Wireless Audio Video Streaming setup for new Home

[Doremonn]

Interior work is in progress in my new House. Now, searching for decent AV home theater setup. Having specific thoughts on it, trying to put it below:

[1] Wish to install complete wireless 5.1 Dolby Surround Audio Video system.

[2] Ground Floor, Living Room (20x18ft):-Both i.e.Audio+Video LED TV size considered-42" to 48"

[3]Upstairs Only Audio

(3.1)Room-1, Master Bed Room
- 2 speakers in Room
- 1 speaker in attached Wash Room

(3.2)Room-2, Child Room
- 2 speakers in Room
- 1 speaker in attached Wash Room

(3.3)Audio can be stream at once at a time, right from the Ground Floor (Living Room) up to Upstairs (both room), from point-2-->point 3.1--->point 3.2 above.

(3.4)Upstair,Master Bed Room:- Thinking to install individual LED Tv-32" to 40" to separately function as and when required by couple(us). This is no where connection with point-2 & 3 above.

[4] Complete wireless, USB/HDMI, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth/other latest sharing technology enabled package so that any time any instrument like phone, I-pod, Tablet, laptop can be pair instantly for Audio/Video/Internet streaming/sharing on TV Screen & or in 5.1 HT Speaker system. Can connect from any place within bunglow area (upstair, ground floor, kitchen, bath room, balcony)

[5] Location:-Ahmedabad,Gujarat. Bunglow area:- 230 sqyard. Open budget but VFM

[6] Wireless connectivity should be instant, clean & crystal clear digital and loseless AV quality. No inferior/Zero loss AV quality wireless streaming setup.

Pl suggest. Any alternation/improvement to above plan, also welcome. Thanks for reading me.

 

[haisaikat]

a floor plan indicating the distances between rooms can be helpful. You have a commendable house in the making for sure but one word of advice would be to use network wires (utilizing concealed ducts) wherever possible just to keep wifi bandwidth free.

Also what i understood from your description is that the down stairs would be the main HT having AVR for certain along with might be a stereo setup (not sure). But for the rooms on 1st floor, I am not sure if you want bluetooth streaming type standalone speakers (at least the one on bathroom) or stereo amplifier based "separate" setup?

The way I can think of is a central media server containing majority of the A/V media which can be in close proximity of the ground floor HT where you would also have media streamer software installed which can stream to any other wifi device (speakers) and you can control from your smart phone what is being played and where it is being played.

However unless you want to have a separate media receiver client (like the older days logitech squeeze radio) then you should choose your speakers intelligently http://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/wireless-speaker-buying-guide/ so that you have the right devices for pairing

 

[musicbee]

but one word of advice would be to use network wires (utilizing concealed ducts) wherever possible just to keep wifi bandwidth free.

Not an issue with modern AC routers. I get gigabit speeds wirelessly that beats pretty much anything wired.

@Doremonn - My recommendation is to get a Dolby Atmos setup (Onkyo's latest receivers). Also, go for 4K Video Upscaling with something like Qdeo (again Onkyo has this on some AVRs). Onkyo's latest HTIBs are coming with all these features including Dolby Atmos so be sure to check them out too especially at a budget.

Wireless connectivity is inbuilt in all the latest receivers, so no issues there.

 

[Doremonn]

Thanks.

How's is combo of denon avrx1100w with Sonos wireless speakers.

Onkyo Dolby Atmos with Qdeo technology r great and on mind.

Sonos speakers can also couple with onkyo? No idea on it.

 

[Doremonn]

Or prominent 600 system?

 

[Doremonn]

a floor plan indicating the distances between rooms can be helpful. You have a commendable house in the making for sure but one word of advice would be to use network wires (utilizing concealed ducts) wherever possible just to keep wifi bandwidth free.

Ground floor- living room-20' x 18'. Upstair bed room- 15'x13'. Distance from Ground floor to Upstair should be around (Ceiling to ceiling distance)-max 10mtr but to be considered till terrace (in view of streaming music from Terrace too) so adding 5 mtrs more total coverage area would be around 15mtrs.

 

[Doremonn]

haisaikat- setup description already there in my first post.
Let me requote ..
Downstair - Living Room:- LED TV- Main HT- AVR - Media Steamer - 5.1 speaker
Upstair - 2 Room - 2 speakers in each room (This is extended channel from Downstair Zone, I mean, same Audio also plays on Upstair ) - Speaker should be wireless
Upstair - 2 attached wash room to above 2 Room - Speaker should be wireless.

musicbee:- Onkyo Dolby Atomos looks great as does Qdeo. Impressive product line. I contacted local (Ahmedabad) dealer & will invite him in bunglow shortly.

Hows Denon with Sonos speaker?

 

[haisaikat]

Not an issue with modern AC routers. I get gigabit speeds wirelessly that beats pretty much anything wired.

Hi musicbee, what is your house area and the max distance between the router and the client?

I have not tested personally but I trust reviews from smallnetbuilder and per the range charts it seems that most AC router fails in location E and F which are farthest, if you read they FAQ you will understand the significance of the locations E & F, a place where some of the normal N300 routers have excelled. Because Doremon wants to stream music most of the time to every corner, for him the range will be more important than throughput in my opinion.

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wire...ual-band-gigabit-full-review?showall=&start=2

 

[musicbee]

How's is combo of denon avrx1100w with Sonos wireless speakers.

Onkyo Dolby Atmos with Qdeo technology r great and on mind.

Sonos speakers can also couple with onkyo? No idea on it.

musicbee:- Onkyo Dolby Atomos looks great as does Qdeo. Impressive product line. I contacted local (Ahmedabad) dealer & will invite him in bunglow shortly.

Hows Denon with Sonos speaker?

Sonos is more of WAF and convenience, not the best in terms of "audiophile" quality and also overpriced. For home theater you'll get a lot more options that are better priced, go with satellites + sub combo. Sonos is not recommended unless you are looking to play music off your smartphone or tablet and its mainly radio like Spotify and you need wireless speakers.

I'll be going for a demo of the new Onkyo HT-S7705, its a HTIB, but with Dolby Atmos speaker package, 4K upscaling and HDCP 2.2 for 4K Blu-ray discs (when they come), pretty good set of features and future proofing too... not sure of the pricing (Indian), but feature wise it looks good.

Hi musicbee, what is your house area and the max distance between the router and the client?

I have not tested personally but I trust reviews from smallnetbuilder and per the range charts it seems that most AC router fails in location E and F which are farthest, if you read they FAQ you will understand the significance of the locations E & F, a place where some of the normal N300 routers have excelled. Because Doremon wants to stream music most of the time to every corner, for him the range will be more important than throughput in my opinion.

NETGEAR R6300 WiFi Router-802.11ac Dual Band Gigabit Full Review - SmallNetBuilder

You are right, distance is a limitation of the 5Ghz range in wireless AC.

My home is nearly 2400 sft, add in the garden and garage and its nearly 3000 sft and its covered 100% with 2 routers and 1 repeater. Both the main router and repeater are wireless 802.11ac and one other router (used as repeater) is wireless N. Truth be told wireless N150 and N300 have much better range and even suffice for all kinds of online streaming including 4K (tested using Netflix). Even my ISP is limited to 50 mbps.

The only use is when transferring files between PCs, laptops, smartphones, etc. and in that regard wireless AC is the fastest, in fact my hardware even using SSD and USB 3.0 is a limitation/bottleneck in my network. Also, the convenience simply beats everything else, no need to wire the entire home with cat6 cable.

Speed wise there is no difference between a wired network and a wireless network, both offer gigabit speeds. In terms of convenience wireless wins though if an entire house is wired then its even better... unfortunately not an option now... but will definitely keep in mind for a new house... but using a wireless AC network at home for the past 6+ months I'm convinced it works. No dropped connections, I stream everything from HD rips to FLAC and WAV rips wirelessly to multiple devices. That convenience alone trumps everything else IMHO.

 

[haisaikat]

Hi musicbee, first thing to say is, you have a very nice house for certain and one I would think twice before cluttering with wires I agree AC is the next Generation, however on the speed comparison between wired and wifi, I think you would need close proximity between source, target and router for wifi throughput or else AC speeds might not be achievable. You said SSD speed was broken how much did you get man, that is mind blowing for sure?

 

[musicbee]

Hi musicbee, first thing to say is, you have a very nice house for certain and one I would think twice before cluttering with wires I agree AC is the next Generation, however on the speed comparison between wired and wifi, I think you would need close proximity between source, target and router for wifi throughput or else AC speeds might not be achievable. You said SSD speed was broken how much did you get man, that is mind blowing for sure?

My ISP is 50 mbps. File transfers (internal wireless network) are 190 mbps min, average around 290-300 mbps. Yes not gigabit speeds (though the network is gigabit) but this is a limitation of my SSD and HDDs even though they are SATA III. I"ve had better results with Thunderbolt 350 mbps and more, but I'm a Windows person.

PCIe 3.0 SSDs should be the next step, they offer speeds of 1.5 GB/s to 3.3 GB/s and would max out my dual band network... but I'll wait till prices drop.

Distance is the main limitation, top speeds are only for 25-30 feet, beyond that they drop or you need a repeater to maintain speeds. But it definitely beats even plugging in USB 3.0 flash drives to move data around. Its pure bliss for all DLNA devices though... no throttling even when streaming HD movies (even 10-15 GB Blu-ray rips).

 

[haisaikat]

Do you mean average of 300 megabits/sec or 300 MegaBytes / sec? Because if it is the former then I think your SSD might be the bottleneck as you are saying. But then again 300 megabits/sec is ~ 40 MB/sec which is not faster than USB 3.0. I have got 100 MB/sec steady over USB 3.0. However if it is the later, you have one awesome network to cherish for sure.

 

[kneo]

Welcome to HFV, Doremonn

Trust the forum to give you good advice. I'd also strongly recommend a wired setup (assuming that the work is still in progress and you have the option of setting up the wires). Basically you can have a wireless setup, but if you can take the load off the network via some Cat6 wires, why not?

 

[musicbee]

Do you mean average of 300 megabits/sec or 300 MegaBytes / sec? Because if it is the former then I think your SSD might be the bottleneck as you are saying. But then again 300 megabits/sec is ~ 40 MB/sec which is not faster than USB 3.0. I have got 100 MB/sec steady over USB 3.0. However if it is the later, you have one awesome network to cherish for sure.

I'm getting Megabytes actually. 30-40 MB/sec you get with ordinary HDDs and SSD would be a waste with those speeds. SSDs are supposed to do 600 MB/s, but I've never seen those speeds. Not even with Firewire or Thunderbolt, which is 2nd only to PCIe 3.0.

I've never seen USB 3.0 get 100 MB/sec either. Max I get is around 80 MB/sec and that's on a good day. One issue could be the USB extension hubs though I'm using Aukey and they claim 5 Gbps for their USB 3.0 hubs.

 

[Doremonn]

Thanks Neo. I too decided wired installation as interior work is in progress. Wireless is desirable in upstair room & wash room-both.

Still trying to get solution on my requirement in first thread!

 

[haisaikat]

I'm getting Megabytes actually.

190 MB/s minimum on wifi is awesome.

30-40 MB/sec you get with ordinary HDDs and SSD would be a waste with those speeds. SSDs are supposed to do 600 MB/s, but I've never seen those speeds. Not even with Firewire or Thunderbolt, which is 2nd only to PCIe 3.0.

I've never seen USB 3.0 get 100 MB/sec either. Max I get is around 80 MB/sec and that's on a good day.

You might consider defragging your target HDD to improve on copy speed. I have used Toshiba as well as WD Green HDDs and when they are fairly new and empty I have got 115 MB/s + steady but now it has degraded to 90 - 100 MB/s.

One issue could be the USB extension hubs though I'm using Aukey and they claim 5 Gbps for their USB 3.0 hubs.

In your case try connecting the USB 3.0 drive directly with the PC eliminating the hub apart from trying on a formatted HDD.

Lastly, sorry to Doremon for derailing his thread. Was too lazy to create a separate thread

 

[haisaikat]

Thanks Neo. I too decided wired installation as interior work is in progress. Wireless is desirable in upstair room & wash room-both.

Still trying to get solution on my requirement in first thread!

You can have it as below on the ground floor

Wifi Router having internet connection input connected via LAN wire to the following
1. Media Streamer (I assume this only stores and stream's media but does not output video)
2. AVR (to playback your media from the streamer if your AVR is UPnP capable and networked)
3. Reserve for either HTPC or LED TV (if LAN capable)
4. This should be a LAN wire which would go all the way up to the first floor

On first floor you should have a wifi router connected to the wire coming in from the ground floor to work in Access Point mode only (the LAN cable from ground floor should go in to one of the LAN ports of the router on first floor and not in the Ethernet port) which will have another wifi SSID separate from ground floor. Then you place wifi speakers of your choice in each of the rooms and bathrooms.

What do you think?

 

[Doremonn]

haisaikat

well i check you word by word repeatedly.

I understood wifi router with internet setup makes desired home network.

I have home PC with BSNL broadband plan-100kpbs. BSNL router is AN1020-21 with 4 lan port, 1 usb & 1 VoIP.

The question is on second SSID setup. No idea on it.

Also, LAN wire connectivity between the floor makes sense but not clear on speakers (5.1 in living & separate speakers in bedrooms & bathrooms) function? on wifi or wired ?

Googling some image (attached) but still not clear complete concept & which product model should i look into for LED, 5.1 & Speakers?

 

[haisaikat]

I have also got your PM, let me organize a bit, I will respond soon

 

[haisaikat]

Doremon, see if you can make out this setting for the ground floor lining room.

Please also mention if you want to have separate HTPC and NAS or you want to utilize the same for both purposes?