dem beats

Well thats why I am thinking using satalite PC's. I can either make a custom player, or use an "itunes' type program and controll volume right from the touch screen. I can use one point of contact to do anything from volume to bring up a new play list. I would keep the amp somewhere servicable and I could turn the power on and off, heck maybe right next to the touch panel. Cords can run anwhere. I really want to integrate the speakers into some of the rooms so they take only internal wall space for some of the designs too. It's going to be a sloooooow process, but should be pretty amazing. I also love the touch screen idea in rooms so I could automate the entire home. Wanna check out the camera in the back yard, No problem, just hop out of bed and check it out. No need to run to a "command" center. lol I'm basicaly doing my best to future proof. Touch screens are really dropping in price and refurb crap buisness PC's can be purchased for pennies on the dollar.

I was confused, you already have a server for all of the media? This will just be a satalite to take the spot of DVD and CD and grab media from the big server? Thats is a sweet looking box though.

Eventualy... heh... depends. I want to put 2.1 in every room, and outside. I would keep all the music on my server in the basement with the entertainment center, HT, and billiards room. Basicaly a man cave. I now have 2 options. I will probably, eventualy make tiny slave computers in each room. Just run cat 6 to every room and have a touch screan on the wall. Use a low cost amp and DIY speakers. ATM however we have... 4 laptops between us all in the house, so we can just use those as slave computers untill I upgrade. Realistacly I will only pipe it to the masterbedroom for the time being and outside/garage etc. I may do the kitchen, but who knows. When our friends move out , I will then wire into what will be the dining room. There are other options but I like the option of having simple slave machines in the room so I can upgrade/troubleshoot and have max controll of the audio. I'm only worried about outside, as touchscrean and -45 degress wouldn't work so good. I'll figure that out though. I am hoping to get A TON of amazing classic big machine wood tools soon. So I can DIY away.

I desperately tried to be over there... Happy wife and happy mom in law>me being on the west side.

This is mine http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16811146035 I had Sean take out the LED's though as one of them is Lazer beam bright. I may mod it with more dull LED's later. It is the same case he uses for gaming. I think it's the perfect case for the price especialy with all the little extras. If I did it again I would get a server tower and put un my own acousting treatments as my GFX card nearly hits the currently empty extra drive bays. I would get something huge and just replace the regular fans with liquid bearing fans. I just didn't want to spend the cash and loved that this thing came in near graveyard silent. But my machine is made for performance, and multi room streaming audio, maybe video some day, and the newer raid configuration. It fits, but it's daaaaaaamn snug. I'm going to stop talking about it now as I definately sound like a fan boy. Something in this nature would definately meet your needs, it just would have to stand up and not lay down.... unless you wanted NO disk drives. About the cheepest kit you can have for a decent HTPS is this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16811163055 But you will usualy run into huge problems with the cheeper ones. Such a terrible design.

How many rooms will you serve music to, do you want it to be that each room can play different tunes, or just one song the whole house? If you want different tunes in different rooms, what is the maximum amount of rooms that will have tunes piped at the same time? Do you need a temprary monitor? My 28" was only 550. So sickly cheep it was amazing and makes for a great controll pannell to operate it from. I'm not sure about TIVO, I never was interested but I am thinking about it now, but would you like to use the unit to serve video as well as music? As for quiet, well, mine is frigging graveyard silent. I can get an SPL meter sometime I suppose and measure it in the basement, but it's quieter than my living room, I haven't pushed mine to full tilt, but silent is no problem, you will just need to come to tems with a tower style rather than the cute small HTPC styles. Finaly, do you have any requirement for external stuff, either ports in the front or otherwise? Will it sit in a closet and run the show, or do you want it on display? Pretty LEDs or stealth package? Single room is fine, the distribution will be handled by a whole house pre-amplifier. I have an extra monitor already, but 28 for 550 is pretty sweet. Does that happen to have a TV tuner? My dad needs a new TV/monitor. Video, yes as I won't have any other sort of media player next to the TV. Hadn't thought about the ports. I'd prefer a laydown style case, but it doesn't have to be HTPC specific. It will be on display under the TV, but subtle is always better in my book. How important is the laydown style? It will impede quite a bit, or rather, can be done, but the cases get really really expencive. They have some cool options, some with touch LCD's. I think it's insanity, but it's great if it's a closet machine, and you won't have a display on it. I desperately wanted it to fit in my custom entertainment center, but in the end I opted for a 60 dollar case that comes with acoustif foam deadened and rubber mount gaskets for super quiet, vs a law down that didn't have half the features and was 200+. The lay down size limits you allot. What disk drives? DVD, blue ray, do you want to write blue ray? I'm thinking about getting a blue ray re-writer. ~400 bucks, and I can read and write. Sounds good to me.

Well, we're not sure. I want the ocean. She likes art. We haven't decided if we are going to just want to sit back and be "all-inclusive" and really just eat drink and relax or if we would rather go somewhere more flexable. I am pretty sure we would have a better time somewhere we could just anything we want and aren't stuck in a resort the whole time, but the devils advocate makes me think we would want to just relax the whole time after the wedding too. It's going to be such a fucking zoo with this wedding. guest list keeps gettign bigger. I think the more I talk about it, a european vacation sounds better and better. I have too much personality to stay in one resort all day, no matter how great the drinks are. I don't know if I did explain, I got legaly married on the 28th, but it was more of us knowing we wanted too, and taking advantage of tax man issues. Pluss when we own the house, it protects us both in case one of us got hit by a banana truck god forbid. Only her parents and god parents and our best friends. And from my side just my god mother. I don't know if anyone else would appreciate our needs. Grandpa sure wouldn't

How many rooms will you serve music to, do you want it to be that each room can play different tunes, or just one song the whole house? If you want different tunes in different rooms, what is the maximum amount of rooms that will have tunes piped at the same time? Do you need a temprary monitor? My 28" was only 550. So sickly cheep it was amazing and makes for a great controll pannell to operate it from. I'm not sure about TIVO, I never was interested but I am thinking about it now, but would you like to use the unit to serve video as well as music? As for quiet, well, mine is frigging graveyard silent. I can get an SPL meter sometime I suppose and measure it in the basement, but it's quieter than my living room, I haven't pushed mine to full tilt, but silent is no problem, you will just need to come to tems with a tower style rather than the cute small HTPC styles. Finaly, do you have any requirement for external stuff, either ports in the front or otherwise? Will it sit in a closet and run the show, or do you want it on display? Pretty LEDs or stealth package?

I'd like to hear more about this. I usually drink a 32 oz. bottle of gatorade after I play basketball. When I was in high school it was about all I'd drink other than milk and juice in the morning. But since I started college I've switched to drinking water at all times other than milk and juice in the morning, and gatorade on days I work out (usually just play basketball, some days I've lifted after I play). I think I'm kind of a non-responder to a lot of things, though. I have never noticed increased energy after eating or drinking anything with sugar, and caffiene I think actually makes me tired. That's a little off topic. I tried creatine during high school for a couple weeks, but I don't remember much about it or what it did for me. Then I started hearing bad things about it and quit. Last summer I just took whey protein after working out a few times a week and gained about 10 pounds in 2 months. That was excellent for me, as I had been trying to gain weight for years. Too bad the school year came around and the school's weight room got overcrowded (as usual) and I stopped going in. I loved feeling powerful. I was only suggesting to stay off gator/poaide to MKa. He was trying to loose weight at the time, and sugar is probably the worst thing when trying to slim down. Those sports drinks are just fine for people who are not trying to min effort and max results, or who are performance oriented. For augmenting your body though when you have those drinks it's hard to watch the calories, and they are pretty empty. In wrestling, if we had one of the 4+ hour captains sessions, we would mis half gatoraide with half water. The sugar will help you perform and make the water hydrate a bit better, but it really has no nutritional value. Your comment about the stimulant drinks making you sleepy sound just like me. That's ADHD at work my friend. lol

where abouts? I would love to visit europe. Were trying to decide between tropical and europe for the honymoon next year. Not so exciting as it is business. Karlsruhe is my final destination. 5 days of training around as well though I wouldn't at all hesitate to choose Europe over tropical. IMO it is a lot more fun to explore another culture together than to sit on the beach and drink foo-fee drinks. Good point. I like to be pretty mobile on vacation, the only thing for me is I am in LOVE with the ocean. I have never seen anything that made me feel that way. Something about that water and the where it meets the land..... and I only have miami for referance. And my dollar is still decent there compaired to the euro..... decisions decesions. What is the best place u have ever been.

Yes. Is he still going to be your roomate after today? Yep. Unemployeed and hungry and bored too. It's pretty terrible, he's went to the videogame equal of ivy league, and scored top of the class, and is having is having issues finding a gig. Also has some degree in hardware design too.. Whatever, he's way to overqualified for everything. and a perfectionest. I just give him my CC and say make it happen better than everyone else.... for less. =) My wives best friend from college just left EA sports. She managed the Nascar game, her husband was the manager for Madden. They just moved to some gaming company in Urbana, IL. Previously she worked for the Nascar Heat game developed in Northfield MN. Wow. Verry nice. He has yet to do anything accept make a game called Pyro mania for a final project. Think bomberman on meth. It received high acolaides at the school, but he's having issues finding work now. I feel for the guy, he's has more dedication to games and a passion so huge. Only problem is this will be his first job. Hard to ccut yoru teeth in interviews for the first time with some of these people. Such a cut throat biz right now.

I liek it just really different. Any reason for what looks like empty space on the sides of the enclosure?

oOOOooh :/ me=confused in the am.

where abouts? I would love to visit europe. Were trying to decide between tropical and europe for the honymoon next year.

Yes. Is he still going to be your roomate after today? Yep. Unemployeed and hungry and bored too. It's pretty terrible, he's went to the videogame equal of ivy league, and scored top of the class, and is having is having issues finding a gig. Also has some degree in hardware design too.. Whatever, he's way to overqualified for everything. and a perfectionest. I just give him my CC and say make it happen better than everyone else.... for less. =)

Shit, that sight got me in trouble... I'm already saving for it...... After my smoker though. I have too many toys I promised to buy myself. I can't pay for both my toys and the W's anymore! =P

x2 I'm going to have 2 back to back energy drings with my lunch today. I need the power. I may even take my a few of my ephedra stash tonight so I can stay up real late and move out of that god forsaken apartment. BTW how was the flight after they dumped weight Sean?

SHould go smooth. Thanks though. We are so excited. First step into our own freedom from dealign with someone elses rules.

I am too. I close on my house tonight though. i'm amped but so tired and don't want to move everything.

what is the blue ring for?

I think lumens was mentioned also... I really really think that as long as it's in the range of the others it's a big non issue. Projectors are for working in dark rooms, with low light. They will always perform better in those situations. Lumens is really not that important of an issue IMO. So many other things will affect the actual picture. The only time I would say different is if you are trying to use the projector in a board room with lighs on, or a really wondow filled situation and you want to watch the movie without closing shutters. If thats the case though.. I would recomend a different kind of display better equiped.

I vote 1080UB I trust epson above just about everyone else.

party too hard?

Shizzon. I just went through this for my pc build. I have a few questions that will REALLY help us help you. I had some big pitfalls when building, I think I can help you out. All the parts for mine were around 2500, but 550 of that was a 28" LCD. I also had custom silent heat sinks and pipes and really performance based parts that maybe you won't want to go so wild on. #1 are you willing to peice it together or do you want someone else to put the peices together. #2 this could be the most important but who knows. How silent do you want this machine? Do you want a graveyard or do you want just quiter than your super loud POS build? #3 you mentioned playing games and dual gfx cards. What kind of games are you thinking how hardcore are you? Are you going to try to run crysis at 64 anti A. with quad filter on top settings, or are you gonna play WoW and want it to look real pretty? #4 you mentioned blue ray and HD, when you get to that level you really really need to ask yourself a few things. After the source do you use a receiver that can process 1080p. If you go from source to TV can your tv REALLY process 1080p. Also a few other things that can save you money. How big is your TV, how far away are you? The human eye isn't really sharp enough to tell from 720p to 1080p, at anything past I think 16 feet. I will look that up, but I beleive it's right around there. It's usualy not worth it to go 1080p unless you are willing to upgrade every link in your chain and you will be close enough to the display to see the difference. Why did you want an LCD on the case itself? I would NEVAR run a system without active cooling on a processor, there are so many silent and cheep enough that it's worth it. The noctura I have is quiter in free air than many rooms, mine is in a dampened case. completely silent. I would recomend a tower, a larger one in fact for so many reasons. Based on how you answer some of those questions I can tell you why, but I almost paid a huge premium for something that wouldn't have worked at all. One example is that my ASUS motherboard would nearly not fit in a HTPC box. If you want ANY performance at all I can only recomend a tower. Other things to concider. Do not get pretty LEDs or screans on the unit. It's a PITA. I unplugged all lights on the case pretty much because it helps in the viewing room. I'm also in a darkened room with a screen and projektor, but that is one of the small touches that no one thinks about untill you have a carnavall next to your display taking away from the experience. Also no shiney cases, they are hell in a darker room. I am really big into home automation/HT/media integration, I'm no expert, but boy oh boy have I spent DAYS on the whole HTPC research part. The toughest thing will be to get only what you need. i.e. dual graphix cards, 2 times the card = 2 times the processing power right? Nope it actualy ends up becoming much much less effecient, and you get a 10-15% increase. If this is for gaming.. it won't even mean it looks prettier. All it means is that you might get a few more FPS. Sean, if you ever want help you can check my unit out, and my roommate can price and build you a michine for about less 33% of the cost of boxed up. If I wanted to get a machine even close to the same power from say alien or voodoo or even thunderbird, it would take 6,000+. He's a computer Dr. Fraenkenstien, who finds deals. 28" lcd for 550 BNIB. Yes please. They have better black to white times and brighter display power than most TV's the same size that are 1500 bucks, and even at 1080p it would be shitty resolution compaired to what I have.

Welcome to SSA!!