Moved in... Starting the Project

We've now moved into the new house, and I'm ready to start working on the home control and entertainment system.

I'm going to start with the whole-house media system. While I really want to incorporate touch panels and PDA controls, that's going to have to be an on-going re-design. Right now, I need something functional. Here are the design specs and system components.

Specifications

1. The entertainment system will be composed of 2 initial Zones, the Living Room Zone ("Den") and the Master Bedroom Zone ("MBR"). The direct display equipment (TV and speakers) will be located in these rooms. All source equipment is located in the basement, and distributed to the zones.
2. Any source must be available and controllable from either zone.
3. Source Equipment
• Denon AVR-3805 multizone receiver
• Philips DSR6000 Series 1 DirectTV receiver with Tivo
• Hughes HNS HDVR-2 Series 2 DirectTV receiver with Tivo
• Sony 5-disc CD carousel
• Sony single disc DVD Player
• Sony Video cassette recorder/player
• Windows XP Pro-based HTPC
4. Den Display Components
• TV - wall-mounted Panasonic 42" Plasma TV
• Speakers - 5.1 channel surround - in-wall Front L& R; in-wall center; in-ceiling rear surround; subwoofer
5. MBR Display Components
• TV - Samsung 30" tube TV
• Speakers - in-ceiling Stereo
6. Control System
   • RF & IR based handheld remotes
   • 2x Universal Remote Osiris MX350 RF+IR remotes
   • MRF-300 addressable base station

Overview of the System

As stated, all of the source equipment is located in the basement, and is distributed via a GreyFox structured wiring system. The 3805 is the distribution point for the audio and video. The speaker ports are wired to the speaker wiring ports, which distribute the sound inependently to the two zones. The big plus here? No visible speaker wires (except the subwoofer in the Den).

The Den Zone

The main video out on the 3805 is a component video output, which is fed into this component video balun from MuxLab, and run via Cat5e cable to a port behind the plasma in the Den Zone. The 3805 utilizes video up-converting, so even though none of my source equipment uses component video (yet), I can still output component video to the plasma display.

The plasma is basically just a monitor. All video displayed on the plasma is transmitted by the 3805.

The MBR Zone

The Zone 2 video output on the 3805 is a composite video signal. Not great, but then, video quality is not so important in the MBR Zone. Using an adapter, I just placed the composite video signal onto an existing RG6 coaxial cable, which is run from the structured wiring box to the master bedroon cable port. From there, I use another adapter to convert back to an RCA plug, and plug the video directly into the Samsung TV's composite video in port. Since the speakers are hard-wired to the Zone 2 audio output of the 3805, there is no audio signal on the RG6 cable or fed into the Samsung's audio ports. Like the plasma in the Den Zone, it's just a display.

Remote Control

The Osiris Mx-350 universal remotes and the MRF-300 base station permit combined RF/IR control of the source equipment and the zone-specific display equipment. The Osiris simultaneously sends out its control signals in both IR and RF format. For display equipment within the zone, the IR signals can control the equipment, while the RF signals are received and interpreted by the base station, translated to IR codes, and distributed to the source equipment via the individual emitters.

I bought the Mx-350 and the MRF-300 because I needed addressable IR distribution, since the two different DirecTV/Tivo models would interfere with each other. Using the Mx-350 and the MRF-300, I can use only RF control, which is then translated to the proper IR codes, and only distributed to the DTivo being controlled. The emitter for the other DTivo ignores the signal.

Pros

This setup has a lot of pluses. First, it's relatively cheap. I spend about $400 for two Mx-350s and the MRF-300. Second, it's fast to set-up. I got this setup working within a day or two. The hardest part is training the remotes. The Mx-350 has a great feature. Once you've trained one remote, you can "clone" it to the other. This saves a lot of time, although you do have to re-train parts of it for any display equipment that differs between zones.

Cons

Although this system is functional, it has a few flaws. First, there's no way to prevent control of a source if it's being used within a zone. For example, if I'm watching Tivo 1 in the Den, and my wife wants to watch TV upstairs in Zone 2, she has no way of knowing which Tivo I'm watching. Already, I've had problems with her switching my channel while I'm trying to watch TV. Granted, all I have to do is switch over to Tivo 2, but it'd be nice to have a "LOCK" feature to prevent control of a source in Zone 2 when it's being used in Zone 1.

Second, there is often a difficulty in the RF signals getting through to the base station. It seems that the system fails intermittently in that you press a button, and get nothing. It can be frustrating, although it seldom lasts long.

Finally, the system is not particularly intuitive, even given the ability to create macros. If a part of the macro fails, you have to go to the individual source and "fix" the problem. This results in an unfriendly interface, which requires a learning curve. The "wife factor" is very low with this system (although, on the plus side, she doesn't steal the remote that often!! :) ).

Future Plans

I need a system that allows more intuitive programming, functionality and interface. I'm currently looking at using Charmed Quark. It's a windows-based system for setting up control systems for home automation and A/V distribution. It seems to be fairly easy to use for someone with at least limited programming skills. However, it looks like it'll require quite a bit of an investment in time and money in order to get a good, workable system that fits my criteria. However, the monetary cost will likely still be far less than that for a professional Crestron or AMX system.

More to come later.