Connecting Your Home Office to Your Home Theater

[admin]

Thousands of words have been written about, and thousands of hours of labor devoted to, marrying our computers with our home theater and audio installations. On the Audioholics site alone there are 78 results from a search for "HTPC" (home theater personal computer). The problem with the concept of the HTPC is that, at its core, it’s a dedicated computer for multimedia applications. What happens if your computer is in your home office and your theater is elsewhere? What if you don’t want an HTPC? How do you combine your home office with your audio/video installation? It’s a question that’s seldom discussed in this industry.


Discuss "Connecting Your Home Office to Your Home Theater" here. Read the article.

[corey]

To date, my favorite connection between my computers & my HT has been an Xbox 360. I don't care much about internet content on my TV, or spreadsheets in my living room. The Xbox 360 does an OK job of displaying photos, and a great job playing music. You can make up on-the-fly playlists, and then display a hi-def light show on your tv.

My son (halo player) recently moved his Xbox from the living room/HT to his room. I'm thinking about buying my own 360, even though I most likely will never play a game on it, and just use it as a media device. If Net Flix offers rentals through it, I'll buy one the next day.

[sengert]

Hey guys!

Great topic, but I'm wondering why not mention AppleTV or any of its competitors? (I'm not sure if there are competitors yet...?)

I know that the actual Apple box is not the best in terms of actual video quality and it is certainly proprietary, but the idea of this convergence device is obviously a BIG thing, and it can't be that far off for others to be making devices like this... wireless internet connectivity (wired if you have too), HDMI out, Hard Drive built in for music/video storage and then minimal software for interfacing with the internet and your online/in-house network.

This device could even shake the entire Cable/Satellite television paradigm by actually allowing, finally!, pay as you go television viewership! No more package purchases for 180 channels just so you can see the Tour de France!

I'd love to hear what others think of AppleTV or if you guys know of other competitive devices...

sengert

[kleinwl]

A easier solution seems to be slapping a HDMI connection into your computer... ie new video card. Then running the HDMI cable into your reciever and controlling it all via an RF control seems plausable.

All these boxes and switches seems more complex than really necessary.

I can't wait till wireless displayport is available... then we don't even need the cable run.

[TimoHT]

This article and associated thread has not mentioned another potential method of integrating a Home PC and Home Theater: An ethernet connection, typically 100mbit. Many current receivers, pre/pros, and even the Pioneer Blu Ray players can connect to many/most Home PC media via ethernet. They can play music files & play lists, show pictures, play Internet Radio, etc, via the ethernet connection.

[holden_stroker]

to give you all a breif insight into my current situation.. im living in a 2 bed room flat at the moment on my own. one room is the bed room, the other is my home gym. in my lounge things started to get cluttered as i accumulated more and more things when starting off on my own. i was at the point where i had in my living area... 2 X sofas, 1 X couch, 1 X bean bag, 1 X foot rest, 1 X cofee table, my tv and home theatre, a dining table with 4 chairs and my computer in the corner!!

i got rid of the area where my computer was and put the dining table there. this freed up so much room i was quite amazed!

my computer now resides between my tv cabinet and my front speaker and is connected to my tv with the standard vga cable. sit in my bean bag with keyboard and mouse and everythings sweet. people come over for tea or a movie, shift keyboard and mouse and i have plenty of room here

suits me fine and picture in picture comes in handy on the big telly

nice read that article however