System design

[jonmaine]

Hi all, I am not a techy. I would like to instal a hard wired multi room system to watch dvd, tv, listen to audio from a central server. ( 11 rooms)
Can anyone suggest to me the best configuration of hardware for the room zone computers and the central server.
It has been suggested to me that I am better off keeping this system away from standard internet surfing as this will make the system unstable.
I would like to be able to stream dvd or audio to any of the zones from the main server, would this support multiple dvd simultanious playback in different zones to say 6 zones?
I would like to be able to watch digital terestial tv at several of the zone computers at the same time, say up to 6 different channels. Would this mean a tv card in each of the zone computers?
DAB radio distribution too.
Am I expecting to much or is this all possible?
Any suggestions please?

[Marbles_00]

Hi all, I am not a techy. I would like to instal a hard wired multi room system to watch dvd, tv, listen to audio from a central server. ( 11 rooms)

Wow, for not being a tech, you sure have taken upon a pretty big job.

Can anyone suggest to me the best configuration of hardware for the room zone computers and the central server.

Were you thinking of having computers in each room? For what you want, you would require your server to be the most up-to-date system on the market. If using Xlobby, you then have each "zone" computer setup as a 'fat client' (meaning a full running copy of Xlobby running on each computer), running on a Xnet setup (XLobby's built in server/client setup). You would also need a GIG LAN to be able to handle the video bandwidth of multiple DVD videos playing across the network...even then, I'm not sure if that would be possible currently for 6 zones.

It has been suggested to me that I am better off keeping this system away from standard internet surfing as this will make the system unstable.

It all depends on if you have a router (or some type of firewall) set up correctly, and that your protected against viruses. Normally you would not use the server to surf the net. If your worried about network bandwidth issues....internet running at 3 meg max will be nothing compared to up to 6 video streams all at the same time.

I would like to be able to stream dvd or audio to any of the zones from the main server, would this support multiple dvd simultanious playback in different zones to say 6 zones?

Xlobby can handle 6 audio zones no problems (people have used upto and most likely more than 8 without too many problems). Xlobby currently does not stream video (though people have requested it). But as I mentioned above, you could set up 'fat client's' in each zone and using Zoomplayer (or some other video player integrated with Xlobby) could watch movies off the server....again it is limited by your network.

I would like to be able to watch digital terestial tv at several of the zone computers at the same time, say up to 6 different channels. Would this mean a tv card in each of the zone computers?

If you have normal cable coming to your house, this would most likely be the easiest route to take. This way each 'client' would have it's own channel feed, and if some sort of recording software is installed, each could record to the server, then you could set up Xlobby to playback recorded shows from any client, off the server.

DAB radio distribution too.

If the server has some sort of FM radio card (Tv tuner) then it could be setup within Xlobby (poeple have done it).

Am I expecting to much or is this all possible?

Anything is possible if you put your mind to it and realize that it could be a very big undertaking before the end of the tunnel can be seen.

If I'm incorrect in anything mentioned, please let me know so I can learn as well.

Hope this was helpful.

[CiXel]

>> Xlobby currently does not stream video (though people have requested it).

While xlobby doesn't directly support it internally, you can use VLC to setup an Http: (or other) stream that could be picked up.
VLC accepts a command line input that could be setup via filetype.

[P3rv3rt B3ar]

I dont actually understand why 6 would be anykind of limit. Also network bandwidth is not the main issue, but video servers cabability to put out 11 streams simultaneously, although u can distribute it... Right planning of network u r by no way required to have GIGABIT LAN. However theres no reason not to use GIGABIT links. Bottleneck is definetely not LANs bandwidth since u can serve each zone with dedicated cable from router (which could even be same machine than video server) so bandwidth requirements for each hop are as small as for single wide stream, Or u could serve 2 zones with same cable... point of this is... if necessery FAST ethernet will work as well. im getting repeatitive but point is if there will be bottleneck, it aint your LAN, it is your server. Now u can give it same treatment than LAN: distribute to two servers for example. Only problem here is that is lot harder to do, ull need to have two copies of your media library and synchronization between them, but then again that would be useful as backup too. Oh and ofcourse like dude up there already said, use VLC, and use it running on different platform than Xlobby... so in your server room would be Xlobby server, 1-2 video servers... i simply dont see any reason this not to be do-able.