New Install Suggestions

[ischliky]

Im looking to take the plunge and start building up a system.  To start I am ok building as I go and getting one area done before I jump to the next.  In the end I would like to have some simplistic home automation and likely 4-5 MDs.  What I am looking to avoid is not being future proofed and having to reinvest with different hardware to accomplish my end goals.

In the end I would like to have:
4-5 MDs
Lighting control
Thermostat control
At least 1 security camera

I would also love to have all my core/MDs in the basement and use something like the HDMI<>cat6 converters to get the signal to my TVs.  This would alleviate almost all the worries about fan noise.

My initial purchases would be the Core and a MD or 2.  How much power does a MD need to handle 1080p content?  Looking around it looks like many people are using atom processors and 8800GT era cards.  Is this going to be sufficient to have live HD content from my cablebox thru the MD to my TV without problems?  For the core I am assuming once I have 4+ MDs attached I am going to need a decent box to handle it, i5/i7 roughly?

Any help in heading in the right direction would be great !

[JoakimL]

Just a thought - if you're planning to have a central install with cat6/HDMI (and audio) to all rooms - why not have a decent server grade main computer with 1 virtual machine for the core and one for each MD? You'd have to add a graphics card for each MD, but that's way cheaper than a full MD.

Another thought: What do you plan to control your MD with? If you only plan for a mobile orbiter, like iPhone/iPad/iPod/Andriod/ then it's no worries, but if you plan to use an IR remote, you'd have to have an IR receiver and rout that info back to the right MD.

/Joakim

[ischliky]

That seems like a good idea, I am not familiar with exactly what you are saying however.  So you are having multiple GFX cards in 1 server, with VMs running MDs that are utilising different cards?  I have only ever used VMs for remote sessions.  Are there good instructions about how to setup and configure this type of setup?

For orbitors I plan on using several different wifi devices (andoid/iOS mostly) to handle my needs there.

[pointman87]

If you don't want fan noise but still want a workstation at each TV i can recommend ION based computers such as the acer revo, they are very silent but still able to play 1080p. One acer revo cost almost as much as one hdmi -> ethernet .> hdmi solution, at least here in sweden.

BR Daniel