Ok. I am not a computer geek so please keep it simple.

I have lots of dvds and cd's. Call me an idiot / old school, whatever, but I dont do downloads. I would rather pay $20 for a cd with one good song than $1.50 on itunes. I would rather wait for a tv series to be released on dvd than download it.

I am rarely at home so I dont have foxtel.

Also I have to go away for work every now and again and I am a little worried that my housemate is going to decide to use my bedroom to smash his missus while I am away. Hence the CCTV.

Basically I want to put a computer in the house that can do the following:

Hold all my dvds
Hold all my cds
Use for a CCTV system for the house
Play said dvd's both in the lounge room and in my bedroom
use as a router (if thats the right term) for wireless internet for my laptop / wii / xbox.

What I need to know is:

1) Is it possible
2) Is there going to be a discernible drop in quality of the music / dvd's. If there is I would rather just put the dvd in there.
3) I wont get a PS3 until Gran Turismo 5 comes out. Is this with Play TV the best way to record tv or is there someway I can use a new pc as a set top box / recorder?
4) What hardware do I need?
5) What software do I need?
6) If I am watching something in my room, the housemate needs to be able to watch something else in the living room. Is this achievable?
7) In relation to the CCTV can one dial in from work to make sure nothing untoward is happening?

I am very much a do it once and do it properly. I would rather pay more and have a much more integrated system rather than 14 different remote controls etc.

Thanks muchly in advance.

Brendon

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Should be able to be achieved pretty cheaply.
You need a regular PC with dual-head graphics card and plenty of storage.

- There is free software available to "rip" DVD's and CD's so they can be stored on the harddisk.
- CCTV, there are addin cards you can buy which support multiple inputs from analog cameras you can rig up around the house via coaxial video cable - these come with management software. Either that or you could buy IP cameras which can be rigged up via either Ethernet cable or can work via wireless network which are centrally controlled by software on the computer. Software for either type of system is usually easily setup to be accessible online.
- To output to multiple screens you just need a dual-head graphics card - ideally triple head so you can also use a normal monitor for when you are using the computer, and the other two screens for your loungeroom and bedroom. Watching different things from different screens is possible but would be pretty difficult/clumsy to manage and use. The simplest way is to duplicate the same image to all screens but then you would all need to watch the same thing.


One thing to bare in mind....if you are "not a computer geek" then you are going to have to pay somebody to set this up for you and then train you how to use it. That's a fact.

You may be better off purchasing an off-the-shelf media centre system and a separate CCTV system. I think somebody was selling an analog CCTV system on this forum recently actually.

PS3 will do all the streaming work. PlayTV is great, but pretty fiddly to switch on TV as you need to switch on TV, then PS3, then run playtv as if it were a game for it to load.

Get the cheapest PS3 you can buy, and buy a 1TB notebook drive, swap them out to do your recording as you cant record to external USB with playTV or any other device.

To give you an idea, an hour and a half of sport = 20GB recording.

As suggested, build/buy PC to help with the CCTV, or go with a webcam/free recroding program such as yawcam.

All depends on budget.

Budget is not really an issue because I can hide the cost pretty easily.

I really want an intuitive, well thought out system.

Definately need to be able to watch different things in different rooms at the same time. Be it a dvd to put me to sleep in my room and something on ABC for the roomie.

I have used play tv before and thought it went pretty well. I know that it is never going to be as simple as pressing one button to turn everything on but the simpler and less buttons that need to be pressed the better.

Brendon

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Brendon,

If you're worried about your mate, how about a lock on your bedroom mate?

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Brendon,

PM Tim (NVRENUF) to discuss the CCTV stuff, as that's what he does!

I think you would be 100x better off with multiple systems that can all be accessed through a web interface.

i.e. Modem/Router to supply the interwebz/wifi/network connections.
CCTV Computer to deal with cameras - get one with a web interface to watch the streams on.
Server / NAS (network attached storage) to serve up the video files / music files.
Something (I use a computer setup as a HTPC) to watch the video files off your NAS to the TV - unless there is another magical box, you will need 1 per TV. Maybe AppleTV is a better solution (one of the nerds can help!).

Then you have the headfuck of setting it up, ripping all your DVD's and music to the NAS yada yada.

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Yet a Blu-ray rip is about 10 GB?

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Depends on the codec and compression used. Recording straight off a TV results in a large file as you don't have time to compress on the fly.

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Agreed and it already has a lock but seeing as he works for me I prefer the approach of giving them enough rope to hang themselves. i.e. if he is stupid enough to sleep there it gives me a really good reason to a) kick him out of my house and b) kick him out of my business.

I thought that might be the case. I was just hoping that there would be an "out of the box solution"

I already have a seperate hdd for all my music which would be easy enough to hook up.

Does anyone know how good the apple tv thingy is?

Brendon

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Losing is worse than death. You have to live with losing....

whs ^^