its a power sink. I use very high end gfx cards and psu to keep this machine running.

 

[vaibhavyagnik]

so i guess you are more into CAD, photoshop and stuff..are you into gaming also? if yes then what could be better than gaming on a large LCD/LED/Plasma? More over if your pc is idling (not processing anything), the processor and GFX card will automatically downclock themselves. This will result in power saving.
If you are still not convinced, buy a HTPC or Streamer. I prefer HTPC because of its better flexibility

 

[pguy]

Vaibhav,

Ex Gamer here. I am concerned about the usability as well. Not everyone in the family would be gung ho about booting up a PC for listening to music elsewhere in some other room. What kind of flexibility does a HTPC provide that a streamer does not? I don't want to end up buying something and regretting it

 

[vaibhavyagnik]

with an HTPC, the possibilities are unlimited. for e.g you can rip your movies and music cds using the HTPC (I know you have a PC already! just a comparison)
2. HTPC = All codecs supported, Streamers = All major formats, yes, but occasionally you will come across a format that is not supported.
3. you can control your htpc not only from that room by remote but from the whole house (given you require a iphone/ipod/android/symbian phone to do that over wifi, streamers cant do that)
4. htpc too slow for you? upgrade the processor, increase the ram, add a grafix card..no bottle necks.
5. like the interface of a streamer and like the capabilites of another streamer? well you cant have both, with HTPC, there are a number of options available like linux mce, windows mce, xbmc etc etc.
do you still need more reasons?

 

[pguy]

vaibhav,

1) Current pc can do that
2) Yep, that is an interesting point. But I don't want to worry about obscure formats. Reason being most of my songs are in 320kbps or flac. Movies might be an issue though. But in the longer run, mostly it will consist of Blu-ray rips or thereabouts since I will be using a 55" LCD/LED for display and a 5.1 system.
3) Interesting - didn't think about it that way. Streamers cannot be managed by phones et al? I just some products like sonos that stream audio and ipad/iphones can be the remotes. Nothing of this sort for video streamers yet?

Thanks for taking the time to write in detail. Really appreciate it

 

[vaibhavyagnik]

streamers don't have wifi remotes yet as per my knowledge. some other more enlightened members might have better knowledge. The thing is that if better containers are introduced (dawn of .mkv), HTPC will always rule as you will always find a free media player option, while in case of a streamer, you need to wait for a firmware upgrade - Painful, Or you can convert with your Q6600 :-D and then play it on the streamer - More Painful

One more difference!!
suppose you have a rip with 6 channel AAC, streamer passes it on HDMI, your AVR will not detect the stream as very few AVR today have AAC codec supported. Then you will have to switch on Multichannel PCM. With a HTPC, use ffdshow or XBMC, select DD and/or DTS compatible reciever and your AAC will get converted to DD or DTS on the fly!! Tell the streamer to beat that!!